Agricultura( Meteorology Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam Printed in The Netheriands

A RELATION BETWEEN INCOMING SOLAR RADIATION AND DEGREE-HOURS OF TEMPERATURE

A. WALTER' Formerly Director of the British East African Meteorological Service, Nairobi (Kenya) (Received April 17, 1969)

SUMMARY A curve is derived showing the relation between incoming solar radiation, as measured by a Linke Pyranometer, and the degree-hours of temperature between sunrise and sunset at Nairobi (Kenya). INTRODUCTION In a paper published in this journal (WALTER, 1967) a method was outlined for deriving an evaluation of the number of degree-hours from the records of third order climatological stations. In view of the increasing interest shown in the measurement of the biological heat balance in the field for agricultural purposes as evidenced at the symposium held on April 28th, 1967, organised by the Royal Society and the Royal Meteorolo gical Society at the Meteorological Society's Rooms, London, it has been con sidered of some interest to publish the results of certain measurements made under the direction of the author between 1938 and 1943, when Director of the East African Meteorological Service and not hitherto published. THE METHOD The observed values of the number of degree-hours between sunrise and sunset obtained by integrating the area below the diurnal temperature curve and the corresponding values of incoming solar radiation on a horizontal surface are shown on a scatter diagram in Fig.1 . This scatter diagram was graduated by means of the orthogonal polynomials for n = 68, given by FISHER and YATES (1948, p.78). The resulting polynomial is: x = 260.97 + 21.945769 y 0.366705 y 2 + 0.003110 y 3 where v is the number of degree-hours of temperature between sunrise and sunset
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Present address: "Bon Secours", London Road, Ramsgate, Kent (England). Agr. Meteorol., 6 (1969) 435-438

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800 700

A. WALTER

Eguation to curve X=260.97 + 21.945769 y -0.366705 y2 + 0.003110 y3

600

500
u

> 400 300 200 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 Degree hours o f temp erature b etween sunrise and sunset

Fig.1. Scatter diagram with graduated curve showing relation between radiation and degree-hours of temperature.

and y is counted from 1 to 66 corresponding to radiaton 115 g cal. cm 2 to 765 cal. in intervals of 10. The correlation between degree-hours and radiation, as read off this curve, is r = 0.984. All the instruments for measuring total radiation from the sun depend for their results on the heating effect on a prepared surface as recorded by a thermo couple protected, in some way or other, from environmental influences. In the high-altitude tropics these influences are at a minimum, but in high latitudes the effects may be considerable; whether in the tropics or high latitudes they will average out by taking mean values for periods of 5, 10 or 15 days according to the degree of weather variability and leave, in the mean, a significant measure of the direct heating effect of the sun's rays. The high correlation which was found to exist in Nairobi between the heat records as measured by the number of degreehours and the radiation measurements can only be accounted for on the assumption that the environmental influences do average out. To be of use in agricultura! practce, radiation values are required over wide areas. To obtain these values directly from the instruments in general use, of which there are many varieties, demands a staff of technical officers for their control and for the measurements of their results. Moreover, if used on a scale commensurate with the needs of agriculture the cost is prohibitive. It is suggested that, for agricultural purposes, where radiation influences are suspected, the heat balance, as recorded by the number of degree-hours, should be tried as a substitute and the corresponding radiation values read off the curve in Fig. 1. To enable research workers to draw a large scale curve, the ordinates
Agr. Meteoro/., 6 (1969) 435-438

A SOLAR RADIATION/DEGREE-HOURS CURVE

437

of radiation, corresponding to every 40 degree -hours are given in Table 1. In table IV of the notes published in this journal in 1967, it was shown that considerable variation occurred in the heat balance as measured by degree -hours, even when the changes in the mean temperature were very small. In Table II of the present paper the percentage variation in the mean monthly values of solar radiation are shown. These confirm the variations in degree-hours given in table IV of the previous notes.
TABLE I
ORDINATES OF THE GRADUATED CURVE SHOWN IN FIG.1 GIVING THE RELATION BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF DEGREE-HOURS FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET, AT KABETE, NAIROBI (KENYA) AND INCOMING SOLAR RADIATION AS RECORDED BY A LINKE PYRANOMETER ON A HORIZONTAL SURFACE

Degree-hours (celtigrade) 160 200 240 280 320 360 400 440 480 520 560 600 640

Radiation (g-cal. cm2) 90 91 94 105 123 143 164 188 212 240 272 306 345

Degree-hours (centigrade) 680 720 760 800 840 880 920 960 1000 1040 1080 1120 1160

Radiation (g cal. cm 2 ) 388 433 492 544 593 639 678 713 746 774 791 800 800

TABLE II
HIGHEST AND LOWEST MEAN MONTHLY VALUES OF SOLAR RADIATION IN G -CAL. CM 2 FOR FIVE YEARS

1938-1943
MONTHLY

AT KABETE, NAIROBI, VALUE

(KENYA), WITH

PERCENTAGE

VARIATION ON THE LOWEST MEAN

Month

Highest 694 640 662 573 482 477 383 411 584 583 556 628

Year 1943 1942 1943 1939 1940 1940 1940 1940 1940 1939 1939 1940

Lowest 580 602 537 485 414 321 299 344 407 485 476 518

Year 1941 1939 1942 1938 1938 1943 1943 1942 1938 1938 1938 1938

Percentage variation 20 6 23 18 16 49 28 20 43 20 17 21 Agr. Meteorol., 6 (1969) 435-438

Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.

438 REFERENCES

A SOLAR RADIATION/DEGREE-HOURS CURVI:

WALTER, A., 1967. Notes on the utilization of records from third order climatological station , for agricultura) purposes. Agr. Meteoro!., 4(2): 137-143. FISHER, R. A. and YATES, E., 1948. Statistical rabies for Biological, Agricultura! and Medical Research. (3rd Ed.) Hafner, New York, N.Y., 120 pp.

Agr. Meteoro!., 6 (1969) 435-438