0000000000144356
AUTHOR
S. Gandía
AEROgui: A graphical user interface for the optical properties of aerosols
Atmospheric aerosols have an uncertain effect on climate and serious impacts on human health. The uncertainty in the aerosols' role on climate has several sources. First, aerosols have great spatial and temporal variability. The spatial variability arises from the fact that aerosols emitted in a certain place can travel thousands of kilometers, swept by the winds to modify the destination region's climate. The spatial variability also means that aerosols are inhomogeneously distributed in the vertical direction, which can lead to a differential effect on the energy balance depending on the aerosols' altitude. On the other hand, aerosols experience physical and chemical transformations in th…
Application of a radiative cooling model to daily minimum temperature prediction
A model of exponential decrease of temperature is applied to the study of night cooling in an agricultural area of citrus orchards located near the Valentian Coast (Spain). A set of annual average parameters which determine that cooling is obtained by using temperature measurements at different levels during two years. These parameters appear to be representative of the thermal behaviour of the area of study. The attainment of such parameters allows a prediction of the minimum temperatures of the area to an accuracy of £1.5 K, knowing the temperature at sunset and some time later.
Relationship between UVB and broadband solar radiation in Spain
The daily values of UVB irradiation (290–315 nm), IUVB, and the broadband total irradiation (300–2800 nm), IT, measured on a horizontal plane have been correlated for the period 2000–2008 at 16 measurement sites in Spain. The results have been compared with the daily experimental values registered at the same sites during the period 2009–2011. The coefficients of determination R2 obtained by applying a linear regression are higher than 0.88 for all sites and increase to 0.94 when using a quadratic regression. When all data are considered together, the values of R2 are 0.91 and 0.97 for the linear and quadratic regressions, respectively. Three different clearness indices, which are dimension…
Ten years of measured UV Index from the Spanish UVB Radiometric Network.
An analysis is made of the UV Index (UVI) obtained from the ultraviolet erythemal solar radiation (UVER) data measured by the Spanish UVB Radiometric Network between the years 2000 and 2009. Previously, the daily UVI has been evaluated using two different criteria: (a) the value corresponding to solar noon; and (b) the daily maximum value. The mean percentage of agreement is 92% if we consider the cases for which the difference is zero or one UVI unit. These results are similar to those obtained in a previous work where only 2 years were analyzed. In all the stations the UVI reaches very high values (8-10) in spring-summer, and the very high and extreme (≥ 11) UVI values are more dependent …
Wavelength dependence of the effective cloud optical depth
This study examines the wavelength dependence of cloud optical depth. To accomplish this task two different wavelength bands of the solar spectrum were considered in the cloud optical depth retrieval which was conducted in Valencia, Spain. The first retrieval used global irradiance measurements in the UVER range taken from a YES-UVB-1 radiometer in combination with multiple scattering model estimates; while the second retrieval was obtained in the Broadband range, with measurements of global solar surface irradiance from a CM6 pyranometer and a multiple scattering model. Whilst the dependence of the cloud optical depth (τ) on the wavelength is small, the best result was displayed by the SBD…
Measurements of integrated direct, diffuse and global ultraviolet-B radiation
Abstract We present the first multiyear set of simultaneous measurements of the global ultraviolet-B radiation and its two components: direct and diffuse. The measurements have been taken with four YES-UVB-1 radiometers: two radiometers to measure the diffuse radiation, one provided with a shadow band and the other with a shadow disk on a Sun tracker; a radiometer to measure the global horizontal radiation; and a Sun-tracking radiometer to measure the direct radiation with an especially designed radiance collimator. The diffuse minute-values measured with both instruments agree within a coefficient correlation of 1.00. The diffuse component represents at least 50% of the global UVB (ultravi…
Relationship between erythemal UV and broadband solar irradiation at high altitude in Northwestern Argentina
An analysis of the broadband solar irradiation, IT, and the erythemal UV irradiation, IUVER, has been performed using the measurements made from 2013 to 2015 at three sites located at altitudes over 1000 m a.s.l. In Northwestern Argentina (Salta, El Rosal, and Tolar Grande). The main objective of this paper is to determine a relationship between IT and IUVER, which would allow to estimate IUVER from IT in places with few IUVER measurements available, and especially in those where is important to establish adequate photoprotection measures given their dense population and location at high altitude. The relationship between the daily values of IUVER and IT has been fitted to a linear regressi…
Relationship between the effective cloud optical depth and different atmospheric transmission factors
This study examines the sensitivity of cloud optical depth (COD) for overcast conditions to radiation transmission using data collected in Valencia, Spain. These relationships are provided as simple empirical functions, therefore avoiding the need to apply complex model minimisation schemes to obtain COD. Comparisons are presented between COD obtained by a minimization method and several radiation transmission factors comprising a clearness index (kt), a modified version (kt'), a cloud modification factor (CMF) and its modified version (CMF'). Additionally, a statistical model of COD proposed by J.C. Barnard and C.N. Long (2004) is tested with our data. Statistical relationships between COD…