Surface Solar Radiation and Global Warming

This book will cover studies on basic theory, measurements, and modeling of surface solar radiation, and frontier of the related studies. It’s primary readers are senior undergraduate students and graduate students who major in atmospheric sciences (including climate change), hydrology, geography, and environmental sciences. The book will be written in easy language. There are several specific books in this field. An Introduction to Atmospheric Radiation by Prof. Kuo-Nan Liou is excellent one. However, it is full of equations, which are difficult to understand for ones who do not major in atmospheric science. Solar and Infrared Radiation Measurements by Frank Vignola, Joseph Michalsky, and Thomas Stoffel provides important information to measurement instruments of surface solar radiation, but lack explanations to their application to scientific questions. As the global warming has been a hot topic for the scientific community at large and public in general, this book will provide detailed information to clarify the contribution of surface solar radiation to global warming. One of key issues on this is the argument about the global dimming and brightening. However, large uncertainties could exist for the surface solar radiation observations. For example, there is an argument that the observations of surface solar radiation have an important urban bias and can’t represent regional or global averages in depicting mean and trend. More discussions have emerged on uncertainties associated with the observations of surface solar radiation. This book will revisit such debates.