The purpose of the FORESEA research proposal is to advance our current understanding of Sargassum bloom and drift in the open and coastal ocean and help transfer this understanding into a seasonal forecast of the quantity of Sargassum and probability of stranding at the coast. The specific objectives can be summarized as follows:
O1: Improving Sargassum detection and biomass estimation from space. The objective is to improve detection techniques and biomass estimation and explore the use of non-conventional sensors.
O2 : Understanding and modelling seasonal and interannual variability of Sargassum large scale distribution. The objective is to build an integrated Lagrangian-physiological Sargassum model able to simulate the observed seasonal and interannual variability of the large-scale distribution of Sargassum biomass.
O3 Forecasting Sargassum events at the seasonal scale. The overall objective is to forecast the Tropical Atlantic Sargassum distribution several months in advance (from t0 + to t0+7 months) including estimated uncertainties.
O4 Toward a fine-scale forecast of Sargassum strandings in Martinique and Guadeloupe. The objective is to develop cost-effective coastal forecasting strategies to build short term (from t0 + to t0+10 days) and long term (from t0 + to t0+7 months) refined risk maps of strandings for Martinique and Guadeloupe coastal areas.