OCEAN Project: The European archive of CZCS historical data

Optical observations of the marine environment have been increasingly used to provide a novel look at a score of bio-geo-chemical and physical processes of the sea. A considerable time series of such data was collected by the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) on board the satellite Nimbus-7, from late 1978 to early 1986. In order to exploit this historical dataset, the Ocean Colour European Archive Network (OCEAN) project a joint initiative of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA) has performed a thorough reappraisal of all (about 18 000) CZCS scenes covering marine regions of European concern. The Project had the specific aims of generating a European ocean colour database from the historical CZCS series, promoting its use in an Application Demonstration Programme (ADP) for selected regions, and last, but not least, developing in Europe a 'network' of scientific groups and facilities in support of current research activities and future space m...