ABSTRACT
A solar radiometer (GUV-511 C, Biospherical Instruments Inc., San Diego, CA) with four UV channels has been operating at Trelew (43.2 degrees S, 65.3 degrees W), Argentina, since the austral spring of 1997. The instrument provides global (direct + diffuse) irradiance on the horizontal plane year-round, with a 1 min period. On 1 January 1999, an automatic shadow band was added to calculate diffuse and direct radiation. The period of the measurements was increased to 2 min to keep the same signal to noise (S:N) ratio. Once the direct radiation values were available for the 305 nm and 320 nm spectral bands, the total ozone value was calculated and results were compared with data provided by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on the Earth Probe satellite. Results show a root-mean-square (RMS) deviation within 4% compared with that of TOMS, so the quality of results is considered to be quite good. The importance of regular calibration to maintain long-term accuracy is stressed.
ABSTRACT
Differential optical absorption spectroscopy is a widely used technique for open-column atmospheric-gas pollution monitoring. The concentration retrieval is based on the fitting of the measured differential absorbance through the Lambert-Beer law. We present an alternative method for calculating the gas concentration on the basis of the proportionality between differential absorbance and differential absorption cross section of the gas under study. The method can be used on its own for single-component analysis or as a complement to the standard technique in multicomponent cases. The performance of the method for the case of cross interference between two gases is analyzed. The procedure can be used with differential absorption cross sections measured in the laboratory or taken from the literature. In addition, the method provides a criterion to discriminate against different species having absorption features in the same wavelength range.
