Two years in the planning and analysis and 9 1/2 hours to complete -           
pretty amazing!                                                                
                                                                               
I am very happy to report that Phase 1 of the SeaWiFS reprocessing in          
which all twelve years of GAC L1A-L2 data were processed to produce            
the expanded suite of ocean color products has been completed in               
about 9.5 hours.  There were about 4,200 data days processed at a              
rate of about 443 days per hour. That's something like 10,600 data             
days per day.  Not bad for a system that started out with a design             
requirement of 10 data days per day.  All of the Level-1, Level-2 and          
the expanded suite of Level-3 products products are available via the          
web browsers.                                                                  
                                                                               
The reprocessing of all of the 1 kilometer SeaWiFS data has begun              
(on-board recorded LAC and HRPT data which have been combined to               
produce a merged LAC product called MLAC) and is showing up on the             
web browser as it is processed.                                                
                                                                               
I strongly encourage everyone to take a look at the very extensive             
documentation that the Ocean Biology Processing Group has put                  
together as part of this reprocessing.  There are a number of                  
significant changes that have been implemented including algorithm             
updates, calibration changes, filenames and  file content.  In                 
addition, a comprehensive presentation on the validation of the
documentation can be found at:                                                 
                                                                               
http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/REPROCESSING/R2009/                            
                                                                               
Finally, in an effort to make data access and download even more               
efficient, we have recently put on line a new data distribution                
server:                                                                        
                                                                               
http://oceandata.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov                                             
                                                                               
Unlike the existing FTP data distribution server                               
(ftp://oceans.gsfc.nasa.gov), which allows access to Level 3 data for          
all supported missions and a limited set of Level 1 and Level 2 MODIS          
data, this new server allows users HTTP access to EVERY file within            
our archive.                                                                   
                                                                               
This new HTTP-based server is intended to replace the functionality            
of the existing FTP-based server.  To aid in that transition, the              
website is organized in a manner that generally replicates the FTP             
directory tree structure (although some minor differences exist).  An          
overview of this new system and links to topics such as examples of            
how to retrieve data in bulk , a file search utility to allow users            
the ability to                                                                 
locate data without manually traversing the directory tree and a               
description of how to search for data non-interactively can be found           
at:                                                
                                                                               
http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/forum/oceancolor/topic_show.pl?tid=3077        
                                                                               
Thanks for your patience, support and participation in this process.           
Now, on to MODIS!                                                              
                                                                               
Regards,                                                                       
The Ocean Biology Processing Group                                             
                                                                               
p.s. Since our group currently supports both ocean color and sea               
surface temperature and in the near future will be responsible for             
the sea surface salinity processing from the upcoming Aquarius                 
mission, we should probably start thinking about another name for the          
group.  We are open to suggestions.