Created by Tomas Kalisz
Should the proposed practical experiments with installation of solar panels cooled by water evaporation i cities and urban / industrial landscapes prove that this concept is harmless for the environment, the next step may be expansion of such solar facilities into arid landscapes, enabled by cooling thereof cooled with sea water evaporation. There are hints that such concept might exhibit a synergy in climate change mitigation, by combining (i) "decarbonization" of the electricity production by massive solar energy exploitation with (ii) water cycle restoration in arid landscapes, enabling the desired non-radiative cooling therein.
jcliD1300163 757..768 (washington.edu)
Of course, assuming that other parameters usually considered in the energy balance, like solar radiation, Earth surface albedo etc., remain stable (constant).
The attached preprint was retrieved on December 24, 2022 from: https://esd.copernicus.org/preprints/esd-2022-5/esd-2022-5.pdf
esd-2022-5_modely_non-radiative-cooling.pdf
Access to published final text
https://cris.vub.be/ws/portalfiles/portal/88409508/DeHertog_etal_2022_ESD.pdf
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33279-9
(open Access)
Therefore, in the models,global warming resulting from the loss of transpirational cooling is, for the same deforested area, at least one order of magni-tude smaller than our estimate (Table 1).
see page 8, penultimate paragraph + page 10, first paragraph:
In current models, it is assumed that as the planet warms, the temperature lapse rate should slightly diminish followingmoist adiabat (the so-called lapse rate feedback, Sejas et al., 2021). This robust model feature is not, however, supportedby observations (Fig. 5). Satellite data are consistent with an increase in the lapse rate (Fig. 5). The temperature differencebetween the surface and the upper radiatve layer ze (located between 500 and 400 mb, Benestad, 2017) grows at approximatelythe same rate as the surface temperature itself. This effect is especially pronounced over land (Fig. 5c,f). This is consistent witha radiative forcing imposed by changing non-radiative fluxes, including those due to the land cover change (Fig. 3d-f).2301.09998_Makarieva_et_al_20230124.pdf
Purely radiative greenhouse effect, with no other mechanism of heat transfer from the surface into atmosphere, results in maximal possible difference between surface temperature and cover temperature. Contact of the cover (atmosphere) with the surface, enabling also heat transfer by hot air convection and by water evaporation from the surface and condensation thereof in the atmosphere, enables lower surface temperatures as radiative cooling alone and thus reduces the difference between the surface temperature and cover temperature (makes cooling of the surface more efficient and the greenhouse effect less powerful):
Hartmann, Physical climatology, 2016:
Model of a thin glass plate separated from the Earth surface by vacuum:
Semiconductor physics implies that solar cell efficiency decreases with teperature of the p-n junction included in the cell.
Another model asserts the same conlusion for deserts along to Red Sea.
Currently, photovoltaic cells used for direct solar energy coversion into electricity are passively cooled by radiation + air convection.
One of the oldest and simplest means for an effective cooling is making the cooled object wet and ensure an efficient air convention around the object. Heat created in the object converts into latent heat of water vapour.
Vaporization of 1 kg water consumes ca 2257 kJ (0.627 kWh) energy.
The biotic pump hypothesis asserts that water evapotranspiration by terrestrial vegetation, enhancing the small water cycle, may play a crucial role for water transport from ocean to land and thus for functionality of the entire "big" water cycle.
