West Coast Time Series Coastal Zone Color Scanner Pigment Concentration from the NIMBUS-7

The CZCS has six spectral channels and five visible channels sensing solar backscattered radiance and one infrared channel sensing emitted thermal radiance. The CZCS measured radiances are used to map chlorophyll concentration, suspended sediment distribution, and temperatures of coastal waters and open ocean.

For more information see Supplementary Information on the MD main menu. After critical atmospheric corrections are applied, the radiances measure the concentration of chlorophyll pigments in the surface waters, and by empirical correlation, one can derive ocean productivity. The West Coast Time Series (WCTS) project generated a time series of coregistered pigment concentration and sea surface temperature (from the AVHRR sensor).