Introduction.
=============

This directory structure contains the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative
version 3.1 dataset release, consisting of uncertainty-characterised, level 3
mapped chlorophyll, remote sensing reflectance and inherent optical properties.

For more information, please:
 - read the quickstart and directory structure description below
 - download the Product User Guide (PUG) in the documentation directory
 - contact us at help@esa-oceancolour-cci.org


Quick start.
============

 - The geographic projection netCDFs will be most immediately usable in standard
   packages and programming libraries.  They are CF-convention compliant.

 - BEAM (http://earth.esa.int/beam/) is a quick and well featured tool for
   visualising and exploring the data.  If using version 5.0, please see the
   Product User Guide (PUG) in the documentation directory for how to update
   the dataset readers.

 - Browse to the appropriate netCDF level and download data.
  - Alternative browse methods can be found on http://www.oceancolour.org/ and http://cci.esa.int/data

 - if you have problems, please read the Product User Guide (PUG) in the
   documentation directory or contact us at:

         help@esa-oceancolour-cci.org


What algorithms were used?
==========================

These choices were based on the results of the round-robin evaluation of
algorithms.  See the PUG for more details.

Chlorophyll: a blended merger of multiple algorithms (OC3, OCI [OC4+CI], OC5)
             with the weighting determined by water class memberships
IOP:         QAA (with Zhang bb coefficients)
Kd490:       Lee variant (with Zhang bb coefficients)
Rrs:         Mixed - SeaDAS for VIIRS and SeaWiFS L2, Polymer for MERIS and
             MODIS L2, bandshifted to SeaWiFS, cleaned up and merged.
Water types and uncertainty: following Tim Moore's approach with custom classes.


Directory structure.
====================

The layout of the directory structure should be relatively understandable, but
the layers consist of:
 
-- a choice of geographic and sinusoidal projections
 +- in each, netcdf (for data) and PNG (for quicklooks / convenience, in geographic oncly)
  +- product type (all, chlor_a only, etc)
    +- temporal structure (daily, 8 day, monthly, etc)
      +- time (year)
       +- the data