University of Wisconsin-Madison

Some features of the Sun that are important for this course are listed here. Note that the solar incidence at the Earth (or the Moon) is ~ 1,368 Watts/m² (Rand McNally (1984) and Duffie & Beckman (1978)). It is also important to note that the sun's energy can be approximated by a black body temperature of 5,762 deg.K and that nearly half of the energy is in the infra-red spectrum where it is absorbed by various molecules.