Comparisons of corrected daily-integrated erythermal UVR data from the U.S. EPA/UGA network of Brewer spectroradiometers with model and TOMS-inferred data

Abstract

A network of 21 Brewer spectroradiometers, owned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and operated by the University of Georgia (UGA), is measuring ultraviolet (UV) spectral irradiances throughout the United States. Corrections to the raw data for 4 of the 21 Brewers have now been implemented. These corrections include (1) the stray light rejection, (2) the cosine errors associated with the full sky diffuser, (3) the temperature dependence of the response of the instruments, and (4) the temporal variation in the instrument response due to changes in the optical characteristics of the instruments. While for many sites the total corrections amount to less than 10%, for certain sites they are much larger, in some cases amounting to more than 25%. It is estimated that application of these corrections brings the uncertainty of the absolute irradiance of individual spectral scans to approximately 6% for all known major sources of error for all solar zenith angles. A comparison is presented of corrected daily integrated erythemal UV doses on clear days to both model and Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) UV values. The TOMS retrievals show a positive bias with respect to the measured values that falls in the range of 12.5–1.4% with an average value of 5% for the four sites studied.