Performance of fused silica as a filter in a wide field-of-view earth radiation budget radiometer.

An analysis of the thermal response of a fused silica hemispherical dome filter in a wide field-of-view (WFOV) shortwave radiometer for obtaining earth radiation budget measurements is presented. The impact of the filter thermal response on the dc detector (a thermopile) and on the resulting measurement uncertainty is evaluated. It is shown that the hemispherical filter material maintains neither a uniform nor constant temperature distribution as it responds to changes in the radiation emitted from earth. Accurate determination of terrestrial shortwave irradiance requires knowledge of the dome filter thermal response because the thermopile responds to changes in the dome temperature as well as the shortwave scene. Data are presented that show that variations in the dome temperature distribution from calibration conditions can result in a measurement uncertainty of several W/m(2) if not properly accounted for in the interpretation f the measurement. Design approaches, ground calibration, and data reduction techniques that can reduce this measurement uncertainty by an order of magnitude are presented.