A radiative dose measures a deficit over time
Chapter 6 defines an ASES radiative dose by integrating the reduction in incoming short-wave irradiance relative to a suitable unshaded reference. At a location, this is an energy per unit area. Integrating across the footprint adds the spatial dimension. The definition helps separate how much sunlight is removed from what the environment subsequently does.
For a purely illustrative constant deficit of 100 watts per square metre lasting one hour, the dose is 0.36 megajoules per square metre. This is arithmetic, not a cooling forecast. Converting an irradiance deficit into temperature requires the surface energy balance, heat storage, turbulent exchange and atmospheric state.
A blocked solar disc is not the whole radiation field
The Sun has an apparent angular size, so an occulting surface produces transitions between full and partial obstruction. Device size, distance and solar angle determine whether a complete umbra reaches the ground and how broad the penumbra becomes. Diffuse skylight can still reach a surface whose direct view of the Sun is blocked.
The platform’s optical behaviour also matters. Reflection, absorption and transmission lead to different energy pathways. A reduction at the ground is not automatically the same as energy escaping the Earth system. Platform heating, atmospheric absorption and long-wave emission need their own accounting.
The moisture ledger prevents impossible promises
Cooling can raise relative humidity without adding water vapour. Cloud formation requires suitable thermodynamic and microphysical conditions; rainfall additionally requires particle growth and sustaining dynamics. A colder surface can also reduce the buoyancy that helps air rise. These competing processes are central to Chapters 7 and 8.
A rain-related hypothesis must therefore track water entering, leaving, evaporating, condensing and remaining stored in a defined region. Rain shifted from one place or time is different from an increase across the full accounting domain. Neither a humidity percentage nor a cloud image closes that budget.
- State the baseline, units, footprint and timing.
- Separate direct, diffuse, reflected and absorbed energy.
- Report surface, atmospheric and top-of-atmosphere budgets separately.
- Treat unexplained energy or water imbalance as a reason to stop interpretation.
Sources & further reading
These sources establish background context. They do not certify the ASES proposal or demonstrate its proposed applications.
ASES remains a research proposal. Atmosfrustology is the author’s proposed framework. No operational climate-control capability is established by this website.