Results from the Fourth WMO Filter Radiometer Comparison for aerosol optical depth measurements

This study presents the results of the Fourth Filter RadiometerComparison that was held in Davos, Switzerland, between 28 September and 16 October 2015. Thirty filter radiometersand spectroradiometersfrom 12 countries participated including reference instruments from global aerosol networks. The absolute differencesof all instruments compared to the reference have been based on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) criterion defined as follows: 95% of the measured data has to be within 0.005 ± 0.001∕ m (where m is the air mass). At least 24 out of 29 instruments achieved this goal at both 500 and 865 nm, while 12 out of 17 and 13 out of 21 achieved this at 368 and 412 nm, respectively. While searching for sources of differencesamong differentinstruments, it was found that all individual differences linked to Rayleigh, NO 2 , ozone, water vapor calculations and related optical depthsand air masscalculations were smaller than 0.01 in aerosol optical depth(AOD) at 500 and 865 nm. Different cloud-detecting algorithms used have been compared. Angstrom exponentcalculations showed relatively large differencesamong differentinstruments, partly because of the high calculation uncertainty of this parameter in low AOD conditions. The overall low deviations of these AOD results and the high accuracy of reference aerosol network instruments demonstrated a promising framework to achieve homogeneity, compatibility and harmonization among the different spectral AOD networks in the near future.