VIIRS and MODIS Operational Ocean Color Products Briefing

Ocean Color (OC) is the water hue due to the presence of tiny plants containing the pigment chlorophyll, sediments, and colored dissolved organic material (DOM).

Okeanos (Greek god of the great ‘river ocean’ and the waters surrounding the Earth) system is a flexible, expandable software system for generating CoastWatch operational ocean color products.

An overview on the Okeanos products is given here, and a detailed description of the products (category, coverage, resolution, filename convention format, and file format) is given here. The products have been beneficial in assessing water quality and tracking potentially harmful algal blooms in order to protect public health. For example, the chlorophyll concentration product has been used to understand and predict the harmful algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico by the NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS).

An overview of NOAA Okeanos Operational Products Overview here.

An overview of NOAA Okeanos Operational Products Operational System Overview (PDF) here.

Access to the Okeanos Ocean Color Products (FTP) can be found here.

Access to the Okeanos Ocean Color documents (FTP) can be found here.

Example time series of daily chlorophyll concentration distribution over Gulf-of-Mexico from May 28, 2013 to June 4, 2013. Each of daily chlorophyll concentration distribution images is generated in the CW Okeanos operational system.

NOAA Operational Ocean Color Products

Okeanos System Performance

Additional Information