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NOAA STAR Ocean Color Science Team

Green macroalgae bloom in Yellow Sea near Qingdao on June 25, 2016
Algae bloom near Argentina on April 14, 2016
Sediment plume in East China Sea on March 28, 2016
Algae bloom near Falkland Islands on December 5, 2015
Sediment plume in East China Sea on October 15, 2015
Algae bloom in Baltic Sea on August 14, 2015
Sand sorm carrying sand from West Africa over Atlantic Ocean on February 27, 2015
Algae bloom and sediment plumes in Gulf of Mexico on January 27, 2015
Algae bloom in the east part of the Black Sea on June 3, 2012
Near-real-time VIIRS-SNPP global true color image Near-real-time VIIRS-SNPP global chlorophyll-a image

The ocean color science team in the Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) of NOAA/NESDIS seeks to develop improved ocean color products from the current and future ocean color satellite sensors including the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), as well as various satellite sensors from other countries, e.g., the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), Korean Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI), Sentinel-3 Ocean Land Colour Instrument (OLCI), GCOM-C Second-Generation Global Imager (SGLI), etc. The ocean color science team is currently focusing on:

  1. Characterization and calibration of satellite ocean color instrument (e.g., VIIRS, MODIS);
  2. Satellite on-orbit vicarious calibration using in situ measurements;
  3. Understanding, evaluating, and refining satellite ocean color data processing system (i.e., MSL12);
  4. Routine global ocean color data processing from Level-0 to Level-1B, Level-1B to Level-2, and Level-2 to Level-3;
  5. The end-to-end satellite ocean color data processing capability and system;
  6. Development and improvement of satellite retrieval algorithms in global open ocean and coastal and inland water regions;
  7. In situ data processing, evaluation, and improvement;
  8. Implementing and transitioning research algorithms to the NOAA operational data system;
  9. Various ocean color data research and applications in global open ocean and coastal and inland waters.

The STAR Ocean Color Science Team is also the NOAA VIIRS Ocean Color Environmental Data Records (EDR) Team, responsible for providing high quality VIIRS global ocean color products. Here we show results from VIIRS-SNPP.