The Ocean's Green Machines

  • Released Monday, October 12th, 2009
  • Updated Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023 at 1:54PM
  • ID: 10497

One tiny marine plant makes life on Earth possible: phytoplankton. These microscopic photosynthetic drifters form the basis of the marine food web, they regulate carbon in the atmosphere, and are responsible for half of the photosynthesis that takes place on this planet. Earth's climate is changing at an unprecedented rate, and as our home planet warms, so does the ocean. Warming waters have big consequences for phytoplankton and for the planet.

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Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become DigitalGlobe).

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Tapes

This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:
  • Tides of Change: The Ocean's Green Machines (ID: 2009092)
    Friday, October 9, 2009 at 4:00AM

Datasets used in this visualization

SeaStar Global Biosphere (Collected with the SeaWiFS sensor)

SeaWiFS Global Biosphere is a combination of the Land NDVI and Chlorophyll Concentration data sets. All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye.

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become one DigitalGlobe.).

Dataset can be found at: http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/PRODUCTS/

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