UO Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory

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SRML Glossary — "I"

Special thanks to NREL

We'd like to thank the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for making available to us their glossary, which is the basis of ours. We've edited and reformatted it, and linked it to our Web pages, and we'll continue to add our own specialized terms, illustrations, and examples. Please note that the Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory takes full responsibility for any inaccuracies that may occur.

Links to other glossary sections:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


IEA
 
  The International Energy Agency, an autonomous agency linked to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
IEEE
 
  The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
Illuminance
 
  Solar radiation in the visible region of the solar spectrum to which the human eye responds.
Incident Angle
 
  The angle that a ray (of solar energy, for example) makes with a line perpendicular to the surface. For example, a surface that directly faces the sun has a solar angle of incidence of zero, but if the surface is parallel to the sun (for example, sunrise striking a horizontal rooftop), the angle of incidence is 90°. The figure accompanying the description of airmass illustrates a solar angle of incidence of 48.2° to a horizontal surface.
Incident Radiation
 
  Incoming radiation; i. e., radiation that strikes a surface.
Infrared Radiation
 
  Radiation with wavelengths greater than those of the visible light (at about 8000 Angstroms or 800 nanometers(nm)) but shorter than those of microwaves (at about 1,000,000 Angstroms or 800,000 nm). Infrared radiation is associated with heat energy.
Insolation
 
  Solar radiation on the surface of the Earth. This term has been generally replaced by solar irradiance because of the confusion of the word with insulation.
Inversion
 
  Typically, a temperature inversion, or a zone in the atmosphere in which the temperature increases with altitude, instead of the expected decrease. In general, an inversion is any reversal of the normal trend of the property of an atmospheric substance with respect to altitude.
Interferometer
 
  An instrument for determining the spectral distribution of irradiance. A light interferometer divides a beam of light into two or more beams and brings the beams back together. The recombined beams shine on a screen or another object like a detector surface. The resulting interference fringes can be used to determine the spectral nature of light.
Irradiance
 
  The rate at which radiant energy arrives at a specific area of surface during a specific time interval. This is known as radiant flux density. A typical unit is W/m2.
   
Links to other glossary sections:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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© 2000, UO Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory.
Last revised: December 11, 2000.


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