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Chlorophyll-a Long-term Mean, 1998-2018 - American Samoa

Published by Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce | Metadata Last Checked: January 26, 2026 | Last Modified: 2021-09-07T00:00:00.000+00:00
Chlorophyll-a, is a widely used proxy for phytoplankton biomass and an indicator for changes in phytoplankton production. As an essential source of energy in the marine environment, the extent and availability of phytoplankton biomass can be highly influential for fisheries production and dictate trophic structure in marine ecosystems. Changes in phytoplankton biomass are predominantly effected by changes in nutrient availability, through either natural (e.g., turbulent ocean mixing) or anthropogenic (e.g., agricultural runoff) processes. This layer represents the mean of the 8-day time series of chlorophyll-a (mg/m3) from 1998-2018. Data products generated by the Ocean Colour component of the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) project. These files are 8-day 4-km composites of merged sensor products: Global Area Coverage (GAC), Local Area Coverage (LAC), MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua, Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI), Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The long-term mean was calculated by taking the average of all 8-day data from 1998-2018 for each pixel. A quality control mask was applied to remove spurious data associated with shallow water, following Gove et al., 2013. Nearshore map pixels with no data were filled with values from the nearest neighboring valid offshore pixel by using a grid of points and the Near Analysis tool in ArcGIS then converting points to raster. Data source: https://oceanwatch.pifsc.noaa.gov/erddap/griddap/esa-cci-chla-8d-v5-0.graph

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