{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,8]],"date-time":"2026-04-08T07:56:19Z","timestamp":1775634979385,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":57,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"12","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,19]],"date-time":"2024-06-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1718755200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100009646","name":"Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2000013149"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2000013149"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100009646","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>During the period of 2018\u20132022, there were six named Loop Current Eddy (LCE) shedding events in the central Gulf of Mexico (GoM). LCEs form when a large anticyclonic eddy (AE) separates from the main Loop Current (LC) and propagates westward. In doing so, each LCE traps and advects warmer, saltier waters with lower Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations than the surrounding Gulf waters. This difference in water mass permits the study of the effectiveness of using Chl-a from satellite-derived ocean color to identify LCEs in the GoM. In this work, we apply an eddy-tracking algorithm to Chl-a to detect LCEs, which we have validated against the traditional sea surface height-(SSH) based eddy-tracking approach with three datasets. We apply a closed-contour eddy-tracking algorithm to the SSH of two model products (HYbrid Coordination Ocean Model; HYCOM and Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean; NEMO) and absolute dynamic topography (ADT) from altimetry, as well as satellite-derived Chl-a data to identify the six named LCEs from 2018 to 2022. We find that Chl-a best characterizes LCEs in the summertime due to a basin-wide increase in the horizontal gradient of Chl-a, which permits a more clearly defined eddy edge. This study demonstrates that Chl-a can be effectively used to identify and track LC and LCEs in the GoM, serving as a promising source of information for regional data assimilative models.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs16122234","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,20]],"date-time":"2024-06-20T03:46:29Z","timestamp":1718855189000},"page":"2234","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Tracking Loop Current Eddies in the Gulf of Mexico Using Satellite-Derived Chlorophyll-a"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Corinne B.","family":"Trott","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Naval Research Laboratory, Stennis Space Center, Hancock County, MS 39529, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3465-8065","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bulusu","family":"Subrahmanyam","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA"}]},{"given":"Luna","family":"Hiron","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7088-3820","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Olmo","family":"Zavala-Romero","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA"},{"name":"Department of Scientific Computing, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32301, USA"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e2021JC017544","DOI":"10.1029\/2021JC017544","article-title":"Ocean temperature and color frontal zones in the Gulf of Mexico: Where, when, and why","volume":"126","author":"Zhang","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. 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