Ocean color: Availability of the global data set

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration/ Goddard Space Flight Center's Nimbus Project Office, in collaboration with the NASA/GSFC Space Data and Computing Division, the NASA/GSFC Laboratory for Oceans and the University of Miami/Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, have undertaken to process all data acquired by the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) to Earth‐gridded geophysical values and to provide ready access to data products [ Esaias et al ., 1986]. An end‐to‐end data system utilizing recent advances in data base management and both digital and analog optical disc storage technologies has been developed to handle the processing, analysis, quality control, archiving and distribution of this data set. A more complete description of this system, which has been fully operational for the past 2 years, is in preparation. The entire Level‐1 data set (see Tables 1, 2) has been copied from magnetic tape to digital optical disc, and all data from the first 32 months (50% of the total scenes acquired, and covering the period November 1978 through June 1981) have been processed to Levels 2 and 3 and are now available for distribution. The remainder of the data set should be completed and released by fall 1989.