Studies of Direct Solar Irradiance and Aerosol Optical Depth Using an MFRSR and a Microtop Sunphotometer in the El Paso-Juarez Airshed

The study of Solar Irradiance and Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) plays an important role in understanding the regional and global climate distribution, and is also important in air pollution studies. In this work an MFRSR (Multi-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer) and a Portable Microtop Sunphotometer were used to measure irradiances and to obtain optical depth values for the El Paso-Juarez Airshed. The Langley method applied on the MFRSR irradiance data was used to calculate the AOD values. The spatial distribution of AOD for this region was obtained using a Microtop Sunphotometer. The graphs were generated using GIS Shapefiles. In addition, the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-Radiometer) and the IDEA (Infusing Satellite Data into Environmental Air Quality Applications) AOD satellite data was subsequently used to obtain PM2.5 values at the surface. This work provides an alternative and efficient method to perform air pollution studies in this region