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.