Deriving the slope-mean shielded astronomical solar radiation spectrum and slope-mean possible sunshine duration spectrum over the Loess Plateau

Solar radiation is often shielded by terrain relief, especially in mountainous areas, before reaching the surface of the Earth. The objective of this paper is to study the spatial structures of the shielded astronomical solar radiation(SASR) and the possible sunshine duration(PSD) over the Loess Plateau. To this end, we chose six test areas representing different landforms over the Loess Plateau and the software package of Matlab was used as the main computing platform. In each test area, 5-m-resolution digital elevation model established from 1:10,000 scale topographic maps was used to compute the corresponding slope, SASR and PSD. Then, we defined the concepts of the slope-mean SASR spectrum and the slope-mean PSD spectrum, and proposed a method to extract them from the computed slope, SASR and PSD over rectangular analysis windows. Using this method, we found both spectrums in a year or in a season for each of the four seasons in the six test areas. Each spectrum was found only when the area of the corresponding rectangular analysis window was greater than the corresponding stable area of the spectrum. The values of the two spectrums decreased when the slope increased.Furthermore, the values of the stable areas of the spectrums in a year or in a season were positively correlated with the variable coefficients of the slope or the profile curvature. The values of the stable areas of the two spectrums in a year or in a season may represent the minimum value of test areas for corresponding future research on the spatial structures of the SASR or PSD. All the findings herein suggest that the spatial structures of the PSD and the SASR are caused by the interactions between solar radiation and terrain relief and that the method for extracting either spectrum is effective for detecting their spatial structures. This study may deepen our understanding of the spatial structure of solar radiation and help us further explore the distribution of solar energy in mountainous regions.

Studying Air Pollution with Kitt Peak Solar Flux Atlas—Analysis Method and Results of Observation

For the measurement of atmospheric NO2 vertical column density (VCD), Kitt Peak Solar Flux Atlas can be substituted as an extraterrestrial solar radiation. Compared with differential analysis method, the Taylor expansion of integrated transfer equation underestimates the VCD. This underestimation is as large as 35% when the amount of NO2 is 1 × 1017 cm?2 and observation is conducted with an air mass factor of 10. Even when the VCD is 2 × 1016 cm?2 and the air mass factor is 4, the relative error of the retrieved VCD is still no less than 3%. If the observation is restricted under the small air mass factor condition (≤ 4), with Kitt Peak Solar spectrum as an extraterrestrial solar radiation, only an atmospheric layer of 2 km thick from ground can be studied, which will make the absorption too weak to be detected by normal instruments. The VCD in winter Tokyo area was observed and analyzed by differential method, which shows a good precision even when the absorption is as low as 3%. The largest average VCD was about 1.3 × 1017 cm-2, and the lowest was about 1.3 × 1016 cm?2. The trend of its variation was almost the same as the ground level observation by Saltzman reagent method. Key words Vertical column density (VCD) - Extraterrestrial solar radiation - NO2 - Atmospheric contamination