WORCC-PMOD/WRC quality assured aerosol optical depth and Ångström exponent for Ny-Ålesund GAW-PFR station (2002- 2023)

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements have been performed within the frame of Global Atmospheric Watch Precision Filter Radiometer (GAW-PFR) network in Ny-Ålesund (79N, 11E) since 2002. The measurements are performed from March to October, with PFR (PrecisionFilterRadiometer) instruments provided by Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos, World Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC). The solar tracker and infrastructure are provided by provided by NILU (Norsk institutt for luftforskning) in collaboration with the Norwegian Polar Institute.

PFR manufactured by PMOD/WRC is a temperature stabilized instrument at 20o C equipped with four narrow band interference filters with nominal centroid wavelengths 368 nm, 412 nm, 500 nm and 862 nm and bandpass (fullwidth half maximum) 4 nm for 368 nm channel and 5 nm for the rest. The instrument is calibrated on a yearly basis against the WMO-AOD reference (GAWPFR-TRIAD) at PMOD/WRC during the polar winter. The operation is done remotely by PMOD/WRC with the installation and onsite maintenance (cleaning, alignment adjustments) done by personnel of Norwegian Polar Institute and NILU in collaboration with PMOD/WRC.

The processing and quality assurance of the data is done following the protocols of World Optical depth Research and Calibration Center (WORCC, PMOD/WRC) (Kazadzis, et. al., 2018), and the data are submitted to the WDCA database (EBAS-NILU) as hourly mean AOD and AE values. This dataset contains high-resolution data (1 min) and daily mean values cloud screened and quality assured since 2002. The provided Ångström exponent is retrieved from the 4 wavelengths.

version: v1 (02-May-2002 - 30-Sep-2023)

Contributions:

KN: Calibration, operation, and processing since 2014, WORCC quality assurance protocols, quality assurance of the presented dataset

WC: calibration, operation, and processing 2002- 2014

KS: consulting on WORCC quality assurance protocols

SK: principal investigator of hosting institute NILU

NS: operation and processing 2005- 2012

Acknowledgement: 

Special thanks to the personnel of the Norwegian Polar Institute at Ny-Ålesund for all the valuable technical support.