Abstract. This paper describes a method to correct for the effect
of solar radiation in atmospheric distributed temperature
sensing (DTS) applications. By using two cables with different
diameters, one can determine what temperature a zero
diameter cable would have. Such a virtual cable would not
be affected by solar heating and would take on the temperature
of the surrounding air. With two unshielded cable pairs,
one black pair and one white pair, good results were obtained
given the general consensus that shielding is needed to avoid
radiation errors (WMO, 2010). The correlations between
standard air temperature measurements and air temperatures
derived from both cables of colors had a high correlation coefficient
(r
2 = 0.99) and a RMSE of 0.38 ◦C, compared to
a RMSE of 2.40 ◦C for a 3.0 mm uncorrected black cable. A
thin white cable measured temperatures that were close to air
temperature measured with a nearby shielded thermometer
(RMSE of 0.61 ◦C). The temperatures were measured along
horizontal cables with an eye to temperature measurements
in urban areas, but the same method can be applied to any atmospheric
DTS measurements, and for profile measurements
along towers or with balloons and quadcopters