Abstract
We propose a monochromatic low-cost automatic sun photometer (LoCo-ASP) to perform distributed aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements at the city scale. This kind of network could fill the gap between current automatic ground instruments—with good temporal resolution and accuracy, but few devices per city and satellite products—with global coverage, but lower temporal resolution and accuracy-. As a first approach, we consider a single equivalent wavelength around 408 nm. The cost of materials for the instrument is around 220 dollars. Moreover, we propose a calibration transfer for a pattern instrument, and estimate the uncertainties for several units and due to the internal differences and the calibration process. We achieve a max MAE of 0.026 for 38 sensors at 408 nm compared with AERONET Cimel; a mean standard deviation of 0.0062 among our entire sensor for measurement and a calibration uncertainty of 0.01. Finally, we perform city-scale measurements to show the dynamics of AOD. Our instrument can measure unsupervised, with an expected error for AOD between 0.02 and 0.03.
Highlights
Atmospheric aerosols are the small solid, liquid or mixed phase particles suspended in the air, with diameters ranging from 10−3 to 102 μm
We present a new low-cost automatic sun photometer (LoCo-ASP), together with its calibration method, capable of performing continuous and unsupervised measurements of aerosol optical depth
Automatic sun photometers are expensive, and at present, it constrains the number of observation points in this scale
Summary
Atmospheric aerosols are the small solid, liquid or mixed phase particles suspended in the air, with diameters ranging from 10−3 to 102 μm. These particles may be originated by natural processes (sea salt, volcano ashes or pollen), and by anthropogenic sources (combustion engines, industries, wood burning) [1,2]. They can accumulate and react among them in the atmosphere. Depending on the aerosol properties, they may produce net cooling by reflection or scattering of the incident solar radiation, and net heating when solar radiation absorption predominates [4,5,6,7]
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