This paper suggests a group of statistical algorithms for calculating the total absorption co- efficients based on in situ data of apparent optical property and inherent optical property collected with strict quality assurance according to NASA ocean bio-optic protocols in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea in spring 2003. The band-ratios of Rrs412/Rrs555, Rrs490/Rrs555 are used in the algorithms to derive the total absorption coefficients (at) at 412, 440, 488, 510, 532 and 555nm bands, respectively. The aver- age relative errors between inversed and measured values are less than 25.8%, with the correlative coeffi- cients (R2) being 0.75–0.85. Error sensitivity analysis shows that the maximum retrieval error is less than 24.0% at ±5% error in Rrs’s. So the statistical algorithms of this paper are practicable. In this paper, the relations between the total absorption coefficients at 412, 488, 510, 532, 555 nm and that of 440nm are also studied. The results show that the relations between the total absorption coefficients of 400–600 nm and that of 440 nm are correlated well and all of their correlative coefficients R2 are greater than 0.99. Furthermore, a regression analysis is also done for the slope of the linear relations and wavelengths, and the R2 is also 0.99. Thus it is possible to retrieve other bands’ total absorption coefficients with only one band absorption value, which significantly reduce the number of unknown parameters in studying other ocean color related problems. This paper suggests a group of statistical algorithms for calculating the total absorption co-efficients based on in situ data of the apparent optical property and inherent optical property collected with strict quality assurance according to NASA ocean bio-optic protocols in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea in spring 2003. The band-ratios of Rrs412 / Rrs555, Rrs490 / Rrs555 are used in the algorithms to derive the total absorption coefficients (at) at 412, 440, 488, 510, 532 and 555 nm bands, respectively. The aver- age relative errors between inversed and measured values ​​are less than 25.8%, with the correlative coeffi- cients (R2) being 0.75-0.85. Error sensitivity analysis shows that the maximum retrieval error is less than 24.0% at ± 5% error in Rrs’s. So this statistical algorithms of this paper are practicable. In this paper, the relations between the total absorption coefficients at 412, 488, 510, 532, 555 nm and that of 440 nm are also studied. The results show that the relatio ns between the total absorption coefficients of 400-600 nm and that of 440 nm are well and all of their correlative coefficients R2 are greater than 0.99. Furthermore, a regression analysis is also done for the slope of the linear relations and wavelengths, and the R2 is also 0.99. It is possible to retrieve other bands’ total absorption coefficients with only one band absorption value, which significantly reduce the number of unknown parameters in studying other ocean color related problems.