Relationships between water temperature, nutrients and dissolved oxygen in the northern Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea

Five years (1998, 2000-2003) of summer records of temperature, nutrients and dissolved oxygen concentrations in the upper 400 m of the water column of the northern Gulf of Aqaba were employed to produce a simple statistical model of the relationship between temperature versus nitrate, phosphate, silicate and dissolved oxygen concentrations. Temperature profiles in the upper 400 m during summer revealed a clear thermocline in the upper 200 m. This was reflected in nutrient and oxygen concentrations as nitrate, phosphate, and silicate increased from the surface to deep water while dissolved oxygen decreased. The best fit relationship between temperature versus nitrate and phosphate was inverse linear and the best fit correlation between temperature versus silicate and dissolved oxygen was fractional. The observed nutrient concentrations were shaped by a combination of the hydrodynamics and biological factors. Deep winter mixing and high nutrient concentrations dominate during winter. Shortly after the water stratifies in spring, the nutrients are drawn down by phytoplankton during the spring bloom and remain low throughout the rest of the year. The regression equations presented here will be useful in estimating nutrient concentrations from temperature records as long as the annual natural cycle is the main driver of nutrient concentrations and external inputs are insignificant. Deviations from these relationships in the future could provide insight into modifications in the nutrient concentrations probably resulting from new nutrient sources, such as anthropogenic inputs.