Phytoplankton Productivity and Downwelling Irradiance in the South China Sea

Four oceanographic expeditions from 2009 to 2011 collected coincident profiles of primary productivity and downwelling irradiance spectra at stations within 15-23° N and 105-121° E. The dataset includes vertical profiles of downwelling irradiance (Ed(λ,z)) at 1 nm intervals from 350-700 nm, averaged from three replicates taken near local noon. Derived parameters include Usable Solar Radiation (USR(z), 400-560 nm) and Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR(z), 400-700 nm) integrated from the spectral data.

Use Cases

• Modeling primary productivity based on in-situ light profiles (PAR(z) and USR(z)).
• Calibrating satellite ocean color algorithms with coincident optical and productivity measurements.
• Studying the relationship between spectral light availability (350-700 nm) and phytoplankton community structure.

Strengths

• Includes high-resolution spectral irradiance data at 1 nm intervals across 350-700 nm.
• Data quality is supported by a standardized collection protocol, averaging three replicate profiles per station to minimize ship-shadow effects.
• Covers a multi-year time series from four distinct expeditions between 2009 and 2011.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and license information are missing from all platform entries.
• There is a conflict in the 'last updated' date between sources (2012-08-14 vs. 2026-03-05), creating uncertainty about data currency.
• The original data format (xlsx) suggests potential preprocessing is required for direct computational analysis.

Provenance

Source

NOAA NCEI (Accession 0211060), with collection supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China.

Collection Method

Profiles obtained using an Optical Profiler II (Satlantic, Inc.) and processed with Satlantic Prosoft 7.7.10 software, with complementary CTD and bottle sample analysis.

Time Range

2009-07-22 to 2012-08-14

Freshness

2026-03-05 22:58:05.635389

Geography

South China Sea, within 15-23° N and 105-121° E