An inexpensive and stable LED Sun photometer for measuring the water vapor column over South Texas from 1990 to 2001

A Sun photometer that uses near‐infrared light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) as spectrally‐selective photodetectors has measured total column water vapor in South Texas since February 1990. The 12 years of solar noon observations to date are correlated with upper air soundings at Del Rio, Texas (r2 = 0.75), and highly correlated with measurements by a Microtops II filter Sun photometer (r2 = 0.94). LEDs are inexpensive and have far better long term stability than the interference filters in conventional Sun photometers. The LED Sun photometer therefore provides an inexpensive, stable and portable means for measuring column water vapor.