Dr. Fayma Mushtaq

and 5 more

The Arabian Gulf represents a distinctive marine environment characterized by complex oceanographic dynamics. Using Level-3 MODIS Aqua data on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, this study investigated the spatiotemporal variations on annual, interannual and seasonal basis in physical variables such a daytime and nighttime sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface salinity, turbidity, and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration, Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT), Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) in the Arabian Gulf from 2003 to 2023. The data clearly indicates fluctuating patterns of different parameters analyzed. It was perceived that daytime and nighttime SST is increasing while as other parameters such as Chl-a, salinity and turbidity is showing decreasing trend. In addition, it was observed that Chl-a is strongly correlated to turbidity and salinity in Gulf waters while as negatively correlates with SST which could be attributed to the upwelling process. The spatiotemporal distribution shows that turbidity is one of the factors contributing to phytoplankton blooms in the shallow region of the Gulf. The correlation analysis showed that Chl-a is not significantly related to AOT and PAR both on annual as well as on inter-annual scale. The high temperatures are more prominent in the Eastern region of the Gulf than Western. The year 2010 marked highest daytime SST and Chl-a concentrations ranging from 19.1°C to 38.02°C and 0.83 mg/m-³ and 56.36 mg/m-³ respectively, which were considered as the record breaking El Nino year at that point of time. Likewise, the highest salinity levels ranging from 25.8 PSU to 46.31 PSU were observed in year 2009, while in 2021, turbidity values ranged from 0.08 m⁻¹ to 3.44 m⁻¹. The analysis highlights the annual variability of oceanographic variables and showed that GEE can be useful method for large-scale environmental monitoring in the Arabian Gulf and can offer important data for the sustainable management and protection of the marine resources.