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SRML Glossary "M"
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
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The general
climate of a large region such as the Rocky
Mountains or the Northern Great Plains.
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A unit of
power equal to 1,000,000 (106) Watts.
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The bounds that should be placed on a measured value because of uncertainties in the
measurement. If there are several factors pertaining to the measurement, such as
voltage bias and temperature bias and precision of measurement scale,
the total measurement uncertainty can be difficult to calculate and may be larger than
the largest individual uncertainty of any one factor depending on the sensitivity of
the measurement to the significant factors. There is no such thing as a perfect
measurement, although some measurements are so precise that errors are negligible.
Solar irradiance measurements are notoriously unreliable with the best methods (1% to
3% uncertainty, which means that an "excellent" method can produce results that may
differ as much as 50 W/m2), and can become worthless (10% to 30% uncertainty)
with careless methods.
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The climate
that is peculiar to a small natural feature such as a hill or a small lake.
This climate tends to be different from the general climate of the region
in predictable ways. Statements such as "it always rains more in Hunter's
Glen in the spring" or "it snows more at the airport than downtown" are
statements about mesoclimates.
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The study of the atmosphere.
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The METeorological/STATistical
solar irradiance model developed to produce the 1961-1990 National
Solar Radiation Data Base. METSTAT uses meteorological inputs such as
cloud cover and precipitable
water to produce a nominal value of solar irradiance, and randomly varies
this value via statistical tables derived from measured solar irradiance
data. METSTAT produces hourly solar irradiance data sets that are intended
to behave like observed data, although the randomizer tends to guarantee
that there will not be an hour-by-hour match of measured data to METSTAT-derived
data.
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The local
climate near the ground that is peculiar to
a small area (usually, the radius is less than a kilometer, and can be as
small as a centimeter). A microclimate region is defined by changes in behavior
of the atmosphere's surface boundary layer and not by obvious physical features.
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The scattering
of solar radiation by (mathematically spherical) particles in the atmosphere
which have an approximate size of the wavelength of light, analyzed by Gustav
Mie. While Rayleigh scattering explains
the blue sky, Mie scattering explains why wet, coastal skies are whiter
than dry, mountainous skies.
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A specific
instance of bright sunshine duration,
the number of minutes per hour during which the sun casts an obvious shadow
or when a Campbell-Stokes
sunshine recorder is recording, usually above 210 W/m2.
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A way to represent a system for the purposes of reproducing, simplifying, analyzing, or
understanding it. The standard representation in the
Solar Resource Data and Tools is in the computer
model, but models can be made of any substance such as clay, paper, abstract mathematics,
or concepts.
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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
© 2022, UO Solar Radiation Monitoring
Laboratory.
Last
revised: April 3, 2022.
Home page URL: solardata.uoregon.edu |