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A comparison of incoming solar radiation at marine and continental stations
Author(s) -
Dobson Fred W.,
Smith Stuart D.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49711548608
Subject(s) - insolation , environmental science , latitude , elevation (ballistics) , climatology , continental shelf , meteorology , atmospheric sciences , geology , oceanography , geography , geodesy , astronomy , physics
In modelling solar radiation from surface weather observations, different approaches have been successful with marine and with land‐based data. We apply a simple model to a marine and a mid‐latitude continental station to illustrate systematic differences in the dependence of the insolation on solar elevation, cloud, and season. Relative to the continental station, the marine station has less insolation at low solar elevations, particularly in winter, but more insolation at high solar elevations. Two mechanisms are discussed to explain these differences.