SeaWiFS

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Colorbar

Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS)
"The purpose of the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project is to provide quantitative data on global, ocean bio-optical, properties to the Earth science community. Subtle changes in ocean color signify various types and quantities of marine phytoplankton (microscopic marine plants), the knowledge of which has both scientific and practical applications." - SeaWiFS website. The SeaWiFS Project collects, processes, and distributes data received from an ocean color sensor orbiting the Earth on a satellite. The orbiting sensor can view every square kilometer of cloud-free ocean every 48 hours, providing global information on the oceans. The satellite observations can be used to derive the concentration of microscopic marine plants, phytoplankton, based on the color of the ocean. Greener water signifies an abundance of phytoplankton, while bluer water indicates less.
This is of interest to scientists because it is thought that marine plants remove carbon from the atmosphere, similar to plants on land. The ability to continuously monitor biological activity with SeaWiFS helps scientists to understand the role of the ocean in the global carbon cycle, as well as other interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere. The oceans are shaded based on the chlorophyll (green pigment in plants) concentration as indicated on the color bar below. The lands are shaded to depict the vegetation. Green areas have abundant vegetation, yellow areas have little vegetation, and brown areas have no vegetation. A second version of this dataset is available with the land as a still image, showing only the changes in the ocean through the year.
Notable Features:
Shading on land depicts amount of vegetation
Shading on ocean depicts concentration of chlorophyll
For more information, visit: http://sos.noaa.gov/Datasets/dataset.php?id=168

SeaWiFS 1

SeaWiFS 2

SeaWiFS 3