Reliability of Using Meteorological Data to Estimate Upwelling Events on the Galician Coast

Abstract

This work is related to the growing interest in the identification of upwelling periods in the Galician SW coast, since these are linked to the great biodiversity and richness of its waters. This paper aims to assess the feasibility of using meteorological data for the estimation of upwelling events in a robust, reliable, real-time and low-cost way. For this purpose, the quality of meteorological data from eight land stations and five coastal buoys located in the surroundings of the study area has been evaluated. This process was made by confronting the result of the meteorological-derived upwelling index calculation against the values provided by two reference oceanic models. In addition, the availability of historical data series has also been considered to finally select the data source that best describes the upwelling phenomena in the Toralla area. The results show that, of the sources studied, those that best meet the criteria of wide data availability and good estimation of the upwelling index are the Ons and Sálvora land stations; therefore, the former was chosen as the main source and the latter as a support. Coastal buoys were discarded due to the uncertainty regarding the availability and access to meteorological data.