[1] During the 20th century, solar activity increased in magnitude to a so-called grand maximum. It is probable that this high level of solar activity is at or near its end. It is of great interest whether any future reduction in solar activity could have a significant impact on climate that could partially offset the projected anthropogenic warming. Observations and reconstructions of solar ac...

We propose and analyze a spatioetemporal correlation method to improve forecast performance of solar irradiance using gridded satellite-derived global horizontal irradiance (GHI) data. Forecast models are developed for seven locations in California to predict 1-h averaged GHI 1, 2 and 3 h ahead of time. The seven locations were chosen to represent a diverse set of maritime, mediterranean, arid ...

The solar Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) on NASA's SORCE mission began taking data in early 2003. This instrument continues the 25-year record of space-borne, total solar irradiance (TSI) measurements, with improved precision from its new technologies and calibration methods. We present an overview of the TIM instrument, including the design features enabling its high precision, and we present ...

Solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment on existing building roof-tops has proven to be one of the most viable large scale resources of sustainable energy for urban areas. While there have been many studies on roof-top integrated PV systems at building and neighborhood scale, estimating the PV energy potential through the available roof surface area in large scale, however, remains a challenge. This...

Knowledge of the solar irradiance background is of great importance to solar and stellar physics. In particular, its contribution to the solar oscillations power spectrum is highly relevant as it represents the ultimate limit to the sensitivity of solar oscillations’ observations. An analysis of the power spectra of the solar photometric data coming from four different instruments two space-bor...

S urface solar radiation is a major component of the surface heat budget. Diurnally and seasonally averaged over the entire Earth, 188 ± 7 W m–2 reach the surface to be either absorbed (~165 ± 6 W m–2) or reflected back to the atmosphere (Trenberth et al. 2009; Stephens et al. 2012). Changes in the amount of solar radiation received at the surface are intrinsically tied to the total amount of p...

The most recent "grand minimum" of solar activity, the Maunder minimum (MM, 1650-1710), is of great interest both for understanding the solar dynamo and providing insight into possible future heliospheric conditions. Here, we use nearly 30 years of output from a data-constrained magnetohydrodynamic model of the solar corona to calibrate heliospheric reconstructions based solely on sunspot obser...

3D cloud effects influencing the surface solar irradiance are investigated using the radiative transfer model SHDOM. The calculations are motivated by improving the Heliosat method which is used for the estimation of surface solar irradiance from satellite data. The modelled results lead to the assumption that it is possible to find a correction for moderate viewing and solar geometries for the...

Method for aerosol refractive index estimation with ground based polarization measurement data is proposed. The proposed method uses a dependency of refractive index on p and s polarized down welling solar diffuse irradiance. It is much easy to measure p and s polarized irradiance on the ground with a portable measuring instrument rather than solar direct, diffuse and aureole measurements. Thro...