SeaFlow data v1: High-resolution abundance, size and biomass of small phytoplankton measur

Nearly 14,000 hours of observations from 89 research cruises, spanning 130,000 km of the surface oceans. The dataset provides high-resolution measurements of cell abundance, size, and carbon biomass for small phytoplankton populations, collected by an underway flow cytometer. It was created by François Ribalet of the University of Washington, with data processing following methods from Ribalet et al. (2019).

Use Cases

• Modeling phytoplankton population dynamics based on high-resolution abundance and biomass time series.
• Analyzing spatial distributions of cyanobacteria like Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus across ocean transects.
• Studying carbon biomass estimates for small eukaryotic phytoplankton (<5 μm ESD).
• Investigating temporal variability in marine ecosystems using data collected every 3 minutes or 1 km.

Strengths

• High temporal and spatial resolution, with data equivalent to 1 sample every 3 minutes or every 1 km of ship travel.
• Substantial observational scale from 89 cruises, covering nearly 14,000 hours and 130,000 km.
• Provides multiple derived measurements per observation, including cell abundance, size (ESD), and carbon biomass.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific modeling tasks.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

University of Washington, SeaFlow project.

Collection Method

Continuous monitoring via an underway flow cytometer from a ship's flow-through seawater system.

Geography

Surface oceans across 130,000 km of cruise transects.