Australian Phytoplankton Colour Index For Ocean Health Monitoring

IMOS - AusCPR provides a Phytoplankton Colour Index (PCI) derived from the Australian Continuous Plankton Recorder survey. The dataset is a joint project of CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and the Australian Antarctic Division, funded by the Integrated Marine Observing System. It was superseded by a new collection in March 2022.

Use Cases

• Analyze Phytoplankton Colour Index trends over time to document plankton changes in response to climate change.
• Map phytoplankton biodiversity and distribution using PCI data to establish a long-term baseline for Australian waters.
• Use PCI values as indices for fisheries management and for detecting harmful algal blooms.
• Validate satellite remote sensing data of ocean color by comparing it with in-situ Phytoplankton Colour Index measurements.

Strengths

• Data collection follows a published methodology (Richardson et al. 2006).
• Project is a joint effort by major national research institutions (CSIRO CMAR and AAD).
• Data is planned to be interoperable with other national and international programs via IMOS Infrastructure.

Limitations

• Dataset has been superseded and removed from the primary portal as of March 2022.
• Specific data volume (row count) and temporal coverage are not provided.
• Column names and data structure are unknown from the provided description.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN) portal, sourced from the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Ships of Opportunity facility.

Collection Method

Samples collected via Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) surveys, with analysis performed as per Richardson et al. 2006.

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Australian waters.