Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

On the Choice of Average Solar Zenith Angle

On the Choice of Average Solar Zenith Angle Idealized climate modeling studies often choose to neglect spatiotemporal variations in solar radiation, but doing so comes with an important decision about how to average solar radiation in space and time. Since both clear-sky and cloud albedo are increasing functions of the solar zenith angle, one can choose an absorption-weighted zenith angle that reproduces the spatial- or time-mean absorbed solar radiation. Calculations are performed for a pure scattering atmosphere and with a more detailed radiative transfer model and show that the absorption-weighted zenith angle is usually between the daytime-weighted and insolation-weighted zenith angles but much closer to the insolation-weighted zenith angle in most cases, especially if clouds are responsible for much of the shortwave reflection. Use of daytime-average zenith angle may lead to a high bias in planetary albedo of approximately 3%, equivalent to a deficit in shortwave absorption of approximately 10 W m −2 in the global energy budget (comparable to the radiative forcing of a roughly sixfold change in CO 2 concentration). Other studies that have used general circulation models with spatially constant insolation have underestimated the global-mean zenith angle, with a consequent low bias in planetary albedo of approximately 2%–6% or a surplus in shortwave absorption of approximately 7–20 W m −2 in the global energy budget. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences American Meteorological Society

On the Choice of Average Solar Zenith Angle

Download PDF
10 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/american-meteorological-society/on-the-choice-of-average-solar-zenith-angle-8fZt2600Rg
Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 American Meteorological Society
ISSN
0022-4928
eISSN
1520-0469
DOI
10.1175/JAS-D-13-0392.1
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Idealized climate modeling studies often choose to neglect spatiotemporal variations in solar radiation, but doing so comes with an important decision about how to average solar radiation in space and time. Since both clear-sky and cloud albedo are increasing functions of the solar zenith angle, one can choose an absorption-weighted zenith angle that reproduces the spatial- or time-mean absorbed solar radiation. Calculations are performed for a pure scattering atmosphere and with a more detailed radiative transfer model and show that the absorption-weighted zenith angle is usually between the daytime-weighted and insolation-weighted zenith angles but much closer to the insolation-weighted zenith angle in most cases, especially if clouds are responsible for much of the shortwave reflection. Use of daytime-average zenith angle may lead to a high bias in planetary albedo of approximately 3%, equivalent to a deficit in shortwave absorption of approximately 10 W m −2 in the global energy budget (comparable to the radiative forcing of a roughly sixfold change in CO 2 concentration). Other studies that have used general circulation models with spatially constant insolation have underestimated the global-mean zenith angle, with a consequent low bias in planetary albedo of approximately 2%–6% or a surplus in shortwave absorption of approximately 7–20 W m −2 in the global energy budget.

Journal

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences – American Meteorological Society

Published: Dec 6, 2013

References

  • Tropical climate regimes and global climate sensitivity in a simple setting
    Barsugli
  • Mechanisms of marine low cloud sensitivity to idealized climate perturbations: A single-LES exploration extending the CGILS cases
    Bretherton
  • Atmospheric radiative transfer modeling: A summary of the AER codes
    Clough
  • Atmospheric and surface contributions to planetary albedo
    Donohoe
  • Parameterization of the radiative properties of cirrus clouds
    Fu