Visible and near-ultraviolet absorption spectrum of liquid water: comment.

Measurements of the absorption of pure water have been described [Appl. Opt. 38, 1216 (1999)]. This comment on that paper disputes the claims that (1) their list of references on pure water absorption is complete, (2) their result "...provides reliable data in the 320-420-nm region...," and (3) their data agree well with existing data in the literature. The clearest demonstration of these points is made by plotting their data and its associated error bars together with plots of other data in the literature that should be considered significantly more reliable. Finally, for practical applications that require absorption data, a suggestion is made for the best choice of absorption coefficients in the range of 196 nm <or= lambda <or= 700 nm.