The Ocean Biology DAAC produces near real-time (NRT) products using the best-available combination of ancillary data from meteorological and ozone data. As such, the inputs and the calibration used are less than optimal. Near real-time products provide a snapshot of the data during a short time period within a single orbit.

The Ocean Color Biogeochemical (OC_BGC) suite provides satellite-derived biogeochemical properties of the upper ocean, produced from calibrated, atmospherically corrected ocean-color inputs from PACE_OCI. These products characterize carbon pools and ecosystem status.

Geophysical variables in this suite include:
• carbon_phyto — Phytoplankton carbon biomass (mg m⁻³)
• carbon_phyto_unc — Phytoplankton carbon biomass standard uncertainty (mg m⁻³)
• chlor_a — Chlorophyll-a concentration (mg m⁻³)
• chlor_a_unc — Chlorophyll-a concentration uncertainty (mg m⁻³)
• poc — Particulate Organic Carbon (mg m⁻³)
• l2_flags — Level-2 processing flags (bitmask; see per-variable attributes for flag_masks and flag_meanings)