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Figure 16. Examples of bio-optical relationships in the final merged table. Panel (a): aph(443) vs. chlorophyll a. Total number of points 
(1070) is divided between MERMAID (70), NOMAD (991) and SeaBASS (9). For reference the solid line show the regression from Bricaud 
et al. (2004). Panel (b): [aph(443) + adg(443)] vs. rrs(443 ). Total number of points (1112) is divided between MERMAID (33 ) and NOMAD 
(1079). Panel (c): [rrs(490) / rrs(555)] vs. kd(490). The total number of points (2280) is divided between MERMAID (62), NOMAD (2117) 
and SeaBASS (101). For reference the solid line show the NASA KD2S standard algorithm (http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/cms/atbd/kd_ 
490). Panel (d): [rrs(490) / rrs(555)] vs. bbp(555). The total number of points (357 ) is divided between MERMAID (33) and NOMAD (324). 
For reference the solid line show the relation proposed by Tiwari and Shanmugam (2013). A search window of 2 nm was used for panels (a) 
and (b), and a search window of 5 nm was used for panels (c) and (d) to include data at 560 nm when not available at 555 nm. 
of satellite-derived ocean-colour data. The major advantages 
of this compilation are that it merges six commonly used data 
sources in ocean-colour validation (MOBY, BOUSSOLE, 
AERONET-OC, SeaBASS, NOMAD, MERMAID) and four 
additional sets of chlorophyll a concentration data (AMT, 
ICES, HOT and GeP&CO) into a simple text table free of du 
plicated observations. This compilation was initially created 
with the intention of evaluating the quality of the satellite 
ocean-colour products from the ESA OC-CCI project. The 
objective of publishing the compilation is to make it easy for 
the broader community to use it. 
5 Data availability 
Interested researchers may download the data at https ://doi. 
pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.854832. For more informa 
tion on data format see Appendix B.