Longwave Radiation Corrections for the OMNI Buoy Network

Abstract

The inception of a moored buoy network in the northern Indian Ocean in 1997 paved the way for systematic collection of long-term time series observations of meteorological and oceanographic parameters. This buoy network was revamped in 2011 with Ocean Moored buoy Network for north Indian Ocean (OMNI) buoys fitted with additional sensors to better quantify the air–sea fluxes. An intercomparison of OMNI buoy measurements with the nearby Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) mooring during the year 2015 revealed an overestimation of downwelling longwave radiation (LWR↓). Analysis of the OMNI and WHOI radiation sensors at a test station at National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) during 2019 revealed that the accurate and stable amplification of the thermopile voltage records along with the customized datalogger in the WHOI system results in better estimations of LWR↓. The offset in NIOT measured LWR↓ is estimated first by segregating the LWR↓ during clear-sky conditions identified using the downwelling shortwave radiation measurements from the same test station, and second, finding the offset by taking the difference with expected theoretical clear-sky LWR↓. The corrected LWR↓ exhibited good agreement with that of collocated WHOI measurements, with a correlation of 0.93. This method is applied to the OMNI field measurements and again compared with the nearby WHOI mooring measurements, exhibiting a better correlation of 0.95. This work has led to the revamping of radiation measurements in OMNI buoys and provides a reliable method to correct past measurements and improve estimation of air–sea fluxes in the Indian Ocean.