Australian Southeastern Coast Upwelling Systems from 14 Years of MODIS Data

Geoscience Australia Data provides a dataset mapping the spatial and temporal variability of coastal upwelling systems along the 4500 km southeastern coast of Australia. The data is derived from 14 years of monthly MODIS sea surface temperature (SST) observations. It identifies two persistent upwelling systems and characterizes their variability in area, SST anomaly, chlorophyll-a concentration, and speed.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between upwelling intensity and chlorophyll-a concentrations based on described variables.
• Analyzing the seasonal and inter-annual variability of the New South Wales and western Victoria/South Australia upwelling systems.
• Investigating the impact of El Niño and La Niña events on upwelling characteristics as indicated in the description.
• Comparing wind-driven versus current-driven upwelling dynamics for the two identified systems.

Strengths

• Based on 14 years of continuous monthly MODIS satellite observations.
• Covers a 4500 km long coastline, providing extensive spatial coverage.
• Identifies and compares two distinct upwelling systems with specific seasonal behaviors.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Developed using a scale-independent, semi-automatic image processing technique on MODIS SST data.

Time Range

14-year period (specific start and end years not provided in input).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 12:42:34.883435; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Southeastern coast of Australia (4500 km), specifically New South Wales, western Victoria, and adjacent South Australia.