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Observation and estimation of photosynthetic photon flux density in Southern China

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Abstract

Observations of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and global solar radiation (G) at Sanya, Southern China during 2005–2011 were used for investigating their relationships under various sky conditions. Monthly mean PAR generally increased from 24.73 mol m−2 day−1 in December to 40.97 mol m−2 day−1 in July with annual mean value being about 32.88 mol m−2 day−1. Monthly mean daily PAR fraction (F p) changed from 1.82 mol MJ−1 in March (or April) to 2.03 mol MJ−1 in October with annual mean being 1.90 mol MJ−1. Clearness index (K t) was used for characterizing sky conditions and partly cloudy skies (41.45 %) were the dominated sky condition in this area. Meanwhile, an efficient PAR model has been introduced by investigating the dependence of PAR on K t and cosine of solar zenith angle under any sky conditions. The model has been tested at Sanya, Lhasa, and Inner Mongolia, China through the statistical indices: mean bias error (MBE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and root–mean–square error (RMSE), which were generally lower than −3.6, 8.24, and 10.26 %, respectively. PAR values during 1992–2012 were then reconstructed and it was discovered that annual mean PAR decreased at the rate of −1 mol m−2 day−1 per decade.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by National Basic Research Program (2011CB707106) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (no. 41127901). We would like to thank the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network for providing the observation data. The global solar radiation from 1990 to 2011 used in this study was obtained from National Meteorological Center/CMA, which was highly appreciated by the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuchang Branch, Wuhan, 430064, China

    Zhongmin Zhu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping, and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Lunche Wang & Wei Gong

  3. International Research Center of Satellite Remote Sensing and Atmospheric Monitoring, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, 430079, China

    Lunche Wang & Wei Gong

  4. Key Laboratory of High-voltage Field-test Technology of State Grid Corporation, Beijing, China

    Yu Xiong

  5. State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Bo Hu

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  1. Zhongmin Zhu
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Correspondence to Lunche Wang.

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Zhu, Z., Wang, L., Gong, W. et al. Observation and estimation of photosynthetic photon flux density in Southern China. Theor Appl Climatol 120, 701–712 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1204-1

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