This study collects phytoplankton absorption and chlorophyll a data and examines their correlation in coastal waters around China measured between 2003 and 2017. Single-parameter model is built to construct phytoplankton absorption from pigment concentration. Gaussian decomposition technique extracts center wavelengths and bandwidths of 13 Gaussian functions, which constitute the modified Gaussian model, or so-called multiple-parameter model. Both models can reproduce measured phytoplankton absorption very well. In terms of the mean absolute relative error, single-parameter model can reproduce measured absorption within 30% and 60% between 380nm and 700nm for 40% and 75% of data, respectively. Meanwhile, multiple-parameter model can reproduce measured absorption within 15% for 80% of data, and within 20% for the majority of wavelengths between 380nm and 700nm.
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