In this study an extended Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) method for the retrieval of major phytoplankton functional types (PFT) from satellite measurements utilizing hyper spectral instruments like SCIAMACHY (Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography) and GOME-2 (Global Ozone Measurement Experiment 2) is introduced. Phytoplankton consists of different pigment assemblages. Thus light absorption of phytoplankton types depends strongly on the concentration and composition of different pigments. Due to spectral overlapping of phytoplankton pigment absorption the influence of particular pigment is not obvious. Here, measured phytoplankton absorption spectra are decomposed by using a high order derivative method (Aguirre-Gomez et al. 1995). The weightings of the composition of the pigment absorption peaks are correlated with results from taxonomic pigment analysis. This analysis shows the potential of high order derivatives in resolving the spectral absorption features of the component pigments present in different PFTs.By using these weightings in a specialized PhytoDOAS retrieval technique (Bracher et al. 2009), a higher sensitivity to retrieve PFTs is expected. Examples of first retrieval results shows the applicability of these improvements to PhytoDOAS method.