Global Picophytoplankton Abundance from Ocean Color Satellite Data

MOANA version 3.1 provides global mapped abundances of three picophytoplankton groups. The data suite is derived from NASA PACE OCI satellite ocean-color measurements with sea surface temperature as an ancillary input. It is produced by the OB_CLOUD organization for time-series analysis, regional studies, and model evaluation.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal trends in Prochlorococcus abundance (prochlorococcus_moana) for climate change impact studies.
• Mapping regional biogeography of Synechococcus (synechococcus_moana) to understand marine microbial distributions.
• Assessing coastal ecosystem health by monitoring picoeukaryote cell concentrations (picoeuk_moana).
• Evaluating ocean biogeochemical model output against satellite-derived picoplankton group abundances.
• Investigating correlations between sea surface temperature and spatial patterns of all three phytoplankton groups.

Strengths

• Provides derived abundances for three distinct phytoplankton functional groups.
• Integrates satellite ocean-color data with sea surface temperature for retrieval.
• Includes data quality flags for user screening as noted in documentation.

Limitations

• Retrieval accuracy is noted to vary in optically complex coastal waters.
• Specific spatial resolution, temporal coverage, and row counts are not provided in the input.
• Uncertainty metrics for the cell abundance estimates are not detailed in the given description.

Provenance

Source

NASA PACE OCI Level-4 satellite data, processed by OB_CLOUD.

Collection Method

Derived from ocean-color satellite measurements with sea surface temperature as an ancillary input.

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Regional to global ocean coverage, based on satellite measurements.