Radiation Balance over Low-Turbidity Water Artificially Cleaned for Irrigation of Tobacco Grown Under Shading. II. Water Albedo Analysis and Net Radiation Modelling

Abstract

The albedo of a water surface and the energy available for evaporation are strongly correlated and studying such processes is of paramount importance for water security at farm and regional levels. In this paper, water albedo (αw) and net all-wave radiation (Rn) were analyzed after being measured above the surface of an artificially cleaned and low-turbidity water used for tobacco irrigation. It was observed that αw decreased as the sun elevation (θ) increased, especially for clear and near clear skies. The results showed that αw can be reasonably predicted with a power law model either in terms of θ or Sg (incoming solar radiation) across different cloud cover conditions. From this study, a mean daily albedo of 0.05 is recommended. Three approaches were considered for estimation of daily Rn. In the first, a linear regression model strongly fitted Rn data in terms of Sg solely. The second option based on the definition of Rn was [0.95Sg - Lnet(56)], where Lnet(56) is net longwave (LW) radiation as used in the FAO56 model for reference evapotranspiration estimation, and the third was [0.95Sg - Lnet(MLR)], where MLR stands for multiple linear regression. The disadvantages of approaches (1) and (3), based on regressions, is that they are constrained to the type of water stored in the farm and the climatic conditions of the region. The performance of approach (2), where Lnet(56) is a widely used model, was comparable to the others can potentially be improved with a site-specific calibration. All three approaches for estimating daily Rn proposed in this study can possibily be extended to clear water that did not go through any filtration process.