The second satellite of the Brazilian Complete Space Mission (SCD2/MECB) was launched on October 23, 1998 and it hosts on board a solar cell experiment. Silicon solar cell is a semiconductor device that senses visible and near infrared (400-1100 nm) radiations. The experiment permits the simultaneous inference of direct insolation and the insolation that is reflected outside of Earth. The data of the solar cell experiment are transmitted in real time by the satellite telemetry and are received by the ground station of Cuiabá, MT-Brazil (16°S, 56°W). This fact limits their spatial coverage to a circle on the South America. The planetary albedo is obtained inside this coverage area and the data can be grouped into periods of time (annual, seasonal or monthly) or studied for several places (latitude and longitude) during the life of the satellite. Atmospheric transmission coefficient or clearness index (Kt), measured at meteorological stations around the Earth surface, together with simultaneous measured of the planetary albedo permits to calculate the atmospheric absorption coefficient (Ka). The developed method in this work for evaluating the Ka considers that the planetary albedo is composed by two parts: the local and the non local reflectivity. Considering this new concept, an atmospheric absorption ratio (called here Ra) is defined as the quotient between Ka and the net solar irradiance power that is not transmitted through the atmosphere (100%-Kt). The atmospheric absorption ratio defined by this way is not cloud cover dependent. The frequency histogram of Ra indicates the values of 0.86±0.07 and 0.88±0.09 on the cities of Botucatu-SP and Rio de Janeiro-RJ respectively, during the years of 1999 to 2006.
planetary albedo; solar energy; atmospheric transmission; atmospheric absorption
