| Sea surface temperature along the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea drops abruptly twice a year, with a moderate decrease in boreal winter and a greater one in summer. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these coolings: Ekman upwelling due to local wind, remote wind forcing in the western Atlantic, geostrophic adjustment to the Guinea current variations or eddies created by headlands in the current. The resulting seasonally-induced plankton production has led to the development of pelagic fisheries, with dramatic increases in Sardinella aurita catches in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana during the last decade and new spatial and seasonal distributions. A study to account for these changes was undertaken on the basis of wind and temperature data... |
