• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.263-270
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• 2017

Solar radiation data measured by pyranometers is of fundamental use in various fields. In the field of atmospheric optics, the measurement of solar energy must be precise, and the equipment needs to be maintained frequently. However, there seem to be many errors with the existing type of pyranometer, which is an element of the solar-energy observation apparatus. In particular, the error caused by the thermal dome effect occurs because of the thermal offset generated from a temperature difference between outer dome and inner casing. To resolve the thermal dome effect, intensive observation was conducted using the method and instrument designed by Ji and Tsay. The characteristics of the observed global solar radiation were analyzed by classifying the observation period into clear, cloudy, and rainy cases. For the clear-weather case, the temperature difference between the pyranometer's case and dome was highest, and the thermal dome effect was $0.88MJ\;m^{-2}\;day^{-1}$. Meanwhile, the thermal dome effect in the cloudy case was $0.69MJ\;m^{-2}\;day^{-1}$, because the reduced global solar radiation thus reduced the temperature difference between case and dome. In addition, the rainy case had the smallest temperature difference of $0.21MJ\;m^{-2}\;day^{-1}$. The quantification of this thermal dome effect with respect to the daily accumulated global solar radiation gives calculated errors in the cloudy, rainy, and clear cases of 6.53%, 6.38%, and 5.41% respectively.