A Procedure to Correct the Historical Atmospheric Longwave Irradiance Data When the World Reference Is Established with Respect to the International System of Units

Abstract

Historical and traceable atmospheric longwave irradiance data sets with traceability to the International System of units (SI) are essential for renewable energy and atmospheric science research and applications. To date, all pyrgeometers used to measure the irradiance are traceable to the interim World InfraRed Standard Group (WISG) not to SI units. In 2013 the Absolute Cavity Pyrgeometer (ACP), [Reda et al., 2012] was developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to measure the atmospheric longwave irradiance. The ACP has been compared against the InfraRed Integrating Sphere (IRIS) developed by the Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos/World Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC) [J. Grobner, 2012]. ACP and IRIS are absolute instruments traceable to SI units through the International Temperature Scale ITS-90. Results of six comparisons between ACP and IRIS at different location have shown that the irradiance measured by WISG pyrgeometers is underestimating clear-sky atmospheric longwave irradiance by 2 to 6 W/m 2 [Grobner et al., 2014]. Therefore, once the world reference is established with traceability to SI units the WISG would be corrected then used to calibrate field pyrgeometers with traceability to SI units. The described method below is used to correct the historical atmospheric longwave irradiance data sets in anticipation of the WISG scale change.