An improved method for correction of air temperature measured using different radiation shields

Abstract

The variation of air temperature measurement errors using two different radiation shields (DTR502B Vaisala, Finland, and HYTFZ01, Huayun Tongda Satcom, China) was studied. Datasets were collected in the field at the Daxing weather station in Beijing from June 2011 to May 2012. Most air temperature values obtained with these two commonly used radiation shields were lower than the reference records obtained with the new Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) Stevenson screen. In most cases, the air temperature errors when using the two devices were smaller on overcast and rainy days than on sunny days; and smaller when using the imported rather than the Chinese shield. The measured errors changed sharply at sunrise and sunset, and reached maxima at noon. Their diurnal variation characteristics were, naturally, related to changes in solar radiation. The relationships between the record errors, global radiation, and wind speed were nonlinear. An improved correction method was proposed based on the approach described by Nakamura and Mahrt (2005) (NM05), in which the impact of the solar zenith angle (SZA) on the temperature error is considered and extreme errors due to changes in SZA can be corrected effectively. Measurement errors were reduced significantly after correction by either method for both shields. The error reduction rate using the improved correction method for the Chinese and imported shields were 3.3% and 40.4% higher than those using the NM05 method, respectively.