Integrated dataset for red tide (Karenia brevis bloom) patterns on the west Florida shelf

This dataset contains integrated red tide (Karenia brevis harmful algal blooms) maps for the West Florida Shelf (24N – 31N, 87W – 81W) every month between 2003 and 2019. The integration is over in situ water sample analysis (which provides K. brevis cell concentration) and satellite data (which provides more frequent and spatial coverage than in situ data) using a practical approach. In situ cell counts data were obtained from a database maintained by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/monitoring/database/), and satellite data were collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Aqua satellite, available through NASA’s OB.DAAC (https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov). They were integrated to generate monthly maps of K. brevis bloom spatial extent and frequency. Specifically, the maps are expressed as bloom occurrence frequency (BOF) and bloom intensity (BI). The boundary of bloom locations represents the bloom footprint. Both maps are in imagery format (color coded in png files, MODIS_KB_bloom_WFS_images.zip) and binary format (floating point Geotiff files, MODIS_KB_bloom_WFS_binary.zip).