A course in Si solar cell design - Lesson on the solar spectrum

Calculations of the air mass

If the sun shines from 90 above the horizon from the zenith the light goes by definition
through the optical air mass 1.
The air mass at an angle z from the zenith (or an angle h from the horizon) is longer:
to a first approximation, assume that the earth is flat, and you obtain
1 1
am = = , (1)
cos z sin h

5
Optical air mass

3 3

19.47
2 2
1.5
30
1
41.81

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Sun's elevation angle []

Figure 1 Calculations of the air mass as a function of the suns elevation angle above
the horizon, h, using Eq. (1), which is identical to more sophisticated calcu-
lation procedures (2) if h > 10 , see Fig. 2.

Notice that, with this approximation, we would never see the sun rise or sun set in flat
country, because the air mass would be infinite. To which angle h is the above equation a
good approximation? To get a definite answer, you need to compare the above equation
with rigorous calculations that take the curvature of the atmosphere as well as its vertical
density profile into account. A widely used model of this sort is the one of Kasten and
Young [2], who fitted their rigorous numerical calculations with
1
am = (2a)
cos z + 0.50572(96.07995 z)1.6364
1
= (2b)
sin h + 0.50572(6.07995 + h)1.6364

A comparison of (2) with (1) in Figure 2 shows that Eq. (1) is a good approximation down
to h 10 .
 80
Water Planar approximation
vapour

60

Optical air mass

40 Mixed
gases

20
Ozone

0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Apparent sun's elevation angle []

Figure 2 Calculations of the air mass at low apparent elevation angles h of the sun
above the horizon, as calculated assuming the earth to be flat (1), or taking
the curvature of the atmosphere as well as its vertical density profile into
account. The latter depends on whether gasses are well mixed (2), or more
abundant close to the earth surface (such as water vapour), or more abundant
at high altitudes (such as ozone) [1].

Figure 2 also shows that it matters whether a gas is well mixed in the atmosphere
(such as oxygen, nitrogen etc, which are distributed according to the atmospheres vertical
density profile) [2], or wether the gas is more abundant near the earth surface (such as
water vapor, aerosols and NO2 from pollution) [1], or whether the gas is more abundant
at high altitude (such as ozone and natural NO2 ) [1].
It also matters that the sunlight is bent on its path through the atmosphere due to
refraction: z or h used in Eq. (2) and shown in Figure 2 are the apparent angles (the angles
seen from the earth surface) not the angles you would obtain from purely astronomical
calculations. These two angles differ by 0.15 at h = 45 and by 0.5 (the suns diameter)
at h=0 . You may conclude that such small differences can be neglected; however, they
cause an error in air mass by up to 10%. An expression for the air mass in terms of the
astronomical angles is [3]
1.003198 cos z + 0.101632
am = . (3)
cos2 z+ 0.090560 cos z + 0.003198

2
 Bibliography
[1] C. A. Gueymard, Parameterized transmittance model for direct beam and circumsolar
spectral irradiance, Solar Energy 71(5), 325346 (2001).
[2] F. Kasten and A. T. Young, Revised optical air mass tables and approximation formula,
Applied Optics 28(22), 47354738 (1989).
[3] A. T. Young, Air mass and refraction, Applied Optics 33(6), 11081110 (1994).