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Science 3 October 1980:
Vol. 210. no. 4465, pp. 60 - 63
DOI: 10.1126/science.210.4465.60
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Articles

Nimbus-7 Coastal Zone Color Scanner: System Description and Initial Imagery

W. A. HOVIS 1, D. K. CLARK 1, F. ANDERSON 2, R. W. AUSTIN 3, W. H. WILSON 3, E. T. BAKER 4, D. BALL 5, H. R. GORDON 6, J. L. MUELLER 7, S. Z. EL-SAYED 8, B. STURM 9, R. C. WRIGLEY 10, and C. S. YENTSCH 11

1 National Environmental Satellite Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington, D.C. 20233
2 National Research Institute for Oceanology, Cape Town, South Africa
3 Visibility Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, California 92152
4 Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, Washington 98105
5 Computer Sciences Corporation, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910
6 Department of Physics, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33124
7 Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
8 Texas A&M University, College Station 77843
9 Commission of the European Communities, Joint Research Center, Ispra Establishment, 21020 Ispra, Italy
10 National Aeronatics and Space Administration, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035
11 Bigelow Laboratory, West Boothbay Harbor, Maine 04575

The Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) on Nimbus-7, launched in October 1978, is the only sensor in orbit that is specifically designed to study living marine resources. The initial imagery confirms that CZCS data can be processed to a level that reveals subtle variations in the concentration of phytoplankton pigments. This development has potential applications for the study of large-scale patchiness in phytoplankton distributions, the evolution of spring blooms, water mass boundaries, and mesoscale circulation patterns.

Submitted on November 7, 1979
Revised on March 31, 1980


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