A Dataset of Ocean Color Products in High-Latitude Oceans of the Northern Hemisphere from 2003-2020

In high-latitude oceans, extreme weather conditions and complex environments make it difficult to obtain large-scale ocean color data through in situ measurements, such as buoy and shipboard measurements, especially during the winter season. Ocean color satellites provide the only means of monitoring marine ecological environments at regional and global scales. However, due to the reduced accuracy of atmospheric correction models under large solar zenith angles, publicly-available datasets currently lack ocean color data for the high-latitude oceans during the winter season. In this study, we developed a dataset of ocean color products for the high-latitude oceans of the Northern Hemisphere (≥50°N) from 2003 to 2020 based on a newly-developed atmospheric correction model. We validated the accuracy of the retrieved chlorophyll concentration products using in situ datasets from the NASA Bio-Optical Marine Algorithm Dataset (NOMAD). The results indicated that our dataset had more reliable and accurate records compared to the products distributed by NASA. For instance, This study has established a dataset that, for the first time, covers a long time series (2003-2020) of ocean color products during the winter season in the high-latitude oceans of the Northern Hemisphere, which should be helpful for the study of the marine ecological environments of the Arctic and sub-Arctic oceans.