Sea-viewing Wide Field of View Sensor (SeaWiFS)

satellite

From 1998 to 2010, SeaWiFS made a simple but elegant measurement: how “green” is the Earth. That is, how much chlorophyll—the pigment that helps turn sunlight into organic energy for plants—is present in the seas and on land. Those measurements offered a window into the planet's ability to support life. The long, well-calibrated data record also gives scientists one of the best benchmarks to study the planet’s biological response to a changing environment.

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This false-color SeaWiFS image, acquired on October 6, 2002, shows a phytoplankton bloom off the California coast.
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Photographed before 1983, Diadema sea urchins keep a dead coral surface free of algae.
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