MODIS Chlorophyll a: Seasonal Means for Australian Waters, 2002-2017

Long-term seasonal means of chlorophyll a concentrations in ocean surface waters derived from MODIS satellite imagery. The dataset covers the entire Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and surrounding waters, including the southern ocean, with data from July 2002 to December 2017. It was produced by Geoscience Australia using NASA's SeaDAS software and supported by the National Environmental Science Program.

Use Cases

• Modeling phytoplankton biomass based on satellite-derived chlorophyll a concentrations.
• Analyzing seasonal patterns in ocean productivity across the Australian EEZ.
• Studying long-term trends in marine ecosystem health from 2002 to 2017.
• Validating ocean biogeochemical models using spatially extensive remote sensing data.

Strengths

• Covers a 15-year time range from July 2002 to December 2017.
• Spatial extent includes the entire Australian EEZ and surrounding southern ocean waters.
• Derived from MODIS (Aqua) satellite imagery processed with NASA's standardized SeaDAS software.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data freshness should be verified as the last metadata update is dated 2026-04-30.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Derived from MODIS (Aqua) images using NASA's SeaDAS image processing software.

Time Range

July 2002 to December 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 14:55:19.163063; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and surrounding waters, including the southern ocean.