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Arid Land Geography ›› 2022, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (3): 734-745.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2021.338

• Climate Change • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Estimation of surface solar radiation and analysis of its influencing factors in the Tizinafu River Basin

ZHANG Shuhua1(),LI Xingong2(),LI Qihu1,WANG Mohan3   

  1. 1. College of Geomatics, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710054, Shaanxi, China
    2. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
    3. Hebei Institute of Geological Survey, Shijiazhuang 050081, Hebei, China
  • Received:2021-07-26 Revised:2021-11-02 Online:2022-05-25 Published:2022-05-31
  • Contact: Xingong LI E-mail:shuhuazhang@xust.edu.cn;lixi@ku.edu

Abstract:

Solar radiation is the main energy for surface energy balance. It is more complex to calculate the solar radiation over mountain areas than flat areas because of the complex terrain. We calculate the solar radiation in space and time for the Tizinafu River Basin that located northwest of the Tibetan Plateau in China. The seasonal solar radiation in space was analyzed on the basis of the calculations and we also discussed how the terrain and cloud affect the spatial pattern of solar radiation in the study area. The results show that sky view factor (SVF) has a significant connection with solar radiation. We also found that the annual solar radiation decreased first and then increased with elevation-increasing. That solar radiation did not increase with elevation-increasing was caused by surrounding terrain effect because the trend of the SVF and elevation change is similar to that of solar radiation and elevation change. As a result, the topographic effect with self-shading and surrounding-shading should be considered in the calculation of solar radiation over complex terrain. In addition, the cloud frequency also had a significant connection with solar radiation in space. However, the contribution of elevation, slope, aspect, SVF, and cloud to solar radiation was evaluated and the results demonstrated that SVF, elevation, and cloud had a significant effect on solar radiation. All these indicate that it is necessary to consider the integrated effect of terrain and cloud for solar radiation modeling over mountain terrain. This study provided more spatial and temporal details about surface solar radiation over mountain terrain and is important for solar radiation modeling and the study of ecohydrological processes.

Key words: mountain area, solar radiation, cloud, terrain