Rotating Shadowband Spectroradiometer (RSS)
Instrument Categories: Radiometric
General Overview
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As of February 27, 2008,the RSS instrument has been decommissioned for renovations. Data will not be collected during this time; however, previous data collected remain at the ARM Archive. |
The Rotating Shadowband Spectroradiometer (RSS) implements the same automated shadowbanding technique used by the multifilter rotating shadowband radiometer (MFRSR), and so it too provides spectrally-resolved, direct-normal, diffuse-horizontal, and total-horizontal irradiances, and can be calibrated in-situ via Langley regression. The irradiance spectra are measured simultaneously at all spectral elements (pixels) in 360-nm to 1050-nm range. For more detailed information, refer to the RSS Handbook. Additional documentation and publications are also available here.
All RSS105 data are available from the ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF) Data Archive in netCDF format. The RSS105 data are lamp calibrated irradiances. The accuracy of irradiance produced by the RSS is expected to be better than ±5%, which includes calibration and instrument stability errors. Higher accuracy (±1%) can be obtained when the responsivity is tied to the solar extraterrestrial irradiance via Langley regression plots. This approach is recommended when high precision measurements of optical depth are required.
The calibration constants from Langley regressions plots (so called Vo's) are available from the IOP Archive at http://iop.archive.arm.gov/arm-iop/0pi-data/kiedron/rss105/langley/. The currently deployed RSS105 was preceded by two prototypes, RSS103 and RSS102, which operated at the SGP in three distinct periods since August 1997. Data from the two prototypes and data from the RSS105 from before March 30, 2006, are available at http://iop.archive.arm.gov/arm-iop/0pi-data/kiedron/ in ascii format.
Data plots for quality control purposes are available from the Data Quality Health and Status Plot Browser, after selecting "SGP" for site and "sgprss" for data stream and entering "Get Plots."
Primary Measurements Taken
The following measurements are those considered scientifically relevant. Refer to the netCDF File Header Descriptions (Data Object Design Files) for the list of all available measurements, including those recorded for diagnostic or quality assurance purposes.
- Shortwave spectral diffuse downwelling irradiance
- Shortwave spectral direct normal irradiance
- Shortwave spectral total downwelling irradiance
Available Datastreams
- rss - Rotating Shadowband Spectroradiometer
Sites / Facilities
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- Southern Great Plains (SGP)
- Central Facility, Lamont, OK (C1)
Mentor(s)
Piotr Kiedron
(303) 497-4937
peter.kiedron@noaa.gov
