Dynamic Earth: visualisation of the global biosphere

This fulldome video clip from the Earth science planetarium show Dynamic Earth reveals our complex and diverse global biosphere.

This visualisation shows a timeseries of images of the ocean's long-term average phytoplankton chlorophyll concentration acquired between September 1997 and September 2007. This data is combined with the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) over land.

On land, dark greens indicate an abundance of vegetation, and tans show relatively sparse plant cover. In the oceans, red, yellow, and green areas reveal those regions of the ocean that are the most productive over time, featuring dense blooms of the microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton. Blues and purples show where there is very little phytoplankton.

This visualisation is based on data from the SeaWiFS instrument aboard the SeaStar satellite, and ice and snow data gathered by the MODIS instrument flown on the Terra and Aqua satellites.