Global Water's PC320 Solar Radiation Sensor Controller uses the solar radiation sensor's output to trigger alarms. In addition, Global Water offers the GL500 Solar Radiation Recorder, which adds recording capabilities to the solar radiation sensors. The GL500 Solar Radiation Recorder connects to the pyranometer's 4-20mA output to record data.

Why Measure Solar Radiation?
Atmospheric circulation is driven by solar radiation. Determining the solar radiation and its interaction with the atmosphere and the Earth's surface is important, since solar radiation accounts for almost all of the energy available to the Earth. There are two ways solar radiation reaches the Earth's surface. The first is direct solar radiation where the solar radiation is directly transmitted throug the atmosphere. The second is diffuse solar radiation where the incoming solar radiation is scattered or reflected to the Earth's surface. Almost 50% of shortwave solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth's surface and changed into thermal infrared radiation. Direct solar radiation is measured by using solar radiation sensors or pyranometers. These type of solar radiation sensors have a transparent hemisphere which measures the total amount of shortwave solar radiation. Solar radiation sensors or pyranometers measure the total radiation or sum of the direct radiation and the diffuse solar radiation.