Bringing the Sun Down to Earth is intended for teachers, students, and anyone who wants to understand their environment. It provides a unique perspective to monitoring the role of the sun and Earth’s atmosphere in maintaining our planet as a place hospitable to advanced life as we understand it. The book first presents some science background about the sun and Earth’s atmosphere and then describes the kinds of measurements that can be made with inexpensive equipment to study how solar radiation interacts with the atmosphere on its way to Earth’s surface. Such measurements are critical to understanding the forces that will modify Earth’s climate during the 21st century.
The book describes in detail how to design, build, calibrate, and use inexpensive instruments for measuring solar radiation, ranging from total radiation from the entire sky to narrow spectral bands of radiation travelling along a path directly from the sun. Students and their teachers will learn a great deal about weather, the seasons, and the atmosphere, and they will develop a much better understanding of how to measure the physical world around them. When these instruments are calibrated and used properly, they can be used for serious research that produces results comparable to data from other ground-based sources provided by the science community.
Author(s): David R. Brooks
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 169
Contents......Page 9
Preface......Page 5
1. Introduction......Page 12
2.1 Earth's Sun......Page 16
2.2 Earth's Atmosphere......Page 18
3.1 The Distribution of Solar Radiation......Page 24
3.2.1 Full-Sky Instruments......Page 28
3.2.2 Direct Sunlight Instruments......Page 29
3.2.3 Broadband Detectors......Page 30
3.2.4 Spectrally Selective Detectors......Page 31
3.3.1 Total Solar Radiation......Page 32
3.3.2 Aerosols......Page 35
3.3.3 Photosynthetically Active Radiation......Page 39
3.3.4 Water Vapor......Page 40
3.3.5 Ultraviolet Radiation......Page 42
3.3.6 Surface Reflectance......Page 44
3.4 Making the Transition from Ideas to Measurements......Page 45
4.1.1 Choosing and Characterizing a Broadband Detector for a Pyranometer......Page 47
4.1.2 Calibrating and Interpreting Pyranometers......Page 56
4.1.3 Applications......Page 62
4.2 Using Light-Emitting Diodes as Inexpensive Spectrally Selective Detectors......Page 65
4.3.1 Designing an LED-Based PAR Detector......Page 68
4.3.2 Calibrating and Interpreting a PAR Detector......Page 69
4.4.1 Designing a UV Radiometer......Page 70
4.4.2 Calibrating and Interpreting Data from a UV-A Radiometer......Page 72
4.5.1 Designing a Two-Channel Reflectometer......Page 77
4.5.2 Calibrating and Interpreting Reflectance Measurements......Page 78
5.1.1 Designing an LED-Based Visible Light Sun Photometer......Page 81
5.1.2 Calibrating and Using a Sun Photometer......Page 85
5.1.3 Applications......Page 91
5.2.1 Designing a Near-Infrared Sun Photometer for Detecting Water Vapor......Page 92
5.2.2 Calibrating and Interpreting a Water Vapor Sun Photometer......Page 94
5.2.3 Applications......Page 99
5.3.1 Designing a Fixture for Measuring the Solar Aureole......Page 100
5.3.2 Interpreting Aureole Images......Page 103
6. Concluding Remarks......Page 107
Appendix 1: List of Symbols......Page 110
Appendix 2: Planck's Equation for Blackbody Radiation......Page 114
Appendix 3: Design Your Own Planet......Page 116
Appendix 4: Where Is the Sun?......Page 121
Appendix 5: A Simple Model of Sunlight Transmission Through the Atmosphere......Page 129
Appendix 6: Using a Data Logger......Page 132
Appendix 7: Building a Transimpedance Amplifier for Converting Current to Voltage......Page 136
Appendix 8: Calculating the Ångstrom Exponent and Turbidity Coefficient......Page 141
References......Page 143
Color Plates......Page 147
B......Page 155
D......Page 156
I......Page 157
M......Page 158
P......Page 159
S......Page 160
W......Page 162
Z......Page 163
