3.3 Meteorological and oceanographic long-term study
We detected that the mass mortality periods coincided with years when
continuous southwest rough sea and winter storms, Xynthia (2010) and
Emma (2018), hit the archipelagos (Figure 3). The average wave height
during these anomalous winters was 2–3 m; the waves came from the south
and southwest (Figure 2 and 3). This result was corroborated using wave
height and direction average buoy data, from 2009–2019, and the
satellite images captured daily by the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. For comparison
purposes, four more normal winter periods were also included in our
analysis. During these normal winters, the highest percentage of waves
came from the northeast (Figure 3). SSTºC average was 20.7ºC during the
winter of 2010 and 18.2ºC during the winter of 2018.