News tagged with sunlight
Probing a link from Sahara dust to climate change
Qilong Min, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate and Professor with the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center (ASRC) at the University at Albany is developing innovative ways to measure how dust in the Sahara Desert ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
13 hours ago |
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Solar start-ups set new efficiency records
(PhysOrg.com) -- Although Alta Devices and Semprius make different types of solar panels, both start-ups have been breaking records in the past few days. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Alta Devices announced that ...
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Feb 08, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (15) |
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Are European kids getting enough vitamin D? Winter weather reopens the debate
The cold snap has well and truly set in across much of Europe, and as temperatures fall, watching our health becomes increasingly more crucial. Keeping our vitamin D levels up during the winter months has long been lauded ...
Feb 06, 2012 |
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Tree rings may underestimate climate response to volcanic eruptions: study
Some climate cooling caused by past volcanic eruptions may not be evident in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature change because large enough temperature drops lead to greatly shortened or even absent growing seasons, ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 05, 2012 |
3.7 / 5 (3) |
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Lower levels of sunlight link to allergy and eczema
Increased exposure to sunlight may reduce the risk of both food allergies and eczema in children, according to a new scientific study published this week.
Feb 03, 2012 |
4 / 5 (2) |
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Plant power: The ultimate way to 'go green'?
Researchers are turning to plants and solar power in the search for new sources of renewable and sustainable energy that can support the transition from rapidly depleting fossil fuels to a bio-based society. An article published ...
Feb 02, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (6) |
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Study supports role of quantum effects in photosynthesis
(PhysOrg.com) -- Until a few years ago, photosynthesis seemed to be a straightforward and well-understood process in which plants and other organisms use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugars, ...
Jan 25, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (13) |
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Researchers boost solar concentrator efficiency
A team of researchers at the University of California, Merced, has redesigned luminescent solar concentrators to be more efficient at sending sunlight to solar cells.
Jan 23, 2012 |
4.4 / 5 (7) |
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Tuna-eating teenagers less likely to suffer depression
(Medical Xpress) -- New research from the Children of the 90s study at the University of Bristol, which has been charting the health of 14,500 children since their birth in the early 1990s, shows that the ...
Jan 20, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's LAMP reveals lunar surface features
New maps produced by the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal features at the Moon's northern and southern poles in regions that lie in perpetual darkness. LAMP, developed ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 13, 2012 |
4.4 / 5 (8) |
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Cloud droplets, ready for prime time
(PhysOrg.com) -- Some make the cut, some don't. Like auditions for the school play, scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Goethe-University Frankfurt were looking for promising atmospheric ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 28, 2011 |
5 / 5 (2) |
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Algal protein gives boost to electrochemical water splitting
Photosynthesis is considered the 'Holy Grail' in the field of sustainable energy generation because it directly converts solar energy into storable fuel using nothing but water and carbon dioxide (CO2). Scientists ...
Dec 19, 2011 |
4.3 / 5 (4) |
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Solar power generation more powerful in Europe this century
(PhysOrg.com) -- Climate change will increase the amount of electricity generated by solar power in some parts of the world while decreasing it in others.
Technology / Energy & Green Tech
Dec 16, 2011 |
4 / 5 (4) |
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Discovery of a 'dark state' could increase maximum theoretical efficiency of solar cells from 31 to 44 percent
The efficiency of conventional solar cells could be significantly increased, according to new research on the mechanisms of solar energy conversion led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin.
Dec 15, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (23) |
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Cotton fabric cleans itself when exposed to ordinary sunlight
Imagine jeans, sweats or socks that clean and de-odorize themselves when hung on a clothesline in the sun or draped on a balcony railing. Scientists are reporting development of a new cotton fabric that does ...
Dec 14, 2011 |
4.3 / 5 (21) |
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Sunlight
Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the atmosphere, and the solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon. Near the poles in summer, the days are longer and the nights are shorter or non-existent. In the winter at the poles the nights are longer and for some periods of time, sunlight may not occur at all. When the direct radiation is not blocked by clouds, it is experienced as sunshine, a combination of bright light and heat. Radiant heat directly produced by the radiation of the sun is different from the increase in atmospheric temperature due to the radiative heating of the atmosphere by the sun's radiation. Sunlight may be recorded using a sunshine recorder, pyranometer or pyrheliometer. Sunlight takes about 8.3 minutes to reach the Earth. The World Meteorological Organization defines sunshine as direct irradiance from the Sun measured on the ground of at least 120 watts per square metre.
Direct sunlight has a luminous efficacy of about 93 lumens per watt of radiant flux, which includes infrared, visible, and ultra-violet light. Bright sunlight provides luminance of approximately 100,000 candela per square meter at the Earth's surface.
Sunlight is a key factor in photosynthesis, a process crucially important for life on Earth.
For more information about Sunlight, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
