THE RESEARCH PROPOSED HERE WILL ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF GLOBAL OCEAN PHYTOPLANKTON STANDING STOCKS AND PHYSIOLOGY AND HOW THESE KEY PROPERTIES VARY WITH CLIMATE FORCINGS. THE FOCAL SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING DATA USED DURING THIS INVESTIGATION WILL BE FROM THE MODIS-AQUA SENSOR AND THE CLOUD-AEROSOL LIDAR WITH ORTHOGONAL POLARIZATION (CALIOP) SENSOR. THIS PROJECT THUS REPRESENTS THE FIRST MERGER OF GLOBAL OCEAN PASSIVE AND ACTIVE DATA TO PRODUCE IMPROVED PRODUCTS OF OCEAN INHERENT OPTICAL PROPERTIES (IOPS). CALIOP DATA WILL BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH MODIS-AQUA DATA TO IMPROVE AT COARSE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL RESOLUTION THE PARAMETERIZATION OF AN OCEAN COLOR INVERSION ALGORITHM. THE RESULTANT OPTIMIZED ALGORITHM WILL THEN BE APPLIED TO GENERATE 8-DAY LEVEL 3 RESOLUTION GLOBAL FIELDS OF PARTICULATE BACKSCATTER COEFFICIENTS (BBP) AND ABSORPTION COEFFICIENTS FOR PHYTOPLANKTON PIGMENTS (APH) AND NON-ALGAL PARTICLES AND COLORED DISSOLVED ORGANIC MATTER (ADG). THESE APH AND BBP PRODUCTS WILL THEN BE INTERPRETED IN TERMS OF PHYTOPLANKTON CHLOROPHYLL (CHL) AND CARBON BIOMASS (CPHYTO) RESPECTIVELY. WITH THESE IMPROVED PHYTOPLANKTON RETRIEVALS WE WILL RE-EVALUATE TEMPORAL ANOMALIES IN THE MODIS AQUA CHLOROPHYLL RECORD IN TERMS OF LIGHT NUTRIENT AND BIOMASS CHANGES. WE WILL THEN EXTEND OUR ANALYSIS BY APPLYING OUR OPTIMIZED ALGORITHM TO THE SEAWIFS AND VIIRS OCEAN COLOR RECORDS TO FURTHER UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS AND CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY OCEAN TO BETTER INFORM UNDERSTANDING OF POTENTIAL FUTURE CHANGE. THE RESEARCH PROPOSED HERE BUILDS UPON A VERY SUCCESSFUL PREVIOUS PROJECT FUNDED UNDER THE ROSES-2013 THE SCIENCE OF TERRA AND AQUA PROGRAM. THE CURRENT PROPOSED PROJECT IS LOW COST POTENTIALLY HIGH IMPACT AND RESPONSIVE TO ELEMENT 2.1 SCIENCE DATA ANALYSIS OF THE ROSES-2017 SCIENCE OF TERRA AQUA AND SUOMI NPP PROGRAM.