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

Long-term seasonal means of chlorophyll a concentrations in ocean surface waters, derived from MODIS (Aqua) satellite imagery. The dataset covers the entire Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and surrounding waters from July 2002 to December 2017, with units in mg/m3. This research was supported by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine Biodiversity Hub.

Use Cases

• Modeling phytoplankton biomass and ocean productivity based on chlorophyll a concentrations.
• Analyzing seasonal patterns in marine ecosystems based on austral winter, spring, summer, and autumn means.
• Studying long-term changes in coastal and open ocean waters based on 15+ years of satellite data.
• Mapping chlorophyll a distribution for marine spatial planning based on coverage of the Australian EEZ.

Strengths

• Covers a 15-year time range from July 2002 to December 2017.
• Spatial extent includes the entire Australian EEZ and the southern ocean.
• Data is derived from NASA's MODIS (Aqua) sensor and processed with SeaDAS software.
• Provides aggregated seasonal means, reducing noise from individual monthly images.

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.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, derived from NASA MODIS (Aqua) imagery.

Collection Method

Monthly chlorophyll a images processed with NASA's SeaDAS software to calculate seasonal means.

Time Range

July 2002 to December 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 05:32:28.749140; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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