04/03074 On the potential change in solar radiation over the US due to increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases

As society continues advancing into the future, more energy is required to supply the increasing population and energy demands. Unfortunately, traditional forms of energy production through the burning of carbon-based fuels are dumping harmful pollutants into the environment, resulting in detrimental, and possibly irreversible, effects on our planet. The burning of coal and fossil fuels provides energy at the least monetary cost for countries like the US, but the price being paid through their negative impact of our atmosphere is difficult to quantify. A rapid shift to clean, alternative energy sources is critical in order to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. For alternative energy sources to replace traditional energy sources that produce greenhouse gases, they must be capable of providing energy at equal or greater rates and efficiencies, while still functioning at competitive prices. The main factors hindering the pursuit of alternative sources are their high initial costs and, for some, intermittency. The creation of electrical energy from natural sources like wind, water, and solar is very desirable since it produces no greenhouse gases and makes use of renewable sources—unlike fossil fuels. However, the planning and technology required to tap into these sources and transfer energy at the rate and consistency needed to supply our society comes at a higher price than traditional methods. These high costs are a result of the large-scale implementation of the state-of-the-art technologies behind the devices required for energy cultivation and delivery from these unorthodox sources. On the other hand, as fossil fuel sources become scarcer, the rising fuel costs drive overall costs up and make traditional methods less cost effective. The growing scarcity of fossil fuels and resulting pollutants stimulate the necessity to transition away from traditional energy production methods. Currently, the most common alternative energy technologies are solar photovoltaics (PVs), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal, wave, and nuclear. Because of government intervention in countries like the US and the absence of the need to restructure the electricity transmission system (due to the similarity in geographical requirements and consistency in power outputs for nuclear and traditional plants), nuclear energy is the most cost competitive energy technology that does not produce greenhouse gases. Through the proper use of nuclear fission electricity at high efficiencies could be produced without polluting our atmosphere. However, the initial capital required to erect nuclear plants dictates a higher cost over traditional methods. Therefore, the government is providing help with the high initial costs through loan guarantees, in order to stimulate the growth of low-emission energy production. This paper analyzes the proposal for the use of nuclear power as an intermediate step before an eventual transition to greater dependence on energy from wind, water, and solar (WWS) sources. Complete dependence on WWS cannot be achieved in the near future, within 20 years, because of the unavoidable variability of these sources and the required overhaul of the electricity transmission system. Therefore, we look to nuclear power in the time being to help provide predictable power as a means to reduce carbon emissions, while the other technologies are refined and gradually implemented in order to meet energy demand on a consistent basis.

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Climate Change and Aerosol Sciences

10.47260/jesge/1132 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Kehan Li

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Particulate Matter ◽

Environmental Policy ◽

Solar Radiation ◽

Greenhouse Gases ◽

Atmospheric Aerosols ◽

Environmental Policies ◽

Modern Times

Climate change is of great importance in modern times and global warming is considered as a significant part of climate change. It is proved that human’s emissions such as greenhouse gases are one of the main sources of global warming (IPCC, 2018). Apart from greenhouse gases, there is another kind of matter being released in quantity via emissions from industries and transportations and playing an important role in global warming, which is aerosol. However, atmospheric aerosols have the net effect of cooling towards global warming. In this paper, climate change with respect to global warming is briefly introduced and the role of aerosols in the atmosphere is emphasized. Besides, properties of aerosols including dynamics and thermodynamics of aerosols as well as interactions with solar radiation are concluded. In the end, environmental policies and solutions are discussed. Keywords: Climate change, Global warming, Atmospheric aerosols, Particulate matter, Radiation, Environmental policy.

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Frequency Distributions for Hourly and Daily Clearness Indices

Solar Engineering 2001: (FORUM 2001: Solar Energy — The Power to Choose) ◽

10.1115/sed2001-130 ◽

2001 ◽

Author(s):

Manuel Ibañez ◽

William A. Beckman ◽

Sanford A. Klein

Keyword(s):

Solar Radiation ◽

Recent Literature ◽

Weather Data ◽

Clearness Index ◽

Frequency Distributions ◽

The Us ◽

Daily Frequency ◽

Better Than ◽

Exponential Probability

Abstract The clearness index for hourly and daily radiation is an important parameter in describing solar radiation. Liu and Jordan demonstrated that the monthly average daily clearness index could be used to predict the long-term distribution of daily solar radiation in a month. This paper reviews recent literature on the prediction of hourly and daily frequency distributions and cumulative frequency distributions of clearness indices. Ten years of measured weather data for six cities in the US are used to investigate the nature of the hourly and daily frequency distributions. A second set of ten years of data for six cities is used to verify the predictions. A bi-exponential probability density function is proposed that fits the observed bimodal nature of the data better than existing models. A case is made for the function being universal.

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Technical Note: Particulate reactive oxygen species concentrations and their association with environmental conditions in an urban, subtropical climate

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-14-5061-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 5061-5080

Author(s):

S. S. Khurshid ◽

J. A. Siegel ◽

K. A. Kinney

Keyword(s):

Reactive Oxygen Species ◽

Solar Radiation ◽

Environmental Conditions ◽

Cell Damage ◽

Linear Regression Analysis ◽

Reactive Oxygen ◽

Technical Note ◽

Subtropical Climate ◽

Oxygen Species ◽

The Us

Abstract. Reactions between hydrocarbons and ozone or hydroxyl radicals lead to the formation of oxidized species, including reactive oxygen species (ROS), and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) in the troposphere. ROS can be carried deep into the lungs by small aerodynamic particles where they can cause oxidative stress and cell damage. While environmental studies have focused on ROS in the gas-phase and rainwater, it is also important to determine concentrations of ROS on respirable particles. Samples of PM2.5 collected over 3 h at midday on 40 days during November 2011 and September 2012 show that the particulate ROS concentration in Austin, Texas ranged from a minimum value of 0.02 nmol H2O2 (m3 air)−1 in December to 3.81 nmol H2O2 (m3 air)−1 in September. Results from correlation tests and linear regression analysis on particulate ROS concentrations and environmental conditions (which included ozone and PM2.5 concentrations, temperature, relative humidity, precipitation and solar radiation) indicate that ambient particulate ROS is significantly influenced by the ambient ozone concentration, temperature and incident solar radiation. Particulate ROS concentrations measured in this study were in the range reported by other studies in the US, Taiwan and Singapore. This study is one of the first to assess seasonal variations in particulate ROS concentrations and helps explain the influence of environmental conditions on particulate ROS concentrations.

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Laser heterodyne radiometers (LHR) for in situ ground-based remote sensing of greenhouse gases in the atmospheric column

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-22368 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jingjing Wang ◽

Fengjiao Shen ◽

Tu Tan ◽

Zhensong Cao ◽

Xiaoming Gao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Radiation ◽

Greenhouse Gases ◽

Global Climate ◽

Tunable Laser ◽

Local Oscillator ◽

Laser Source ◽

Atmospheric Column ◽

Remote Measurements ◽

Laser Heterodyne ◽

Regional Air Quality

Measurements of vertical concentration profiles of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is extremely important for our understanding of regional air quality and global climate change trends. In this context, laser heterodyne radiometer (LHR) technique has been developed [1-5] for ground-based remote measurements of GHGs in the atmospheric column.Solar radiation undergoing absorption by multi-species in the atmosphere is coupled into a LHR instrument where the sunlight is mixed with a local oscillator (LO), being usually a tunable laser source, in a fast photodetector. Beating note at radio frequency (RF) resulted from this photomixing contains absorption information of the LO-targeted molecules. Scanning the LO frequency across the target molecular absorption lines allows one to extract the corresponding absorption features from the total absorption of the solar radiation by all molecules in the atmospheric column. Near-IR (~1.5 &#181;m) and mid-IR (~8 &#181;m) [6] LHRs have been recently developed in the present work. Field campaigns have been performed on the roof of the platform of IRENE in Dunkerque (51.05&#176;N/2.34&#176;E).The developed LHR instruments as well as the preliminary results of their applications to the measurements of CH4, N2O, CO2 (including 13CO2/12CO2), H2O vapor (and its isotopologue HDO) in the atmospheric column will be presented and discussed.Acknowledgments The authors thank the &#64257;nancial supports from the LABEX CaPPA project (ANR-10-LABX005), the MABCaM (ANR-16-CE04-0009) and the MULTIPAS (ANR-16-CE04-0012) contracts, as well as the CPER CLIMIBIO program. S. F. thanks the program Labex CaPPA and the "P&#244;le M&#233;tropolitain de la C&#244;te d&#8217;Opale" (PMCO) for the PhD fellowship support.References [1] R. T. Menzies, and R. K. Seals, Science 197 (1977) 1275-1277[2] D. Weidmann, T. Tsai, N. A. Macleod, and G. Wysocki, Opt. Lett. 36 (2011) 1951-1953[3] E. L. Wilson, M. L. McLinden, and J. H. Miller, Appl. Phys. B 114 (2014) 385-393[4] A. Rodin, A. Klimchuk, A. Nadezhdinskiy, D. Churbanov, and M. Spiridonov, Opt. Express 22 (2014) 13825-13834[5] J. Wang, G. Wang, T. Tan, G. Zhu, C. Sun, Z. CAO, W. Chen, and X. Gao, Opt. Express 27 (2019) 9600-9619[6] F. Shen, P. Jeseck, Y. Te, T. Tan, X. Gao, E. Fertein, and W. Chen, Geophys. Res. Abstracts, 20 (2018) EGU2018-79

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