Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/HICO_L2_OC
HICO_L2_OC·v2018.0·dataset

Ocean color and biology near coasts (ISS HICO)

ISS HICO Level-2 Regional Ocean Color (OC) Data, version 2018.0
ocean NASA OB_CLOUD Level 2 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Coastal ocean color and optics: how light interacts with the upper ocean, plus derived products like chlorophyll (plant life), water clarity, calcite, and organic carbon particles.

How it's made. Produced from the HICO instrument aboard the International Space Station, after correcting for the atmosphere, as regional Level-2 ocean-color data.

How & where you'd use it. Used to study light penetration, ocean productivity, and the cycling of carbon and nutrients, especially in coastal waters.

What's measured

Oceans › Ocean Optics › Ocean ColorOceans › Ocean Optics › ReflectanceAtmosphere › Aerosols › Aerosol Optical Depth/ThicknessAtmosphere › Aerosols › Aerosol Optical Depth/Thickness › Angstrom ExponentOceans › Ocean Optics › Chlorophyll › Chlorophyll ConcentrationOceans › Ocean Optics › Attenuation/TransmissionOceans › Ocean Chemistry › Organic CarbonOceans › Ocean Chemistry › Inorganic CarbonOceans › Ocean Optics › FluorescenceOceans › Ocean Optics › Photosynthetically Active Radiation

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2009-09-25 → 2014-09-13
  • Measured byISS (HICO)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Watch sea-surface temperature and marine heatwaves
  • Spot algal blooms and ocean-colour shifts
  • Support fisheries and coastal monitoring
Official description

The Ocean Color (OC) data suite provides calibrated, atmospherically corrected ocean-optics measurements and derived biogeophysical products. This data suite includes the Apparent Optical Properties (AOP) and provides satellite-derived measures of the interaction between solar radiation and the upper ocean. AOPs are “apparent” because they depend not only on the inherent optical properties (IOPs) of seawater and its constituents but also on the ambient light field. These variables are critical for studying light penetration, primary productivity, and biogeochemical cycling. Geophysical variables in this suite include: - Kd_490 - Diffuse attenuation coefficient at 490 nm, KD2 algorithm (m⁻¹) - Rrs - Remote sensing reflectance (sr⁻¹) - angstrom - Aerosol Angstrom exponent, 443 to 865 nm - chlor_a - Chlorophyll Concentration, OCI Algorithm (mg m⁻³) - l2_flags - Level-2 Processing Flags - aot_868 - Aerosol optical thickness at 868 nm - chl_ocx - Chlorophyll Concentration, OC4 Algorithm (mg m⁻³) - pic - Calcite Concentration, Balch and Gordon (mol m⁻³) - poc - Particulate Organic Carbon, D. Stramski, 2007 (443/555 version) (mg m⁻³)

Get the data

hico_l2_oc_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="HICO_L2_OC",
    version="2018.0",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from OB_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.