[MCN] Hi school teens learn atmospheric, climate, solar energy science

[Lance Olsen]

Earth's Future - an AGU journal

Integrating solar energy and climate research into science education
Alan K. Betts, James Hamilton, Sam Ligon, Ann Marie Mahar

First Published: 6 January 2016

KEY POINTS
	*Data from solar power arrays are a new resource
	*Solar flux data are useful for cloud, power, and climate analyses
	*Solar data provide local research information for science education

Abstract: Open Access, Bold Added
http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/agu/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2328-4277/

This paper analyzes multi-year records of solar 
flux and climate data from two solar power sites 
in Vermont. We show the inter-annual differences 
of temperature, wind, panel solar flux, 
electrical power production, and cloud cover. 
Power production has a linear relation to a 
dimensionless measure of the transmission of 
sunlight through the cloud field. The difference 
between panel and air temperatures reaches 24°C 
with high solar flux and low wind speed. High 
panel temperatures that occur in summer with low 
wind speeds and clear skies can reduce power 
production by as much as 13%. The intercomparison 
of two sites 63 km apart shows that while 
temperature is highly correlated on daily 
(R2=0.98) and hourly (R2=0.94) timescales, the 
correlation of panel solar flux drops markedly 
from daily (R2=0.86) to hourly (R2=0.63) 
timescales. Minimum temperatures change little 
with cloud cover, but the diurnal temperature 
range shows a nearly linear increase with falling 
cloud cover to 16°C under nearly clear skies, 
similar to results from the Canadian Prairies. 
The availability of these new solar and climate 
datasets allows local student groups, a Rutland 
High School team here, to explore the coupled 
relationships between climate, clouds, and 
renewable power production. As our society makes 
major changes in our energy infrastructure in 
response to climate change, it is important that 
we accelerate the technical education of high 
school students using real-world data.
From the text:
This analysis by a Rutland High School team uses 
data from the GMP solar educational site on Route 
7N in Rutland, Vermont for the years 2010-2013 
and the comparison with similar data for 
2011-2013 from the Ferrisburgh Solar Farm about 
63km to the north. After discussing the data 
processing, we will address both climate and 
engineering questions. We first show the 
inter-annual differences of temperature, wind, 
panel solar flux, electrical power production, 
and cloud cover. Then, we explore the dependence 
of power generation on the solar flux, which in 
turn depends on cloud cover and snow covering the 
panels as well as the impact of solar flux and 
wind on panel temperature. Then, we explore how 
the diurnal range of temperature depends on cloud 
cover. Because distributed solar flux data has 
become available only recently with the 
installation of solar arrays, these analyses have 
a research fascination for students. At the same 
time, they give important insight into how 
climate, clouds, and renewable power are part of 
a coupled system.

Traditionally, measurements of temperature and 
precipitation have been used to characterize 
climate because they are routinely available. 
However, the surface daily solar flux is 
critically important to the diurnal climate 
[Betts et al., 2013, 2015]. Historically, only 
hours of daily sunshine were estimated at climate 
stations. Now, with the widespread deployment of 
distributed solar arrays, we are entering a new 
era for analysis. Some of this analysis was 
inspired by an exceptional long-term dataset from 
the Canadian Prairies, which recorded opaque 
cloud every hour from which the daily solar flux 
can be calculated [Betts et al., 2013, 2015]. In 
a broader context, cloud and radiation 
observations play a critical role in improving 
our understanding of the climate system. A major 
uncertainty in our weather forecast and climate 
models has long been the model computation of the 
cloud fields [Senior and Mitchell, 1993] and the 
radiative forcing that depends on them. So these 
new data from solar arrays, in addition to 
inspiring a new generation of students, will 
deepen our observational understanding of the 
impact of clouds on climate.

Read full article or get your pdf here:
http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/agu/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2328-4277/

==============================================================
"Although we are only at an early stage in the 
projected trends of global warming,
ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible."

Walther et al, "Ecological responses to recent climate change."
Nature, March 28, 2002
===============================================================
"Š. the earth's atmosphere is so thoroughly mixed 
and so rapidly recycled through the biosphere
that the next breath you inhale will contain 
atoms exhaled by Jesus at Gethsemane and Adolf 
Hitler
at Munich."

Preston Cloud and Aharon Gibor.   "The Oxygen Cycle." 
Scientific American, September 1970

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