Red Tide in Southwest Florida and Winter Temperatures

by David McIlwaine

 

Submitted : Fall 2018

 

This project attempts to find a correlation between the end of Southwest Florida’s red tide algal blooms and the colder weather the area experiences in the winter. Temperature data for winter months between 1995 and 2017 were compiled from NOAA’s Tides and Currents website, and data for red tide was drawn from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Harmful Algal Bloom site. Years in which the algal bloom ceased through the winter were grouped together, and years where the algal bloom persisted through the winter were put in a separate group, and both averaged and standard deviation taken and a Student’s T-test applied to find the significance of results. 

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