The Baseline Surface Radiation Network Pyrgeometer Round-Robin Calibration Experiment

Abstract

With the aim of improving the consistency of terrestrial and atmospheric longwave radiation measurements within the Baseline Surface Radiation Network, five Eppley Precision Infrared Radiometer (PIR) pyrgeometers and one modified Meteorological Research Flight (MRF) pyrgeometer were individually calibrated by 11 specialist laboratories. The round-robin experiment was conducted in a ?blind? sense in that the participants had no knowledge of the results of others until the whole series of calibrations had ended. The responsivities C(?V/W m?2) determined by 6 of the 11 institutes were within about 2% of the median for all five PIR pyrgeometers. Among the six laboratories, the absolute deviation around the median of the deviations of the five instruments is less than 1%. This small scatter suggests that PIR pyrgeometers were stable at least during the two years of the experiment and that the six different calibration devices reproduce the responsivity C of PIR pyrgeometers consistently and within the precision required for climate applications. The results also suggest that the responsivity C can be determined without simultaneous determination of the dome correction factor k, if the temperature difference between pyrgeometer body and dome is negligible during calibration. For field measurements, however, k has to be precisely known. The calibration of the MRF pyrgeometer, although not performed by all institutes, also showed satisfactory results.