Ocean color and tiny plant life, live (Aqua MODIS)

The Ocean Biology DAAC produces near real-time (NRT) products using the best-available combination of ancillary data from meteorological and ozone data. As such, the inputs and the calibration used are less than optimal. Near real-time products provide a snapshot of the data during a short time period within a single orbit. 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_869 - Aerosol optical thickness at 869 nm - ipar - Instantaneous Photosynthetically Available Radiation (einstein m⁻² s⁻¹) - nflh - Normalized Fluorescence Line Height (W m⁻² um⁻¹ sr⁻¹) - par - Photosynthetically Available Radiation, R. Frouin (einstein m⁻² day⁻¹) - pic - Calcite Concentration, Balch and Gordon (mol m⁻³) - poc - Particulate Organic Carbon, D. Stramski, 2007 (443/555 version) (mg m⁻³)