SeaWiFS, the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor, will bring to the ocean community a welcomed and improved renewal of the ocean color remote sensing capability lost when the Nimbus-7 Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) ceased operating in 1986. The goal of SeaWiFS, scheduled to be launched in August 1993, is to examine oceanic factors that affect global change. Because of the role of phytoplankton in the global carbon cycle, data obtained from SeaWiFS will be used to assess the ocean's role in the global carbon cycle, as well as other biogeochemical cycles. SeaWiFS data will be used to help elucidate the magnitude and variability of the annual cycle of primary production by marine phytoplankton and to determine the distribution and timing of spring blooms. The observations will help to visualize the dynamics of ocean and coastal currents, the physics of mixing, and the relationships between ocean physics and large- scale patterns of productivity. The data will help fill the gap in ocean biological observations between those of the CZCS and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) on the Earth Observing Satellite-A (EOS-A).
