Great Barrier Reef Benthic Light at 8m Depth from MODIS, 2002-2019

Estimated daily integrated photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) at 8 meters depth for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Coral Sea from April 2002 to December 2019. The data product was developed by NESP TWQ projects 2.3.1 and 5.3, AIMS, Go2Q Consulting, and JCU using NASA MODIS Ocean Color data. Data are provided on a 1-kilometer grid in 18 annual NetCDF files.

Use Cases

• Modeling coral reef health based on estimated daily light availability for photosynthesis.
• Assessing water quality indicators for marine ecosystems based on benthic light derived from satellite data.
• Studying long-term light trends in the Great Barrier Reef using the 18-year time series.
• Validating ecological models of seagrass habitats using spatially gridded PAR estimates.

Strengths

• Covers an 18-year time series from 2002 to 2019.
• Provides data on a spatially detailed 1-kilometer grid across the Great Barrier Reef region.
• Derived from established NASA MODIS Ocean Color data using a published scientific algorithm.

Limitations

• Contains gaps where cloud cover prevented clear satellite observations.
• The model assumes homogeneous water column properties and has not been validated against direct in-situ PAR measurements.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network (via data_gov_au), NESP TWQ projects 2.3.1 and 5.3, AIMS, Go2Q Consulting, JCU.

Collection Method

Derived from NASA MODIS Ocean Color data using the SWIM and Magno-Canto et al. (2020) algorithms to estimate daily integrated PAR at depth.

Time Range

April 2002 to December 2019

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-10 17:36:54.364522; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Coral Sea