AHOI : A physical-statistical model of hydrography for fishery and ecology studies

Project

Adjusted Hydrography Optimal Interpolation

AHOI (Adjusted Hydrography Optimal Interpolation) is a simple physical-statistical model developed in the working group 'Operational Observation Systems' of the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries to produce monthly gridded in situ hydrography through various decades. Special care is given to a high vertical resolution, in order to yield a good representation of the near-seabed hydrography due to its importance for marine ecosystems. As a case study we produced monthly maps of
temperature and salinity in the North Sea from 1948 to 2013. This study has been published in Journal of Marine System.

Background and Objective

Ecology and fisheries studies related to climate change demand large amounts of gridded hydrography spanning a long period of time, like decades, with a relatively high sampling frequency, like months. Currently there is not a satisfactory product for such studies in the North Sea, at all depths, with high resolution and freely available to the scientific community. Our goal was to make the best use of available hydrographical data for ecosystem and fisheries studies on inter-annual to multi-decadal timescales and in the frame of climate change.

Approach

AHOI's main steps are:

Vertical interpolation of hydrographical profiles on common depth levels;
Identification and removal of outliers by statistical trimming and a buddy-check based on Gauss-Markov or optimal interpolation (OI);
Mapping of hydrography using OI, independently for each variable (temperature and salinity) and for each depth level;
Adjustment of poor OI estimates with an harmonic reconstruction arising from the most reliable OI estimates;
5. Adjustment of the OI estimates for density stability based on the World Ocean Atlas methods;

diagram of temperature indices — Comparison between the annual average AHOI temperatures (a), sea level air temperature over the North Sea (b) and the index of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscilation (c). (© Thünen-Institut/Ismael Núñez-Riboni)

Hydrografische Karten

v19.02 2000-2014.zipNorth Sea 2000-2014, version: 19.02, format: netCDF, size: 192 MB
v19.02 1990-1999.zipNorth Sea 1990-1999, version: 19.02, format: netCDF, size: 126 MB
v19.02 1980-1989.zipNorth Sea 1980-1989, version: 19.02, format: netCDF, size: 126 MB
v19.02 1970-1979.zipNorth Sea 1970-1979, version: 19.02, format: netCDF, size: 126 MB
v19.02 1960-1969.zipNorth Sea 1960-1969, version: 19.02, format: netCDF, size: 132 MB
v19.02 1948-1959.zipNorth Sea 1948-1959, version: 19.02, format: netCDF, size: 161 MB

Duration

1.2015 - 12.2027

More Information

Projekt type:
Project status: ongoing

Publikationen

Nuñez-Riboni I, Taylor MH, Kempf A, Püts M, Mathis M (2019) Spatially resolved past and projected changes of the suitable thermal habitat of North Sea cod (Gadus morhua) under climate change. ICES J Mar Sci 76(7):2389-2403, DOI:10.1093/icesjms/fsz132
pdf document (limited accessibility) 1224 kb
Van der Sleen P, Stransky C, Morrongiello JR, Haslob H, Perharda M, Black BA (2018) Otolith increments in European plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) reveal temperature and density-dependent effects on growth. ICES J Mar Sci 75(5):1655-1663, DOI:10.1093/icesjms/fsy011
Nuñez-Riboni I, Akimova A (2017) Quantifying the impact of the major driving mechanisms of inter-annual variability of salinity in the North Sea. Progr Oceanogr 154:25-37, DOI:10.1016/j.pocean.2017.04.004
Akimova A, Nuñez-Riboni I, Kempf A, Taylor MH (2016) Spatially-resolved influence of temperature and salinity on stock and recruitment variability of commercially important fishes in the North Sea. PLoS One 11(9):e0161917, DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0161917
pdf document (limited accessibility) 1185 kb
Nuñez-Riboni I, Akimova A (2015) Monthly maps of optimally interpolated in situ hydrography in the North Sea from 1948 to 2013. J Mar Syst 151:15-34, DOI:10.1016/j.jmarsys.2015.06.003

Director

Deputy

Secretariat