Seasonal Chlorophyll-a Variations from MODIS Satellite Imagery

MODIS Derived Chlorophyll a dataset provides long-term seasonal variation measurements of ocean surface chlorophyll-a concentrations. The data covers the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and surrounding waters from July 2002 to December 2017, derived from NASA MODIS (Aqua) satellite imagery processed with SeaDAS software. It was produced by the Australian Ocean Data Network with support from the National Environmental Science Program Marine Biodiversity Hub.

Use Cases

• Analyze seasonal standard deviations of chlorophyll-a concentration for winter, spring, summer, and autumn across the Australian EEZ.
• Map long-term trends in phytoplankton biomass using monthly chlorophyll-a images from 2002 to 2017.
• Study spatial patterns of ocean surface productivity in mg/m3 units across the southern ocean region.

Strengths

• 15+ years of temporal coverage from July 2002 to December 2017.
• Spatial extent covers the entire Australian EEZ and surrounding waters.
• Data derived from NASA's MODIS (Aqua) sensor using standardized SeaDAS processing.

Limitations

• Specific row count, column details, and sample size are unknown.
• Data is temporally stale, with the latest included data from 2017.
• Geographic scope is limited to Australian and Southern Ocean waters.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, supported by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine Biodiversity Hub.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

July 2002 to December 2017.

Freshness

Dataset metadata was last updated in April 2026, but the underlying data time range ends in December 2017.

Geography

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