Record high solar irradiance in Western Europe during first COVID-19 lockdown largely due to unusual weather

Chiel C. Van Heerwaarden; Wouter B. Mol; Menno A. Veerman; Imme Benedict; Bert G. Heusinkveld; Wouter H. Knap; Stelios Kazadzis; Natalia Kouremeti; Stephanie Fiedler

doi:10.1038/s43247-021-00110-0

Record high solar irradiance in Western Europe during first COVID-19 lockdown largely due to unusual weather

Chiel C. Van Heerwaarden^*, Wouter B. Mol, Menno A. Veerman, Imme Benedict, Bert G. Heusinkveld, Wouter H. Knap, Stelios Kazadzis, Natalia Kouremeti, Stephanie Fiedler

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

41 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Spring 2020 broke sunshine duration records across Western Europe. The Netherlands recorded the highest surface irradiance since 1928, exceeding the previous extreme of 2011 by 13%, and the diffuse fraction of the irradiance measured a record low percentage (38%). The coinciding irradiance extreme and a reduction in anthropogenic pollution due to COVID-19 measures triggered the hypothesis that cleaner-than-usual air contributed to the record.
Based on analyses of ground-based and satellite observations and experiments with a radiative transfer model, we estimate a 1.3% (2.3Wm−2) increase in surface irradiance with respect to the 2010–2019 mean due to a low median aerosol optical depth, and a 17.6% (30.7Wm−2) increase due to several exceptionally dry days and a very low cloud fraction overall. Our analyses show that the reduced aerosols and contrails due to the COVID-19 measures are far less important in the irradiance record than the dry and particularly cloudfree weather.

Original language	English
Journal	Communications Earth & Environment
Volume	2
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00110-0
Publication status	Published - 15 Feb 2021

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10.1038/s43247-021-00110-0Licence: CC BY

https://edepot.wur.nl/541858Licence: CC BY

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Data belonging to Record high solar irradiance in Western Europe during first COVID-19 lockdown largely due to unusual weather,
Van Heerwaarden, C. C. (Creator) & Mol, W. B. (Creator), Wageningen University & Research, 21 Jan 2021
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4455892
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title = "Record high solar irradiance in Western Europe during first COVID-19 lockdown largely due to unusual weather",

abstract = "Spring 2020 broke sunshine duration records across Western Europe. The Netherlands recorded the highest surface irradiance since 1928, exceeding the previous extreme of 2011 by 13%, and the diffuse fraction of the irradiance measured a record low percentage (38%). The coinciding irradiance extreme and a reduction in anthropogenic pollution due to COVID-19 measures triggered the hypothesis that cleaner-than-usual air contributed to the record.Based on analyses of ground-based and satellite observations and experiments with a radiative transfer model, we estimate a 1.3% (2.3Wm−2) increase in surface irradiance with respect to the 2010–2019 mean due to a low median aerosol optical depth, and a 17.6% (30.7Wm−2) increase due to several exceptionally dry days and a very low cloud fraction overall. Our analyses show that the reduced aerosols and contrails due to the COVID-19 measures are far less important in the irradiance record than the dry and particularly cloudfree weather.",

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T1 - Record high solar irradiance in Western Europe during first COVID-19 lockdown largely due to unusual weather

AU - Van Heerwaarden, Chiel C.

AU - Mol, Wouter B.

AU - Veerman, Menno A.

AU - Benedict, Imme

AU - Heusinkveld, Bert G.

AU - Knap, Wouter H.

AU - Kazadzis, Stelios

AU - Kouremeti, Natalia

AU - Fiedler, Stephanie

PY - 2021/2/15

Y1 - 2021/2/15

N2 - Spring 2020 broke sunshine duration records across Western Europe. The Netherlands recorded the highest surface irradiance since 1928, exceeding the previous extreme of 2011 by 13%, and the diffuse fraction of the irradiance measured a record low percentage (38%). The coinciding irradiance extreme and a reduction in anthropogenic pollution due to COVID-19 measures triggered the hypothesis that cleaner-than-usual air contributed to the record.Based on analyses of ground-based and satellite observations and experiments with a radiative transfer model, we estimate a 1.3% (2.3Wm−2) increase in surface irradiance with respect to the 2010–2019 mean due to a low median aerosol optical depth, and a 17.6% (30.7Wm−2) increase due to several exceptionally dry days and a very low cloud fraction overall. Our analyses show that the reduced aerosols and contrails due to the COVID-19 measures are far less important in the irradiance record than the dry and particularly cloudfree weather.

AB - Spring 2020 broke sunshine duration records across Western Europe. The Netherlands recorded the highest surface irradiance since 1928, exceeding the previous extreme of 2011 by 13%, and the diffuse fraction of the irradiance measured a record low percentage (38%). The coinciding irradiance extreme and a reduction in anthropogenic pollution due to COVID-19 measures triggered the hypothesis that cleaner-than-usual air contributed to the record.Based on analyses of ground-based and satellite observations and experiments with a radiative transfer model, we estimate a 1.3% (2.3Wm−2) increase in surface irradiance with respect to the 2010–2019 mean due to a low median aerosol optical depth, and a 17.6% (30.7Wm−2) increase due to several exceptionally dry days and a very low cloud fraction overall. Our analyses show that the reduced aerosols and contrails due to the COVID-19 measures are far less important in the irradiance record than the dry and particularly cloudfree weather.

UR - https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.6860a573

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Record high solar irradiance in Western Europe during first COVID-19 lockdown largely due to unusual weather

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