Department of Environmental Sciences

Department of Environmental Sciences
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University of New Jersey
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Seminar Abstracts
Environmental Sciences Seminar Abstract            

  Solar Dimming and Brightening in the Wider Caribbean
Juan Carlos Antuña Marrero
Camagüey Lidar Station, Camagüey, Cuba

Solar dimming and brightening has been observed in most of the world in the past several decades, caused mostly by changing tropospheric aerosols, but also by small changes in cloudiness. Here, new results of dimming and brightening observations in the Wider Caribbean are shown. The dataset consists of time series of global radiation from 30 surface stations covering the period 1961-1990. The stations were distributed over the entire region; three in Florida, five in the Caribbean, three in Mexico and 18 in Venezuela and Honduras. Results show in general a predominance of dimming, registered in 20 of the stations, but brightening in the rest. Trends were statistically significant in 21 of a total pf 30 stations (70%). In particular, 16 of the stations registering dimming and 5 showing brightening had statistically significant trends. Considering the geographical distribution of the stations, they were grouped into continental and insular-peninsular. Significant trends averaged -0.72 Wm-2 per year for continental stations and -0.82 Wm-2 per year for the insular-peninsular ones. Dimming was more frequent in continental areas, but more intense in the insular-peninsular ones.


Last updated: 06/05/2008