TOC intercomparison of Brewer, Dobson and BTS Solar at Hohenpeißenberg and Davos 2019/2020

Abstract

Abstract. In the 2019/2020 measurement campaign at Hohenpeißenberg (Germany) and Davos (Switzerland) we compared the well-established Dobson and Brewer spectrometers (single and double monochromator Brewer) with newer BTS array spectroradiometer based systems in terms of total ozone column (TOC) determination. The aim of this study is to validate the BTS performance in a longer-term TOC analysis over more than one year with seasonal and weather influences. Two different BTS setups have been used. A fibre coupled entrance optic version by PMOD/WRC called Koherent and a diffusor optic which proved to be simpler in terms of calibration from Gigahertz-Optik GmbH called BTS Solar. The array-spectrometer based BTS systems have been traceable calibrated to National Metrology Institutes (NMI) and the used TOC retrieval algorithms are based on spectral measurements in the range of 305 nm and 350 nm instead of single wavelength measurements as for Brewer or Dobson. The two BTS based systems, however, used fundamentally different retrieval algorithms for the TOC assessment, whereby the retrieval of the BTS solar turned out to achieve significantly smaller seasonal drifts. The intercomparison showed a deviation of the BTS Solar to Brewers of < 0.1 % with an expanded standard deviation of < 1.5 % within the whole measurement campaign. Koherent showed a deviation of 1.7 % with an expanded standard deviation of 2.7 % mostly given by a significant seasonal drift. Resulting, the BTS Solar performance is comparable to Brewers at the comparison in Hohenpeißenberg. The slant path slope is in-between double monochromator and single monochromator Brewer. Koherent shows a strong seasonal variation in Davos due to the sensitivity of its ozone retrieval algorithm to stratospheric temperature similar to the Dobson results.