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energy sci</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">Earth's Future - an AGU
journal</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>Integrating solar energy and
climate research into science education</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">Alan K. Betts, James Hamilton, Sam
Ligon, Ann Marie Mahar</font><br>
<font face="Lucida Grande"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">First Published: 6 January
2016</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>KEY POINTS</b></font></div>
<div><font
face="Lucida Grande"><x-tab>
</x-tab>*Data from solar power arrays are a new
resource</font></div>
<div><font
face="Lucida Grande"><x-tab>
</x-tab>*Solar flux data are useful for cloud, power, and climate
analyses</font></div>
<div><font
face="Lucida Grande"><x-tab>
</x-tab>*Solar data provide local research information for science
education</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>Abstract: Open Access, Bold
Added</b></font></div>
<div><font
face="Lucida Grande"
>http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/agu/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)232<span
></span>8-4277/</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1">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 (<i>R</i>2=0.98) and hourly
(<i>R</i>2=0.94) timescales, the correlation of panel solar flux drops
markedly from daily (<i>R</i>2=0.86) to hourly (<i>R</i>2=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<b> local student groups, a Rutland
High School team here, to explore the coupled relationships between
climate, clouds, and renewable power production</b>. As our society
makes major changes in our energy infrastructure in response to
climate change,<b> it is important that we accelerate the technical
education of high school students using real-world
data.</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>From the text:</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>This analysis by a Rutland High
School team</b> 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.</font><br>
<font face="Lucida Grande"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">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.</font></div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>Read full article or get your pdf here:</b></div>
<div><font
face="Lucida Grande"
>http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/agu/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)232<span
></span>8-4277/</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style"
color="#000000"
>==============================================================<br>
"Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of
global warming,</font></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" color="#000000">ecological
responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible."<br>
<br>
Walther et al, "Ecological responses to recent climate
change."</font></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" color="#000000"><i>Nature</i>,
March 28, 2002</font></div>
<div><font face="Bookman Old Style"
color="#000000"
>===============================================================</font
></div>
<div><font color="#1A1A1A">"Š. the earth's atmosphere is so
thoroughly mixed and so rapidly recycled through the
biosphere</font></div>
<div><font color="#1A1A1A">that the next breath you inhale will
contain atoms exhaled by Jesus at Gethsemane and Adolf
Hitler</font></div>
<div><font color="#1A1A1A">at Munich."<br>
<br>
Preston Cloud and Aharon Gibor. "The Oxygen
Cycle." </font></div>
<div><font color="#1A1A1A">Scientific American, September
1970</font></div>
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