A Tutorial Review of the Solar Power Curve: Regressions, Model Chains, and Their Hybridization and Probabilistic Extensions

Owing to the persisting hype in pushing toward global carbon neutrality,the study scope of atmospheric science is rapidly expanding.Among numerous trending topics,energy meteorology has been attracting the most attention hitherto.One essential skill of solar energy meteorologists is solar power curve modeling,which seeks to map irradiance and auxiliary weather variables to solar power,by statistical and/or physical means.In this regard,this tutorial review aims to deliver a complete overview of those fundamental scientific and engineering principles pertaining to the solar power curve.Solar power curves can be modeled in two primary ways,one of regression and the other of model chain.Both classes of modeling approaches,alongside their hybridization and probabilistic extensions,which allow accuracy improvement and uncertainty quantification,are scrutinized and contrasted thoroughly in this review.

A Concise Overview on Solar Resource Assessment and Forecasting

China’s recently announced directive on tackling climate change,namely,to reach carbon peak by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060,has led to an unprecedented nationwide response among the academia and industry.Under such a directive,a rapid increase in the grid penetration rate of solar in the near future can be fully anticipated.Although solar radiation is an atmospheric process,its utilization,as to produce electricity,has hitherto been handled by engineers.In that,it is thought important to bridge the two fields,atmospheric sciences and solar engineering,for the common good of carbon neutrality.In thisüberreview,all major aspects pertaining to solar resource assessment and forecasting are discussed in brief.Given the size of the topic at hand,instead of presenting technical details,which would be overly lengthy and repetitive,the overarching goal of this review is to comprehensively compile a catalog of some recent,and some not so recent,review papers,so that the interested readers can explore the details on their own.

Influence of Topography and Large-scale Forcing on the Occurrence of Katabatic Flow Jumps in Antarctica:Idealized Simulations

The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System （RAMS）, which is a non-hydrostatic numerical model, has been used to investigate the impact of terrain shape and large-scale forcing on the Antarctic surface-wind regime, focusing on their roles in establishing favorable flow conditions for the formation of katabatic flow jumps. A series of quasi-2D numerical simulations were conducted over idealized slopes representing the slopes of Antarctica during austral winter conditions. Results indicate that the steepness and variations of the underlying slope play a role in the evolution of near-surface flows and thus the formation of katabatic flow jumps. However, large-scale forcing has a more noticeable effect on the occurrence of this small-scale phenomenon by establishing essential upstream and downstream flow conditions, including the upstream supercritical flow, the less stably stratified or unstable layer above the cold katabatic layer, as well as the cold-air pool located near the foot of the slope through an interaction with the underlying topography. Thus, the areas with steep and abrupt change in slopes, e.g. near the coastal areas of the eastern Antarctic, are preferred locations for the occurrence of katabatic flow jumps, especially under supporting synoptic conditions.

Development of a low-frequency magnetic lightning mapping system(LFM-LMS)in North China:validation and preliminary results

A low-frequency magnetic lightning mapping system(LFM-LMS)was built during the SHAndong Triggered Lightning Experiment(SHATLE),based on continuous measurements of magnetic field radiation from lightning.The hardware and source-mapping techniques used by the LFM-LMS were introduced;both Monte Carlo simulations and the observation of rocket-triggered lightning examples were employed to examine the location accuracy and detection effectiveness of the LFM-LMS.We estimated that the system’s location accuracy about 100−200 m horizontally and~200 m vertically.A natural intra-cloud lightning flash and a rocket-triggered lightning flash,both with intricate structures and discharging processes,were examined using the three-dimensional mapping results.The progressing path of negative lightning leaders is usually well-defined,and its propagation speed is estimated to be(0.5−1.4)×10^(6)m/s.In summary,the LFM-LMS can reconstruct the three-dimensional morphology of lightning flashes;this technology provides a efficient method for investigating the characteristics of lightning development,as well as the overall electrical strucuture of thunderstorms.

A Case Study of Impact of FY-2C Satellite Data in Cloud Analysis to Improve Short-Range Precipitation Forecast

Chinese FengYun-2C(FY-2C) satellite data were combined into the Local Analysis and Prediction System(LAPS) model to obtain three-dimensional cloud parameters and rain content. These parameters analyzed by LAPS were used to initialize the Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System model(GRAPES) in China to predict precipitation in a rainstorm case in the country. Three prediction experiments were conducted and were used to investigate the impacts of FY-2C satellite data on cloud analysis of LAPS and on short range precipitation forecasts. In the first experiment, the initial cloud fields was zero value. In the second, the initial cloud fields were cloud liquid water, cloud ice, and rain content derived from LAPS without combining the satellite data. In the third experiment, the initial cloud fields were cloud liquid water, cloud ice, and rain content derived from LAPS including satellite data. The results indicated that the FY-2C satellite data combination in LAPS can show more realistic cloud distributions, and the model simulation for precipitation in 1–6 h had certain improvements over that when satellite data and complex cloud analysis were not applied.

A Scheme for Estimating Tropical Cyclone Intensity Using AMSU-A Data

Brightness temperature anomalies measured by the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit （AMSU） on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration （NOAA） polar-orbiting series are suited to estimate tropical cyclone （TC） intensity by virtue of their ability to assess changes in tropospheric warm core struc-ture in the presence of clouds. Analysis of the measurements from different satellites shows that the variable horizontal resolution of the instrument has significant effects on the observed brightness temperature anoma-lies. With the aim to decrease these effects on TC intensity estimation more easily and effectively, a new simple correction algorithm, which is related to the product of the brightness temperature gradient near the TC center and the size of the field-of-view （FOV） observing the TC center, is proposed to modify the observed anomalies. Without other measurements, the comparison shows that the performance of the new algorithm is better than that of the traditional, physically-based algorithm. Furthermore, based on the correction algorithm, a new scheme, in which the brightness temperature anomalies at 31.4 GHz and 89 GHz accounting for precipitation effects are directly used as the predictors with those at 54.94 GHz and 55.5 GHz, is developed to estimate TC intensity in the western North Pacific basin. The collocated AMSU-A observations from NOAA-16 with the best track （BT） intensity data from the Japan Meteorological Agency （JMA） in 2002-2003 and in 2004 are used respectively to develop and validate regression coefficients. For the independent validation dataset, the scheme yields 8.4 hPa of the root mean square error and 6.6 hPa of the mean absolute error. For the 81 collocated cases in the western North Pacific basin and for the 24 collocated cases in the Atlantic basin, compared to the BT data, the standard deviations of the estimation differences of the results are 15% and 11% less than those of the CIMSS （Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison） TC intensity AMSU estimation products.

Recent Progress in Atmospheric Observation Research in China

Recent progress in atmospheric observation techniques, observational systems and their application in China are reviewed. According to different observational platforms, the review is presented in three sections, i.e., satellite remote sensing （SRS）, ground-based observation technologies and applications, and aircraft/balloon measurements. The section ＂satellite remote sensing＂ presents advances in SRS techniques, SRS of clouds and aerosols, and SRS of trace gases and temperature/moisture profiles. The section ＂groundbased observation technologies and applications＂ focuses on research such as lidar systems and applications, sun/sky radiometer and broadband radiation observations, weather radar and wind profilers, GPS measurements, and some new concept systems. The section ＂aircraft/balloon measurements＂ presents some newly developed aircraft- and balloon-based sounding techniques.

Cloud Base Height and Effective Cloud Emissivity Retrieval with Ground-Based Infrared Interferometer

Based on ground-based Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) observations in Shouxian, Anhui province, China, the authors retrieve the cloud base height (CBH) and effective cloud emissivity by using the minimum root-mean-square difference method. This method was originally developed for satellite remote sensing. The high-temporal-resolution retrieval results can depict the trivial variations of the zenith clouds continu-ously. The retrieval results are evaluated by comparing them with observations by the cloud radar. The comparison shows that the retrieval bias is smaller for the middle and low cloud, especially for the opaque cloud. When two layers of clouds exist, the retrieval results reflect the weighting radiative contribution of the multi-layer cloud. The retrieval accuracy is affected by uncertainties of the AERI radiances and sounding profiles, in which the role of uncertainty in the temperature profile is dominant.

Observation and study on the whole process of cloud-to-ground lightning using narrowband radio interferometer

A narrowband radio interferometer has been developed and used to locate the entire sources of VHF radiations from a negative cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning discharge which contains 19 strokes. This system uses five antennas to form an array consisting of short- and long-baselines along two or- thogonal directions. The system error which comes from frequency conversion is reduced by phase detection through direct high frequency amplifying. An interactive graphic analysis procedure is used to remove the fringe ambiguities which exist inherently in interferometry and to determine the direction of lightning radiation sources in two dimensions (azimuth and elevation) as a function of time at a time resolution of microsecond orders. With the developed system, the whole progression process in time and space of a lightning flash can be reconstructed. In this paper, combining the synchronous data of electric filed change and VHF radiation, the whole processes of an example negative CG flash have been studied in detail. It is found that the preliminary breakdown event of the CG flash started from negative charge region and exhibited firstly a downward pregression and then an upward propagation. There were very intense and continuous radiations during stepped leaders which became much stronger when the first return stroke began. In contrast, there were less and only discrete radiations during dart leaders. Stepped leader and dart leader may transform to each other depending on the state of the ionization of the path. The progression speed of initial stepped leaders was about 105 ms?1, while that was about 4.1×106 and 6.0×106 ms?1 for dart leaders and dart-stepped leaders, respectively. M events produced hook-shaped field changes accompanied by active burst of radiations at their begin- nings. Followed these active radiation processes, M events appeared to contact finally into conducting main discharge channels. The mean progression speed of M events was about 7×107 ms?1, greater than that of the dart leaders and dart-step leaders. K events and attempted leaders were essentially the same as dart leaders except that they could not reach the ground and initiate return strokes.

A Polarized Radiative Transfer Model Based on Successive Order of Scattering

Based on Successive Order of Scattering approach, a full Vector Radiative Transfer model （SOSVRT） for vertically inhomogeneous plane-parallel media has been developed. To overcome the computational burdens of convergence, a simple approximation technique by truncating scattering orders with a geometric series is used to reduce computational time. Analytical Fourier decomposition of phase matrix with three symmetry relationships and two mutual inverse operators have been implemented to further improve the computational efficiency. To improve the accuracy, a post-processing procedure is implemented to accurately interpolate the Stokes vector at arbitrary angles. Comparisons with the benchmarks for an atmosphere of randomly orientated oblate spheroids show excellent agreement for each Stokes parameter （within 0.1%）. SOSVRT has been tested for different atmospheric condition against RT3, which is based on doubling-adding method, and the results prove that SOSVRT is accurate and much more efficient in vector radiative transfer modeling, especially for optical thin atmosphere, which is the most common case in polarized radiative transfer simulations. SOSVRT is written in Fortran 90 and the code is freely accessible by contacting the author.

The Prediction of Non-stationary Climate Series Based on Empirical Mode Decomposition

This paper proposes a new approach which we refer to as ＂segregated prediction＂ to predict climate time series which are nonstationary. This approach is based on the empirical mode decomposition method （EMD）, which can decompose a time signal into a finite and usually small number of basic oscillatory components. To test the capabilities of this approach, some prediction experiments are carried out for several climate time series. The experimental results show that this approach can decompose the nonstationarity of the climate time series and segregate nonlinear interactions between the different mode components, which thereby is able to improve prediction accuracy of these original climate time series.

Retrieval of Aerosol Optical Properties over the Beijing Area Using POLDER/PARASOL Satellite Polarization Measurements

Aerosol optical properties over Beijing and Xianghe under several typical weather conditions （clear sky, light haze, heavy pollution and dust storm） are derived from POLDER （POLarization and Directionality of the Earth＇s Reflectances）/PARASOL （Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar） multi-directional, multi-spectral polarized signals using a more reliable retrieval algorithm as proposed in this paper. The results are compared with those of the operational retrieval algorithm of POLDER/PARASOL group and the ground-based AERONET （AErosol RObotic NETwork）/PHOTONS （PHOtometrie pour le Traitement Operational de Normalisation Satellitaire） measurements. It is shown that the aerosol optical parameters derived from the improved algorithm agree well with AERONET/PHOTONS measurement. The retrieval accuracies of aerosol optical thickness （AOT） and effective radius are 0.06 and 0.05 μm respectively, which are close to or better than the required accuracies （0.04 for AOT and 0.1 μm for effective radius） for estimating aerosol direct forcing.

Plasma Characteristic of Lightning Discharge Channel

The plasma characteristics of a lightning discharge channel are reviewed.The spectrum of the natural lightning is investigated by employing the slit-less spectrograph.It is found that the spectrum characteristics are closely related to the intensity of the lightning discharge.The lines in the lightning spectrum are classified into essential lines and characteristic lines,according to the characteristics of lightning spectra with different intensities.The characteristics of the lightning channel and the radiation of the lighting plasma are analyzed in the visible and infrared regions.It is shown that,the visible spectrum of lightning is determined by the radiation generated from the early stage to the development of lightning,while the near-infrared spectrum is determined by the radiation generated after current of lightning reaches the peak.The channel temperature and the electron density are calculated using the information obtained from the lightning spectrum.Both the temperature and the density decrease with the increasing length of lightning channel.Moreover,X-rays and neutrons are produced in the process of lighting mainly due to the pinch effects.

Retrieval of Water Vapor Profiles with Radio Occultation Measurements Using an Artificial Neural Network

A new method applying an artificial neural network （ANN） to retrieve water vapor profiles in the troposphere is presented. In this paper, a fully-connected, three-layer network based on the backpropagation algorithm is constructed. Month, latitude, altitude and bending angle are chosen as the input vectors and water vapor pressure as the output vector. There are 130 groups of occultation measurements from June to November 2002 in the dataset. Seventy pairs of bending angles and water vapor pressure profiles are used to train the ANN, and the sixty remaining pairs of profiles are applied to the validation of the retrieval. By comparing the retrieved profiles with the corresponding ones from the Information System and Data Center of the Challenging Mini-Satellite Payload for Geoscientific Research and Application （CHAMP-ISDC）, it can be concluded that the ANN is relatively convenient and accurate. Its results can be provided as the first guess for the iterative methods or the non-linear optimal estimation inverse method.

Statistics of the Tropopause Inversion Layer over Beijing

High resolution radiosonde data from Beijing, China in 2002 are used to study the strong tropopause inversion layer （TIL） in the extratropical regions in eastern Asia. The analysis, based on the tropopause- based mean （TB-mean） method, shows that the TIL over Beijing has similar features as over other sites in the same latitude in Northern America. The reduced values of buoyancy frequency in 13-17 km altitude in winter-spring are attributed to the higher occurrence frequency of the secondary tropopause in this season. In the monthly mean temperature profile relative to the secondary tropopause, there also exists a TIL with somewhat enhanced static stability directly over the secondary sharp thermal tropopause, and a 4 km thickness layer with reduced values of buoyancy frequency just below the tropopause, which corresponds to the 13-17 km layer in the first TB-mean thermal profile. In the monthly mean temperature profile relative to the secondary tropopause, a TIL also exists but it is not as strong. For individual cases, a modified definition of the TIL, focusing on the super stability and the small distance from the tropopause, is introduced. The analysis shows that the lower boundary of the newly defined TIL is about 0.42 km above the tropopause, and that it is higher in winter and lower in summer; the thickness of the TIL is larger in winter-spring.

Absorption Properties of Urban/Suburban Aerosols in China

The broadband diffuse radiation method is improved to retrieve the aerosol refractive index imaginary part （AIP） and broadband （400-1000 nm mean） single scattering albedo （SSA）. In this method, four sets of SSA selection criteria are proposed for quality control. The method is used to retrieve AIP, SSA and absorptive optical thickness （AbOT） from routine hourly-exposed pyrheliometer and paranometer measurements over 11 sites （meteorological observatories） in China during 1998-2003. Apart from one suburban site （Ejin Qi）, the other urban sites are all located around big or medium cities. As shown in the retrieval results, annual mean SSA during 1998-2003 changes from 0.941 （Wuhan） to 0.849 （Lanzhou）, and AIP from 0.0054 to 0.0203. The 11-site average annual mean SSA and AIP are 0.898 and 0.0119, respectively. SSA during winter is smaller for most sites. There is an evidently positive correlation between SSA and aerosol optical thickness （AOT） for all sites. There is also a positive correlation between SSA and relative humidity for most sites, but a negative correlation for a few sites, such as Kashi and ǚrǚmqi in Northwest China.

Aerosol Type Identification Using PARASOL Multichannel Polarized Data

PARASOL(Polarization & Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Sciences coupled with Observations from a Lidar) multi-channel and multi-directional polarized data for different aerosol types were compared.The PARASOL polarized radiance data at 490 nm,670 nm,and 865 nm increased with aerosol optical thickness(AOT) for fine-mode aerosols;however,the polarized radiances at 490 nm and 670 nm decreased as AOT increased for coarse dust aerosols.Thus,the variation of the polarized radiance with AOT can be used to identify fine or coarse particle-dominated aerosols.Polarized radiances at three wavelengths for fine-and coarse-mode aerosols were analyzed and fitted by linear regression.The slope of the line for 670 nm and 490 nm wavelength pairs is less than 0.35 for dust aerosols.However,the value for fine-mode aerosols is greater than 0.60.The Support Vector Machine method(SVM) based on 12 vector features was used to discriminate clear sky,coarse dust aerosols,fine-mode aerosols,and cloud.Two cases were given and validated by AErosol RObotic NETwork(AERONET) measurements,MODIS(Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) FMF(Fine Mode Fraction at 550 nm) images,PARASOL RGB(Red Green Blue) images,and CALIOP(Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization) VFM(Vertical Feature Mask) data.

A new method for retrieving equivalent cloud base height and equivalent emissivity by using the ground-based Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI)

In the paper, we propose a new method of identifying the clear sky based on the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI). Using the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility (AFM) dataset in Shouxian in 2008, we simulate the downwelling radiances on the surface in the 8-12m window region using Line-By-Line Radiative Transfer Model (LBLRTM), and compare the results with the AERI radiances. The differences larger (smaller) than 3mW (cm2 sr cm1 ) 1 suggest a cloudy (clear) sky. Meanwhile, we develop the new algorithms for retrieving the zenith equivalent cloud base height (CBH e ) and the equivalent emissivity (e), respectively. The retrieval methods are described as follows. (1) An infinitely thin and isothermal blackbody cloud is simulated by the LBLRTM. The cloud base height (H) is adjusted iteratively to satisfy the situation that the contribution of the blackbody to the downwelling radiance is equal to that of realistic cloud. The final H is considered as CBH e . The retrieval results indicate that the differences between the CBH e and observational cloud base height (CBH) are much smaller for thick low cloud, and increase with the increasing CBH. (2) An infinitely thin and isothermal gray body cloud is simulated by the LBLRTM, with the CBH specified as the observed value. The cloud base emissivity (c) is adjusted iteratively until the contribution of the gray body to the downwelling radiance is the same as that of realistic cloud. The corresponding gc is ge . The average ge for the low, middle, and high cloud is 0.967, 0.781, and 0.616 for the 50 cases, respectively. It decreases with the increasing CBH. The retrieval results will be useful for studying the role of cloud in the radiation budget in the window region and cloud parameterizations in the climate model.

Validation of the Modified Becker's Split-Window Approach for Retrieving Land Surface Temperature from AVHRR

To further verify the modified Becker＇s split-window approach for retrieving land surface temperature （LST） from long-term Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer （AVHRR） data, a cross-validation and a radiance-based （R-based） validation are performed and examined in this paper. In the cross-validation, 3481 LST data pairs are extracted from the AVttRR LST product retrieved with the modified Becker＇s approach and compared with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer （MODIS） LST product （MYDllA1） for the period 2002-2008, relative to the positions of 548 weather stations in China. The results show that in most cases, the AVHRR LST values are higher than the MYDllA1. When the AVHRR LSTs are adjusted with a linear regression, the values are close to the MYDllA1, showing a good linear relationship between the two datasets （R2 = 0.91）. In the R-based validation, comparison is made between AVHRR LST retrieved from the modified Becker＇s approach and the inversed LST from the Moderate Resolution Transmittance Model （MODTRAN） consolidated with observed temperature and humidity profiles at four radiosonde stations. The results show that the retrieved AVHRR LST deviates from the MODTRAN inversed LST by -1.3 （-2.5） K when the total water vapor amount is less （larger） than 20 mm. This provides useful hints for further improvement of the LST retrieval algorithms＇ accuracy and consistency.

Significant Variations of Surface Albedo during a Snowy Period at Xianghe Observatory,China

Surface albedo over typical types of surfaces in the North China Plain was observed using a Multi-field Albedo Observation System before and after several snowfalls from 13 to 27 February 2005. Dramatic variations of the surface albedos of bare land, a frozen pond, and withered grassland during that period were analyzed. Under cloudy sky, the mean surface albedo of bare land was about 0.23, but it immediately rose to 0.85 when the surface was covered by fresh snow. The albedo decreased gradually to normal levels afterwards. The melting processes were different depending on the characteristics of the underlying surfaces. For example, over grassland the surface albedo was relatively lower after snowfall, and as a result, more solar energy could be absorbed and consequently the snow melting process was accelerated. Significant variations of surface albedo cannot be easily captured by satellite observations; therefore, detailed measurements of surface albedo and related parameters are essential for determining the impact of snow on the energy budget of the Earth.