New Global Dataset Tracks the Ocean’s Green Pulse

A newly released satellite-based dataset offers scientists a tool for monitoring phytoplankton blooms, which are important indicators of ocean health and climate change. Published in Earth System Science Data (Nicholson et al. 2025), this global product offers 25 years (1997–2022) of phytoplankton phenology metrics, including bloom initiation, duration, and peak timing. Derived from ESA’s Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) chlorophyll-a data, the dataset applies three established bloom detection methods of and is available at multiple spatial resolutions (4 km, 9 km, 25 km).

As the first global product to provide multi-method phenology estimates, it supports a wide range of applications from tracking climate-driven ecosystem shifts and informing fisheries to validating Earth System Models. Open access and regularly updated, the dataset is freely available via Zenodo.

Read the full blog post on the EGU Ocean Sciences Division Blog.