Solar surface irradiance is an important variable in many different fields, e.g., climate monitoring and solar energy. Remote sensing data are nowadays well established and the only observational data source in many regions of the world. Aerosols significantly affect the clear sky radiation and hence also the all sky radiation. In order to achieve the optimal accuracy for surface radiation, inf...

The quantification of transmission of solar energy is important for assessment of ocean radiant heating and primary productivity. Upper ocean physical processes and optical parameters have been shown to affect solar transmission through the alteration of the in-water solar attenuation coefficient and the sea surface albedo. In the open ocean, models indicate that cloud cover, solar zenith angle...

The recent decades have seen the increase in demand for reliable and clean form of electricity derived from renewable energy sources. One such example is solar power. The challenge remains to maximize the capture of the rays from the sun for conversion into electricity. This paper presents fabrication and installation of a solar panel mount with a dual-axis solar tracking controller. This is do...

Solar radiation is a critical driver of many processes on the earth’s surface. It is an important parameter in ecological process modelling, hydrological modelling and biophysical modelling. However, one of the reasons for solar radiation not that widely being utilised in process models is that it is a difficult parameter to measure for all locations, unlike rainfall that can be measured at sam...

Geographic observation of the increased mortality of some cancers at higher latitudes has led to a hypothesis that vitamin D produced after exposure to solar radiation has anti-carcinogenic effects. However, it is unclear whether such association would be observed in countries like Japan, where fish consumption, and therefore dietary vitamin D intake, is high. Pearson correlation coefficients w...

The major objective of this study is to develop an integrated orbit, attitude, and structural control system architecture for very large Space Solar Power Satellites (SSPS) in geosynchronous orbit. This study focuses on the 1.2-GW “Abacus” SSPS concept characterized by a 3.2 × 3.2 km solar-array platform, a 500-m diameter microwave beam transmitting antenna, and a 500 × 700 m earth-tracking ref...

The paper presents a solar radiation monitoring system, using two scientificpyranometers and an on-line computer home-made data acquisition system. The firstpyranometer measures the global solar radiation and the other one, which is shaded,measure the diffuse radiation. The values of total and diffuse solar radiation arecontinuously stored into a database on a server. Original software was crea...

Assessment of heat gain in man caused by solar radiation is one of the most important problems in research of the human heat balance outdoors. The purpose of the present study was to investigate a new method for estimation of solar heat income. Absorption of short wave radiation (direct, diffuse and reflected) was measured with an ellipsoid sensor representing a simple, physical model of man. M...

The aim of this study is estimating solar radiation on building roofs in complex mountain landscape areas. A multi-scale solar radiation estimation methodology is proposed that combines 3D data ranging from regional scale to the architectural one. Both the terrain and the nearby building shadowing effects are considered. The approach is modular and several alternative roof models, obtained by s...