scholarly journals Albedo and Thermal Ecology of White, Red, and Black Cows (Bos taurus) in a Cold Rangeland Environment

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1186
Author(s):  
John Derek Scasta

Cattle in high-elevation rangelands experience cold and hot extremes. Given the increase in black hided cattle globally, thermoregulation options on rangelands, and hide color function affecting mammal thermal ecology, this study quantified winter albedo, external cattle temperatures (Tempcow), and differences (ΔT) between Tempcow and ambient air temperature (Tempamb), for different color cattle along a thermal gradient (≈−33 °C to +33 °C). From 2016 to 2018, I measured 638 individual Tempcow × Tempamb combinations for white (n = 183), red (n = 158), and black (n = 297) Bos taurus female cattle free roaming extensive Wyoming, USA rangelands. Pixel brightness of cow images relative to snow indicated mean (±standard error) albedo for white, red, and black cows (n = 3 of each) was 0.69 (±0.15), 0.16 (±0.04), and 0.04 (±0.01), respectively (p = 0.0027). Tempcow was explained by Tempamb (+), clear sky insolation index (+), and cow albedo (−). However, ΔT was explained by Tempamb (−), long-wave radiation (infrared; RadLW (−)), Tempcow (+), and cow albedo (+). Tempamb relative to ΔT was correlated for all hide colors (all p-values < 0.0001; all r2 values > 0.7)), yet slopes (m) were ~2× greater for red and black cows than white cows.

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alaa M. AL-Lami ◽  
Ali M. AL-Salihi ◽  
Yaseen K. AL-Timimi

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Qianrong Ma ◽  
Jie Zhang ◽  
Yu Gu ◽  
Yujun Ma ◽  
Yu Cao

Variations in all-sky and clear-sky long-wave effective radiation (LER) in China during the period 2001–2016 were determined using monthly radiative datasets from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES). Annual and seasonal spatial distributions are found to be quite similar and show a decreasing trend from northwest to southeast, although highest values are found in spring. Mean LER under clear-sky conditions is approximately 20–30 Wm−2 higher than that under all-sky conditions. There is a consistent downward trend in annual and seasonal variations of LER under different weather conditions in China especially after 2007. In northwest China, the eastern Tibetan Plateau, and southeast and northeast China, LER is significantly reduced in two weather conditions and this is more pronounced in spring. However, decreases in clear-sky LER are more obvious. Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) results for LER differences between all-sky conditions and clear-sky conditions were used to analyze regional characteristics and modulating factors. The first mode shows that the LER differences of two weather conditions over China become larger and significant after 2007. The second mode reflects the spatial characteristics, and four climate regions are divided according to the second pattern. According to the definition of LER, regression analysis shows that downward long-wave radiation has a greater influence on LER. When considering cloud effects and other modulating factors, LER has higher correlation with relative humidity in climate regions 3 and 4. However, there are higher negative correlations with middle and high clouds in regions 1 and 2, which are modulated by cloud characteristics. When these factors influence LER together, their correlation is significant in all regions (correlation coefficients are on average higher than 0.7). In summary, changes of LER can well reflect the change of climate system.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britta Jänicke ◽  
Fred Meier ◽  
Marie-Therese Hoelscher ◽  
Dieter Scherer

The evaluation of the effectiveness of countermeasures for a reduction of urban heat stress, such as façade greening, is challenging due to lacking transferability of results from one location to another. Furthermore, complex variables such as the mean radiant temperature(Tmrt)are necessary to assess outdoor human bioclimate. We observedTmrtin front of a building façade in Berlin, Germany, which is half-greened while the other part is bare.Tmrtwas reduced (mean 2 K) in front of the greened compared to the bare façade. To overcome observational shortcomings, we applied the microscale models ENVI-met, RayMan, and SOLWEIG. We evaluated these models based on observations. Our results show thatTmrt(MD = −1.93 K) and downward short-wave radiation (MD = 14.39 W/m2) were sufficiently simulated in contrast to upward short-wave and long-wave radiation. Finally, we compare the simulated reduction ofTmrtwith the observed one in front of the façade greening, showing that the models were not able to simulate the effects of façade greening with the applied settings. Our results reveal that façade greening contributes only slightly to a reduction of heat stress in front of building façades.


1974 ◽  
Vol 13 (67) ◽  
pp. 73-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Ambach

The short-wave and long-wave radiant fluxes measured in the accumulation area of the Greenland ice sheet during a mid-summer period are discussed with respect to their dependence on cloudiness. At a cloudiness of 10/10, a mean value of 270 J/cm2 d is obtained for the daily totals of net radiation balance, whereas a mean value of only 75 J/cm2 d is observed at 0/10. The energy excess of the net radiation balance with overcast sky is due to the significant influence of the incoming long-wave radiation and the high albedo of the surface (average of 84%). High values of net radiation balance are therefore correlated with high values of long-wave radiation balance and low values of short-wave radiation balance.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 7171-7233 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Stier ◽  
J. H. Seinfeld ◽  
S. Kinne ◽  
O. Boucher

Abstract. We present a comprehensive examination of aerosol absorption with a focus on evaluating the sensitivity of the global distribution of aerosol absorption to key uncertainties in the process representation. For this purpose we extended the comprehensive aerosol-climate model ECHAM5-HAM by effective medium approximations for the calculation of aerosol effective refractive indices, updated black carbon refractive indices, new cloud radiative properties considering the effect of aerosol inclusions, as well as by modules for the calculation of long-wave aerosol radiative properties and instantaneous aerosol forcing. The evaluation of the simulated aerosol absorption optical depth with the AERONET sun-photometer network shows a good agreement in the large scale global patterns. On a regional basis it becomes evident that the update of the BC refractive indices to Bond and Bergstrom (2006) significantly improves the previous underestimation of the aerosol absorption optical depth. In the global annual-mean, absorption acts to reduce the short-wave anthropogenic aerosol top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative forcing clear-sky from –0.79 to –0.53 W m−2 (33%) and all-sky from –0.47 to –0.13 W m−2 (72%). Our results confirm that basic assumptions about the BC refractive index play a key role for aerosol absorption and radiative forcing. The effect of the usage of more accurate effective medium approximations is comparably small. We demonstrate that the diversity in the AeroCom land-surface albedo fields contributes to the uncertainty in the simulated anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcings: the usage of an upper versus lower bound of the AeroCom land albedos introduces a global annual-mean TOA forcing range of 0.19 W m−2 (36%) clear-sky and of 0.12 W m−2 (92%) all-sky. The consideration of black carbon inclusions on cloud radiative properties results in a small global annual-mean all-sky absorption of 0.05 W m−2 and a positive TOA forcing perturbation of 0.02 W m−2. The long-wave aerosol radiative effects are small for anthropogenic aerosols but become of relevance for the larger natural dust and sea-salt aerosols.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georges Djoumna ◽  
Sebastian H. Mernild ◽  
David Holland

&lt;p&gt;The surface radiation budget is an essential component of the total energy exchange between the atmosphere and the Earth&amp;#8217;s surface. Measurements of radiative fluxes near/on ice surfaces are sparse in the polar regions, including on the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), and the effects of cloud on radiative fluxes are still poorly studied. In this work, we assess the impacts of cloud on radiative fluxes using two metrics: the longwave-equivalent cloudiness, derived from long-wave radiation measurements, and the cloud transmittance factor, obtained from short-wave radiation. The metrics are applied to radiation data from two automatic weather stations located over the bare ground near the ice front of Helheim (HG) and Jakobshavn Isbr&amp;#230; (JI) on the GrIS. Comparisons of meteorological parameters, surface radiation fluxes, and cloud metrics show significant differences between the two sites. The cloud transmittance factor is higher at HG than at JI, and the incoming short-wave radiation in the summer at HG is 50.0 W m&amp;#8722;2 larger than at JI. Cloud metrics derived at the two sites reveal&amp;#160; &amp;#160;a high dependency on the wind direction. The total cloud radiative effect (CREnet) generally increases during melt season at the two stations due to long-wave CRE enhancement by cloud fraction.&amp;#160;&amp;#160;CREnet decreases from May to June and increases afterward, due to the strengthened short-wave CRE. The annually averaged CREnet were 3.0 &amp;#177; 7.4 W m-2 and 1.9 &amp;#177; 15.1 W m&amp;#8722;2 at JI and HG.&amp;#160; CREnet estimated from AWS indicates that clouds cool the JI and HG during melt season at different rates.&lt;/p&gt;


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