Sea2Cloud - Satellite-based products - Nanophytoplankton abundance

The dataset presents estimates of nanophytoplankton abundance in the surface layer of the world ocean, derived from satellite ocean color data.

Essentially, the method of Uitz et al. (2006) is applied to surface chlorophyll a concentration derived from the MODIS ocean color mission (9 km spatial resolution) at monthly temporal resolution over the period 2007-2017. The mixed layer depth data required for the method are taken from the monthly climatology of de Boyer Montégut et al. (2004). This procedure provides estimates of the contribution of the nanophytoplankton class to the total chlorophyll a biomass (in mg chlorophyll a m-3) in the world ocean, excluding coastal waters and inland seas. These estimates are then converted to cell abundances (in units of cells mL-1) using the average of the intracellular chlorophyll a content values given in Stramski et al. (2001) for organisms in the nanophytoplankton class.