In order to understand the marine phytoplanktons role in the globalmarine ecosystem, it is necessary to derive global information on thedistribution of major functional phytoplankton types (PFT) in the worldoceans. So far only the dominant PFTs can be analysed from ocean colorsensors such as CZCS, SeaWiFS, MODIS or MERIS. In our study we usePhytoDOAS, a method of Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy(DOAS) specialized for phytoplankton, to retrieve the absorption spectraand concentrations of various phytoplankton groups from high spectrallyresolved satellite data of SCIAMACHY (Scanning Imaging AbsorptionSpectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography) on ENVISAT and GOME-2 (GlobalOzone Measurement Experiment 2) on Meteosat. In-situ measuredphytoplankton absorption spectra were used to identify thesecharacteristic absorption spectra in SCIAMACHY data in the range of430-500 and 530-590 nm. Pigment concentrations of in situ measurementswere used to validate the satellite data, which showed a good agreementwith the collocated in-situ measurements and with the NASA OceanBiogeochemical Model. Results are of great importance for globalmodelling of marine ecosystems and climate change studies.