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Accurate Determination of the TOA Solar Spectral NIR Irradiance Using a Primary Standard Source and the Bouguer–Langley Technique

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Abstract

We describe an instrument dedicated to measuring the top of atmosphere (TOA) solar spectral irradiance (SSI) in the near-infrared (NIR) between 600 nm and 2300 nm at a resolution of 10 nm. Ground-based measurements are performed through atmospheric NIR windows and the TOA SSI values are extrapolated using the Bouguer–Langley technique. The interest in this spectral range arises because it plays a main role in the Earth’s radiative budget and also because it is employed to validate models used in solar physics. Moreover, some differences were observed between recent ground-based and space-based instruments that take measurements in the NIR and the reference SOLSPEC(ATLAS3) spectrum. In the 1.6 μm region, the deviations vary from 6 % to 10 %. Our measuring system named IRSPERAD has been designed by Bentham (UK) and has been radiometrically characterized and absolutely calibrated against a blackbody at the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy and at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Germany), respectively. A four-month measurement campaign was carried out at the Izaña Atmospheric Observatory (Canary Islands, 2367 m a.s.l.). A set of top-quality solar measurements was processed to obtain the TOA SSI in the NIR windows. We obtained an average standard uncertainty of 1 % for 0.8 μm<λ<2.3 μm. At 1.6 μm, corresponding to the minimum opacity of the solar photosphere, we obtained an irradiance of 234.31±1.29 mWm−2 nm−1. Between 1.6 μm and 2.3 μm, our measurements show a disagreement varying from 6 % to 8 % relative to ATLAS3, which is not explained by the declared standard uncertainties of the two experiments.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the staff of the Izaña Atmospheric Observatory (IZO, Tenerife) for kindly supporting the campaign, and especially Ramón Ramos, IZO field manager, our colleague Christine Bingen for her thorough reviews of the manuscript, Bruce C. Kindel (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA) for the interest in our work and for kindly providing us the calculations with MODTRAN of the valid Bouguer–Langley channels in the NIR for the 10 nm bandpass of our instrument. M. Weber acknowledges the financial support from the EU SOLID project. The authors acknowledge the support from the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) through the ESA-PRODEX program and the funding of the Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence (STCE).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BIRA-IASB, 3 Avenue Circulaire, 1180, Brussels, Belgium

    D. Bolsée, N. Pereira, W. Decuyper, D. Gillotay & H. Yu

  2. Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig, Germany

    P. Sperfeld & S. Pape

  3. Izaña Atmospheric Research Center (AEMET), Tenerife, Spain

    E. Cuevas, A. Redondas & Y. Hernandéz

  4. Institut für Umweltphysik, Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    M. Weber

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  1. D. Bolsée
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  2. N. Pereira
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  3. W. Decuyper
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  4. D. Gillotay
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  5. H. Yu
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  6. P. Sperfeld
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  10. Y. Hernandéz
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Correspondence to D. Bolsée.

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Bolsée, D., Pereira, N., Decuyper, W. et al. Accurate Determination of the TOA Solar Spectral NIR Irradiance Using a Primary Standard Source and the Bouguer–Langley Technique. Sol Phys 289, 2433–2457 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-014-0474-1

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