Biosphere:
Ocean Chlorophyll-a and Land Vegetation 		  Global  |    Ocean only





Color scale for chlorophyll-a at the sea surfacce. Chlorophyll-a is a good indicator of the amount of phytoplankton at the ocean surface. Chlorophyll is the green pigment found in plants, necessary for conducting photosynthesis. To learn more about chlorophyll-a we refer you to Photosynthetic pigments .



Color scale for vegetation on land (NVDI). The colors show the relative amount and health of plants on land. Green areas are lush, brown areas are sparse, and white areas are extremely sparse. Since the unit "Normalized Difference Vegetation Unit" is not an everyday term, we refer you to Measuring Vegetation (NDVI and EVI) for more details.




The image above is a 32-day composite, from July 12 to August 12, 2003, of ocean chlorophyll and land vegetation data collected by satellites. Together these land and ocean measurements provide a global snapshot of the Earth's biosphere.

Where are the lush areas of the sea surface? Where are the sparsely vegetated deserts?

This image was provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and ORBIMAGE on December 19, 2003.