Solar constants and radiometric scales

The basic requirement for any type of measurement in which comparisons are made in a scale, relative or absolute. The values used by the Committee on Solar Electromagnetic Radiation to derive the solar constant were in different radiometric scales. Assuming that only difference in radiometric references produced the wide scatter of individual values, an attempt was made to convert all values to one radiometric reference. A radiometric scale based on electrical power equivalence was used as the reference. The resulting value was 137.5 mW cm(-2), as compared to the CSER derived value of 135.3 mW cm(-2) . This revised value lies within the error bounds of all the values used in the analysis. The revised estimate was then compared to values derived from more recent experiments. out of the atmosphere. There appears to be a discrepancy between values derived in and.