Multiyear measurements of aerosol optical depth in the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement and Quantitative Links programs

The U.S. Department of Energy funded the development of the multifilter rotating shadowband radiometer (MFRSR) as part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program. This seven-channel radiometer began operation at the first ARM site in 1992 and at the Department of Energy Quantitative Links (QL) sites in the fall of 1991; three of the QL sites continue to operate, although this program was discontinued after 1995. This paper describes the use of the MFRSR in acquiring aerosol optical depth data, including the in-field calibration procedure and a partial validation of this process. Multiyear measurements of aerosol optical depth from three of the sites indicate similar phasing of seasonal and interannual changes, but with notable differences in the magnitude of the aerosol optical depth. Published papers that use these aerosol data are highlighted, and public access to these and future data sets for scientific studies are explained.

[1]  J. Michalsky,et al.  Automated multifilter rotating shadow-band radiometer: an instrument for optical depth and radiation measurements. , 1994, Applied optics.

[2]  Benjamin M. Herman,et al.  RECOVERY OF SPECTRAL OPTICAL DEPTH AND ZERO-AIRMASS SOLAR SPECTRAL IRRADIANCE UNDER CONDITIONS OF TEMPORALLY VARYING OPTICAL DEPTH. , 1984 .

[3]  J. Michalsky,et al.  Measurement of the seasonal and annual variability of total column aerosol in a northeastern U.S. network , 1994 .

[4]  Q. Fu,et al.  Parameterization of the Radiative Properties of Cirrus Clouds , 1993 .

[5]  Anders Ångström,et al.  On the Atmospheric Transmission of Sun Radiation and on Dust in the Air , 1929 .

[6]  J. Reagan,et al.  Recent advances in signal processing techniques for solar radiometer data , 1998, IGARSS '98. Sensing and Managing the Environment. 1998 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing. Symposium Proceedings. (Cat. No.98CH36174).

[7]  G. Shaw.  Error analysis of multi-wavelength sun photometry , 1976 .

[8]  Larry W. Thomason,et al.  Global to microscale evolution of the Pinatubo volcanic aerosol derived from diverse measurements and analyses , 1996 .

[9]  W. Cleveland.  Robust Locally Weighted Regression and Smoothing Scatterplots , 1979 .

[10]  A. Berk.  MODTRAN : A moderate resolution model for LOWTRAN7 , 1989 .

[11]  E. Clothiaux,et al.  Uncertainties in modeled and measured clear‐sky surface shortwave irradiances , 1997 .

[12]  J. Michalsky,et al.  Comparison of spectral irradiance standards used to calibrate shortwave radiometers and spectroradiometers. , 1999, Applied optics.

[13]  J. Hansen,et al.  Light scattering in planetary atmospheres , 1974 .

[14]  Gail P. Anderson,et al.  Comparison of model estimated and measured direct-normal , 1997 .

[15]  Q. Fu,et al.  On the correlated k-distribution method for radiative transfer in nonhomogeneous atmospheres , 1992 .

[16]  Alexander Smirnov,et al.  Comparison of aerosol optical depth from four solar radiometers during the fall 1997 ARM intensive observation period , 1999 .

[17]  J. Michalsky,et al.  Objective algorithms for the retrieval of optical depths from ground-based measurements. , 1994, Applied optics.

[18]  Benjamin M. Herman,et al.  Effects of Temporal Variations in Optical Depth on the Determination of the Optical Depth and Solar Constant from Solar Photometry , 1987 .

[19]  J. Michalsky,et al.  Broadband water vapor absorption of solar radiation tested using ARM data , 1998 .

[20]  C. Junge,et al.  Air chemistry and radioactivity , 1963 .

[21]  J. C. Liljegren,et al.  A comparison of Sun photometer derivations of total column water vapor and ozone to standard measures of same at the Southern Great Plains Atmospheric Radiation Measurement site , 1995 .

[22]  S. Schwartz,et al.  The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program: Programmatic Background and Design of the Cloud and Radiation Test Bed , 1994 .

[23]  A. Bucholtz,et al.  Rayleigh-scattering calculations for the terrestrial atmosphere. , 1995, Applied optics.

[24]  Chucai Zhou.  Comparison of irradiance measurements made with the multi-filter rotating shadowband radiometer and , 1995 .