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SATELLITE IMAGE

CHLOROPHYLL

WATER TEMPERATURE

Satellite Daily Image
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Chlorophyll Daily Image
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Surface Water Temperature Daily Image
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AVHRR
Surface water temperature from NOAA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). Overpasses from all operating AVHRR instruments are averaged into a single daily, 3-day, or 7-day composite (composite includes day and night overpasses). Spatial resolution is nominally 1 km.
Daily: HTTP, FTP
3-day: HTTP, FTP
7-day: HTTP, FTP
Monthly: HTTP, FTP
GOES
Surface water temperature from NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Imager instrument. Three-hourly GOES snapshots are averaged into daily and 3-day composites (composite includes day and night snapshots). Spatial resolution is nominally 4 km.
Daily: HTTP, FTP
3-day: HTTP, FTP

MODIS
Chlorophyll-a from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the NASA Aqua satellite, processed using the NOAA OC3 algorithm with the combined NIR-SWIR atmospheric correction (NOAA OC3 NIR-SWIR). More information

Daily: HTTP, FTP
7-day: HTTP, FTP

The remote sensing reflectance (Rrs) in the red wavelengths can be used as a surrogate for sediment concentration in the surface water. As the sediment load in the surface water increases, the reflectance in the red wavelengths will increase. Since the Rrs values are reflectance measurements and not sediment concentration measurements, only relative amounts of sediment in the water may be inferred. Higher Rrs values indicate relatively more suspended sediment compared to lower Rrs values. Patterns of suspended sediment distribution, both spatial and temporal, and sediment gradients may be detected and monitored.

MODIS (Rrs at 667 nm)
Daily: HTTP, FTP


VIIRS (Rrs at 672 nm)
Daily: HTTP, FTP


Impact of Hurricane Sandy (2012) on Carolina coastal suspended sediment

Diffuse Attenuation Coefficient at 490 nm (Kd-490) from MODIS measures how strongly light intensity at the specified wavelength (490 nm) is attenuated within the water column. The "KD2" standard algorithm from NASA's Ocean Biology Processing Group is used, and processed operationally by NOAA CoastWatch. More information and data processing caveats.

Daily: HTTP, FTP


A high-resolution Kd-490 at 250m spatial resolution is also available from MODIS. The algorithm was developed by NOAA National Ocean Service, and is well-suited for coastal and turbid water.

Mapped swath (GA to SC): HTTP, FTP
Mapped swath (NC): HTTP, FTP

True Color satellite image data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) at 750 m spatial resolution. Data files contain red, green and blue radiance data; images are also available. More information

Daily: HTTP, FTP

East Coast Node filenaming convention
Sample shell script to download data from http directory tree
Latitude-Longitude file for each region

Data citation: Please acknowledge "NOAA CoastWatch/OceanWatch" when you use data from our site and cite the particular dataset DOI as appropriate.