Improvement of Field Calibration of a Transmissometer for Visibility Measurement

  • Kim Kyung W. (Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Gyeongju University) ;
  • Kim Young J. (Advanced Environmental Monitoring Research Center(ADEMRC) Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology(GIST))
  • Published : 2005.06.01

Abstract

A long-path transmissometer is one of the optical instruments widely used to measure atmospheric light extinction coefficient without enclosing a light beam and perturbing aerosols. Over the past two decades, a number of measurements have been carried out using the long-path transmissometer manufactured by OPTEC, Inc. Calibration of the transmissometer should be performed when any component of the transmissometer system is interchanged or installation condition is changed. For a better calibration of the transmissometer, application of a modified calibration method for the existing neutral density (ND)-filter method was recommended for the computation of the atmospheric transmittance using model MODTRAN 4 in this study. It was revealed that the measured light extinction coefficient from the transmissometer which was calibrated using the existing ND-filter method could be overestimated due to the assumption of the atmospheric transmittance suggested by OPTEC, Inc. The uncertainty of the measured light extinction coefficient from the transmissometer calibrated based on the modified ND-filter method was calculated to be approximately $13Mm^{-1}$.

Keywords

References

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