Cimel sunphotometers: updates on recent deployments and review of uncertainty estimates

 

Authors

Laurie Gregory — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Richard Wagener — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Lynn L. Ma — Brookhaven National Laboratory

Category

Instruments

Description

We present a review of recent Cimel sunphotometer (CSPHOT) deployments and data availability. Since 2010, as part of the deployment of the Boundary Layer Cloud System, additional CSPHOTs were acquired. This allowed the expansion of ARM CSPHOTs deployments to all fixed sites and the two mobile facilities, including recent deployments to Ganges Valley, India, (AMF1) and Gan Island (AMF2). Also, in the summer of 2011, a CSPHOT was deployed as a part of the Aerosol Lifecycle campaign at Brookhaven National Laboratory to relate the very detailed in situ aerosol observations of the Mobile Aerosol Observing System (MAOS) to column-integrated aerosol properties derived from the CSPHOT measurements.

To address the recently highlighted need to quantify ARM measurement uncertainties, we review the various sources of uncertainty in geophysical quantities derived from CSPHOT measurements and summarize overall uncertainty estimates from published instrument intercomparisons.