Rotating Shadowband Spectroradiometer (RSS) - IOP
Instrument Categories: Radiometric
General Overview
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."
IOPs Where the Instrument was Used
ASRC RSS
Southern Great Plains, August 1997- ongoingMillimeter-wave Radiometric Arctic Winter Measurements Experiment
North Slope Alaska, February 27 - March 30, 1999
Primary Measurements Taken
The following measurements are those considered scientifically relevant. Refer to the datastream (netcdf) file headers for the list of all available measurements, including those recorded for diagnostic or quality assurance purposes.
- Shortwave spectral direct normal irradiance
- Shortwave spectral total downwelling irradiance
- Shortwave spectral diffuse downwelling irradiance
Mentor(s)
Piotr Kiedron
(303) 497-4937
peter.kiedron@noaa.gov