Ocean Colour and Climate Change

The longest currently-operating ocean colour sensor (SeaWiFS) was launched in 1997, so it is not possible to detect decade-scale variability using this sensor data alone. Newer and overlapping missions such as MODIS-Aqua and MERIS wil ensure unbroken observations and provide global ocean colour products up to 2012, with an increasing spatial coverage. In the meantime, long-term changes can be observed by comparing climatological SeaWiFS / MODIS / MERIS data against data from the Coastal Zone Color Scanner which operated between 1979 and 1985. The chapter focuses on a few recent applications using these ocean colour time-series to detect long-term trends in marien biology due to climate change.JRC.H.3-Global environement monitorin