How much solar energy is radiated onto the earth each day?
Question:
Answer:
At the top of the atmosphere, there's about 1kW per sq.m. of solar energy. The radius of the Earth is 6.4E6 m., so it presents to the Sun a disc of area 1.29E14 sq.m. so the Earth intercepts about 1.3E17 watts of solar power, which is about 1.1E22 joules a day.
A lot!
1.74E+17 watts.
I don't know the answer but maybe the link below will help, you may have to read a few of the texts before you find your answer.
If you have a house and want to know how much solar energy is radiated from your own home the type 'how much solar energy do we use each day' in goggle and you will get the the options 'How Much Sunlight Does it Take to Power a Building', and 'Solar Electricity For A Remote Home' which may help.
L = solar bolometric luminosity
L = 3.826E+26 watts
r = astronomical unit
r = 1.496E+11 meters
R = Earth radius
R = 6.378E+6 meters
dt = number of seconds in a day
dt = 86400
E = energy from the sun falling on Earth each day
E = (dt / 4) ( R / r )^2 L
E = 1.502E+22 Joules
This much energy comes to the entire Earth during one day at the rate of 1.738E+17 watts. Each meter of area, normal to the sun, has a flux of 1360 watts of power.
1366 Watts per square meter. More than you probably want to know is contained in the link below. It's a pdf file, so you'll need Acrobat.
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