2.3 Meteorological and oceanographic long-term study
In order to determine the combined effects of temperatures and storms on
the disease outbreaks that occurred in 2010 and 2018, we analyzed
historical meteorological and oceanographic data available since the
first mortality event. We focused on 10 years of data from an
oceanographic buoy located in Tenerife (Figure 1) (data used in Figures
2a and 3) and we also used the high-resolution tide data from January
2009 until December 2018 period (Figure 4), gathered from the mareogrpah
located in La Gomera Island (Figure 1). Both, the buoy and the
mareograph were located off the southern coast of the Islands where the
massive die-off was first detected. The buoy collected hourly sea
surface temperature (SST°C) and the daily wave height and direction
data, and the mareograph collected data every 20 minutes. These data are
free accessible from Puertos del Estado-Ministerio de Fomento, Gobierno
de España-
(http://www.puertos.es/es-es/oceanografia/Paginas/portus.aspx)as well as the characteristics of the buoy and the mareograph used by
Puertos. The buoy wave height and direction data were grouped from
December–February to better visualize the winter months over a ten-year
period (Figure 3). The SST°C of every hour was also studied for the
entire mortality period from 2010–2018, using buoy data.