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Sunlight is a key factor in photosynthesis, the process used by plants and other autotrophic organisms to convert light energy, normally from the Sun, into chemical energy that can be used to synthesize carbohydrates and fuel the organisms' activities. Daylighting is the natural lighting of interior spaces by admitting sunlight.
This is sometimes also confusingly called "intensity". Spectral radiosity: J e,ν [nb 3] watt per square metre per hertz W⋅m −2 ⋅Hz −1: M⋅T −2: Radiosity of a surface per unit frequency or wavelength. The latter is commonly measured in W⋅m −2 ⋅nm −1. This is sometimes also confusingly called "spectral intensity". J e,λ [nb 4]
This integrated solar irradiance is called solar irradiation, solar radiation, solar exposure, solar insolation, or insolation. Irradiance may be measured in space or at the Earth's surface after atmospheric absorption and scattering. Irradiance in space is a function of distance from the Sun, the solar cycle, and cross-cycle changes. [2]
Sunlight absorbed by the oceans and land masses keeps the surface at an average temperature of 14 °C. [10] By photosynthesis , green plants convert solar energy into chemically stored energy, which produces food, wood and the biomass from which fossil fuels are derived.
It is also called sky radiation, the determinative process for changing the colors of the sky. Approximately 23% of direct incident radiation of total sunlight is removed from the direct solar beam by scattering into the atmosphere; of this amount (of incident radiation) about two-thirds ultimately reaches the earth as photon diffused skylight ...
Solar radiation pressure on objects near the Earth may be calculated using the Sun's irradiance at 1 AU, known as the solar constant, or G SC, whose value is set at 1361 W/m 2 as of 2011. [ 17 ] All stars have a spectral energy distribution that depends on their surface temperature.
Rayleigh scattering of sunlight in Earth's atmosphere causes diffuse sky radiation, which is the reason for the blue color of the daytime and twilight sky, as well as the yellowish to reddish hue of the low Sun. Sunlight is also subject to Raman scattering, which changes the rotational state of the molecules and gives rise to polarization ...
This energy is partially absorbed and scattered in the atmosphere, the latter process being the reason why the sky is visibly blue. [3] Much of the Sun's radiation transmits through the atmosphere to the surface where it is either absorbed or reflected. Thermal radiation can be used to detect objects or phenomena normally invisible to the human ...