Estimating solar radiation on mountain slopes

✍ Scribed by Lloyd W. Swift; Kenneth R. Knoerr

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1973
• Weight: 441 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-1571
• DOI: 10.1016/0002-1571(73)90029-0

✦ Synopsis

The amount of solar irradiation on a mountain slope is an important parameter for describing the climatology of a sloping site, but measurements of such radiation are not easily obtained. Daily totals of solar irradiation can be estimated by using published tables of potential solar irradiation if the effects of atmospheric transmissivity and cloud cover are included. Daily totals of solar irradiation (K~s) were estimated as:

where Sps and Sp are the table values of potential solar irradiation for a slope and for a horizontal surface and KS is the daily total of global solar radiation measured on a horizontal surface at a site near enough to have the same cloud cover as the mountain slope. A test of this method shows that valid estimates of solar radiation input were obtained for two opposite-facing slopes.