Reducing Broadband Shortwave Radiometer Calibration-Bias Caused by Longwave Irradiance in the Reference Direct Beam

Shortwave radiometers such as pyranometers, pyrheliometers, and photovoltaic cells are calibrated with traceability to consensus reference, maintained by Absolute Cavity Radiometers (ACRs). The ACR is an open cavity with no window that measures the extended broadband spectrum of the terrestrial direct solar beam irradiance, unlike shortwave radiometers that cover a limited range of the spectrum. The difference between the two spectral ranges may lead to calibration bias that can exceed 1%. This article describes a method to reduce the calibration bias resulting from using broadband ACRs to calibrate shortwave radiometers by using an ACR with Schott glass window to measure the reference broadband shortwave irradiance in the terrestrial direct solar beam from 0.3 μm to 3 μm. Reducing the calibration bias will result in lowering the historical solar irradiance by at least 0.9%. The published results in this article might raise the awareness of the calibration discrepancy to the users of such radiometers, and open a discussion within the solar and atmospheric science community to define their expectation from such radiometers to the radiometers’ manufacturers and calibration providers.

Comparison of Sunshine Duration Measurements between a Jordan Sunshine Recorder and Three Automatic Sensors at Shangdianzi GAW Station

We used parallel sunshine duration datasets obtained with a Jordan sunshine recorder and three automatic sunshine duration sensors to investigate the differences between these instruments.We used measurements obtained at Shangdianzi(SDZ)regional Global Atmosphere Watch(GAW)station with a Jordan sunshine recorder,a DFC2 photoelectric sunshine meter,a CHP1 pyrheliometer,and two CMP11 pyranometers from 1 January to 5 July 2019 and from 3 November 2020 to 28 February 2021.The results showed that the daily sunshine duration measurements obtained from the Jordan sunshine recorder were comparable with those from the DFC2 meter and the CMP11 pyranometers under all-sky conditions,but were considerably different from those observed by the CHP1 pyrheliometer.An analysis of potential influencing factors showed that the solar zenith angle,the spectral range of the automatic sensors,the relative humidity,and the sky conditions were the main factors affecting the measurements of sunshine duration between the Jordan sunshine recorder and three automatic sensors.We proposed a simple linear regression function-the DFC2-equivalent sunshine duration estimation(DFCESD)model—to guarantee the consistency of the long-term sunshine duration series observed by the Jordan sunshine recorder at SDZ and the measurements from the DFC2 meter.Validation of the DFCESD model showed that the mean absolute difference(MAD)between the daily sunshine duration observed by the Jordan sunshine recorder and those from the DFC2 meter improved from-0.7 to-0.2 h day^(-1),the relative deviation(RD)improved from-9.3%to-2.3%,and the root-mean-square deviation(RMSD)decreased from 1.0 to 0.8 h day^(-1).