The Solar Spectral Irradiance From 200 to 2400 nm as Measured During the ATLAS and EURECA Missions
Authors: G. Thuillier
(1), M. Hersé (1), D. Labs (2), P. C. Simon (3)
Affilitations: 1) Service d'Aéronomie
du CNRS,
2) Landessternwarte,
3) Institut
d'Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique,
The planetary atmospheres properties as composition, thermal structure and dynamics need
the knowledge of the solar spectrum
as energy input wavelength dependent. Modeling of the atmosphere is improving
in term of accuracy which requires in parallel an improuvement of the solar input accuracy.
The
SOLSPEC investigation is dedicated
to the measurement of the solar spectrum
from 200 to 2400 nm.
The SOLSPEC instrument is
made of three spectrometers
observing in UV, visible and
IR domains. It carries calibration lamps to monitor in space the spectrometers wavelength and photometric scales. It is calibrated in the absolute scale
using a blackbody. It flew with the
three ATLAS (March 1992, April
1993, November 1994) Shuttle
missions and on the EURECA platform (September 1992 to January 1993).
We present the data gathered during these missions. The mean accuracy
of these measurements is 3%. In UV and visible, comparisons with data from the other ATLAS and UARS instruments will be shown and
discussed.
By assembling
the best measurements, we have built a spectrum extending from 200 to 2400 nm.
This spectrum complemented
above 2400 nm allows to calculate the total solar irradiance which is compared
with its measurement made at the same time. We will discuss the
difference between these two results. Comparisons with several recent
spectra up to the IR domain will be
shown.
Future plan for SOLSPEC will be presented.