Ocean Colour
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Ocean colour is the radiance emanating from the ocean normalized by the irradiance illuminating the ocean. Products derived from ocean colour remote sensing (OCRS) contain information on the ocean albedo and information on the constituents of the seawater, in particular, phytoplankton pigments such as chlorophyll-a. OCRS products are used to assess ocean ecosystem health and productivity, and the role of the oceans in the global carbon cycle, to manage living marine resources, and to quantify the impacts of climate variability and change. | |
| Domain: | Ocean | |
| Subdomain: | Biogeochemical | |
| Scientific Area: | Biosphere | |
| ECV Steward: | ||
| Products: | Chlorophyll-a Concentration; Water Leaving Radiance | |
Global trends in Chlorophyll-a concentration
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Figure: Trend map (in % per annum) obtained for the OC-CCI Chlorophyll-a series over the period Oct. 1997 to Sep. 2012 Source (05/04/2018): http://www.esa-oceancolour-cci.org/?q=node/172 |
ECV Products and Requirements
These products and requirements reflect the Implementation Plan 2022 (GCOS-244).
The requirements are found in the complete 2022 ECVs Requirements document as well: ECV Ocean Colour.
| Products | Chlorophyll-a | Water Leaving Radiance | ||
| (*) | Unit | Values | Values | |
| Horizontal Resolution | G | km | 4 | 4 |
| B | ||||
| T | 4 | 4 | ||
| Vertical Resolution | G | - | - | |
| B | - | - | ||
| T | - | - | ||
| Temporal Resolution | G | d | 1 | 1 |
| B | ||||
| T | 7 | 1 | ||
| Timeliness | G | |||
| B | ||||
| T | ||||
| Required Measurement Uncertainty (2-sigma) | G | % | 30 | 5 |
| B | ||||
| T | 30 | 5 | ||
| Stability | G | %/decade | 3 | 0.5 |
| B | ||||
| T | 3 | 0.5 | ||
(*) Goal (G): an ideal requirement above which further improvements are not necessary. Breakthrough (B): an intermediate level between threshold and goal which, if achieved, would result in a significant improvement for the targeted application. The breakthrough value may also indicate the level at which specified uses within climate monitoring become possible. It may be appropriate to have different breakthrough values for different uses. Threshold (T): the minimum requirement to be met to ensure that data are useful
Data Sources
This list provides sources for openly accessible data sets with worldwide coverage for which metadata is available. It is curated by the respective GCOS ECV Steward(s). The list does not claim to be complete. Anyone with a suitable dataset who wishes it to be added to this list should contact the GCOS Secretariat.
- Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG)
- Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI)
- ECV Inventory by the CEOS/CGMS Working Group on Climate (WGclimate)
