250 A. Valente et al.: A compilation of global bio-optical in situ data 
Earth Syst. Sei. Data, 8, 235-252, 2016 
www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/8/235/2016/ 
Appendix A: Notation Appendix B: Data table 
ad 
Detrital absorption coefficient (m 1 ) 
adg 
Detrital plus CDOM absorption coefficient 
(m _1 ) 
AERONET-OC 
AErosol RObotic NETwork-Ocean Color 
ag 
CDOM absorption coefficient (m _1 ) 
AMT 
Atlantic Meridional Transect 
ap 
Particle absorption coefficient (m _1 ) 
aph 
Algal pigment absorption coefficient (m -1 ) 
aw 
Pure water absorption coefficient (m -1 ) 
bb 
Total backscattering coefficient (m _1 ) 
bbp 
Particle backscattering coefficient (m _1 ) 
bbw 
Backscattering coefficient of seawater (m _1 ) 
BOUSSOLE 
BOUée pour TacquiSition de Séries Optiques 
à Long termE 
CDOM 
Coloured dissolved organic matter 
chla 
Chlorophyll a concentration (mgm~ 3 ) 
chlajuor 
Chlorophyll a concentration determined from 
fluorometric or spectrophotometric methods 
(mgm~ 3 ) 
chla_hplc 
Total chlorophyll a concentration determined 
from HPLC method (mg m~ 3 ) 
Es 
Surface irradiance (or above-water down- 
welling irradiance) (mWcm - ’ pm -1 ) 
ESA 
European Space Agency 
Fo 
Top-of-the-atmosphere solar irradiance 
(mWcm - ’ pm -1 ) 
GeP&CO 
Geochemistry, Phytoplankton, and Color of 
the Ocean 
HOT 
Hawaii Ocean Time-series 
HPLC 
High-performance liquid chromatography 
ICES 
International Council for the Exploration of 
the Sea 
kd 
Diffuse attenuation coefficient for downward 
irradiance (m _1 ) 
Lw 
Water-leaving radiance (or above-water 
upwelling radiance) (mWcm~ 2 pm -1 sr _1 ) 
MERIS 
Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer 
MERMAID 
MERIS Match-up In situ Database 
MOBY 
Marine Optical Buoy 
MODIS 
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro- 
radiometer 
NASA 
National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration 
nLw 
Normalised water-leaving radiance 
(mWcm - ’ pm -1 sr _1 ) 
nLw_ex 
nLw with a correction for bidirectional effects 
(mWcm - ’ pm -1 sr _1 ) 
NOMAD 
NASA bio-Optical Marine Algorithm Data set 
OC-CCI 
Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative 
rrs 
Remote-sensing reflectance (sr _1 ) 
SeaBASS 
SeaWiFS Bio-optical Archive and Storage 
System 
SeaWiFS 
Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor 
Rw 
Irradiance reflectance (dimensionless) 
The compiled data are available at 
doi: 10.1594/PANGAEA.854832. The merged text table 
described in this work, considered here as the main table, is 
accompanied by four extra hies. One extra hie is a csv table 
with detailed information about the number of observations 
per variable, dataset, subdataset and pi. Two other extra 
hies are text tables generated from the main table, and are 
provided to help with the analysis of spectral data. These 
two hies contain the spectral data aggregated within ±2 
and ±6nm, respectively, of SeaWiFS, MODIS AQUA and 
MERIS sensor bands. The hies are generated by assigning, 
in each row of the main table, the closest spectral obser 
vation within 2nm (or 6nm) of a sensor band. The centre 
wavelength of each band and sensor used in the generation of 
the hies is the following: SeaWiFS bands 1-8 were centred 
at [412, 443, 490, 510, 555, 670, 765, 865] nm, respectively; 
MODIS-AQUA bands 1-9 were centred at [412, 443, 488, 
531, 547, 667, 678, 748, 869] nm, respectively; and MERIS 
bands 1-13 were centred at [412, 442, 490, 510, 560, 620, 
665, 681, 709, 753, 779, 865, 885] nm, respectively. An 
exception to this procedure was made to conhrm that the 
correct MOBY data are stored in the hies (see Sect. 2.2.1. 
for discussion on how MOBY wavelengths are stored in the 
main hie). Finally, a readme hie is provided to help the user.