Australian Full Resolution Stitched SeaWiFS L2 Collection

Updated: 2019-05-17

The SeaWiFS sensor, designed to collect ocean colour data, was flown on the OrbView-2 satellite between 1997 and 2010. The full resolution data (1km) was only available via direct broadcast and reception by stations in line of sight of the spacecraft, using an encrypted data stream. Three Australian stations, Perth, Townsville and Hobart received the data during the mission. For the period 1997-2007 these data have been decrypted and stitched together to form a comprehensive Australian data set. The data here are processed to L2 ocean colour products using NASA SeaDAS v6.4 software. The products are calibrated and atmospherically corrected but not remapped. They include surface reflectances, ancillary fields (quality, geometries) and also outputs of algorithms that retrieve in water properties, including chlorophyll concentration (several methods), diffuse attenuation coefficient (Kd), photosynthetically available radiation (PAR), and various modelled inherent optical properties.