Coastal North America In Situ Chlorophyll and Optical Dataset

Chlorophyll is an essential climate variable and remotely sensed chlorophyll estimates are essential to understanding large-scale biological processes. Current ocean color chlorophyll algorithms, however, are less accurate in optically complex inland and coastal waters. In order to develop more accurate coastal chlorophyll retrievals , in situ chlorophyll measurements are needed for algorithm calibration and validation. This dataset is a single, cohesive, standardized in situ chlorophyll, chromophoric dissolved organic matter (cdom), and remote sensing reflectance (Rrs) datasets from multiple public data repositories, subset to coastal North American waters. The dataset includes over 700,000 chlorophyll values with comprehensive metadata attached. Methodological flags such as chlorophyll measurement method, triplicate samples, and in vitro/in vivo flags distinguish between data collection methods.