Monthly average satellite-estimated dataset of phytoplankton size class in the coastal area of China during a period of 2002 - 2021

Based on the sea surface remote sensing reflectance products of MODIS/Aqua sensors from 2002-08 to 2021-07, and the PSC remote sensing inversion model constructed by Sun et al. (2019), PSC long-term data set is produced. The dataset contains the phytoplankton size classes (Fm, Fn, and Fp) in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, and the East China Sea from Aug. 2002 to Jul. 2021. The data set is stored in the standard format of Matlab and contains 228 files in total, which are easy to read by each software.
The statistical results of the long-term distribution of PSCs based on this dataset show that the coastal waters are mainly enriched by microphytoplankton, while the offshore waters are primarily dominated by nanophytoplankton. Judging from the multi-year monthly averaged PSCs in five specific areas, taking microphytoplankton as an example, there are "double peaks" in spring (May) and summer (July) in the center of the Bohai Sea and the mouth of the Yangtze River, while the North Yellow Sea area presents a spring (April), autumn (October) peak feature. Meanwhile, the spring peaks in the offshore waters of the South Yellow Sea and the East China Sea are more significant in April and March, respectively.

基于2002年8月至2021年7月MODIS/Aqua传感器海面遥感反射率产品以及Sun等人（2019年）构建的PSC遥感反演模型，本研究产生了PSC长期数据集。该数据集涵盖了从2002年8月至2021年7月期间，包括渤海、黄海和东海在内的三大海域的浮游植物大小类群（Fm、Fn和Fp）。数据集采用Matlab标准格式存储，总计包含228个文件，便于各类软件读取。基于该数据集对PSC长期分布的统计分析结果显示，近岸水域主要富含微型浮游植物，而远海水域则主要由纳米浮游植物占据。通过对五个特定区域的多年月平均PSCs进行分析，以微型浮游植物为例，在渤海中心及长江口区域，春季（5月）和夏季（7月）出现“双峰”现象，而北黄海区域则呈现出春季（4月）和秋季（10月）的峰值特征。同时，南黄海和东海的远海水域春季峰值分别在4月和3月更为显著。