Happy March Equinox! Today marks the March Equinox, the moment when day and night are nearly equal across the globe, and the Sun crosses the equator heading northward. It is also a great reminder of how Earth’s position relative to the Sun shapes the solar energy we receive every day. At our station, we continuously measure solar irradiance, helping us better understand the amount of solar energy reaching the surface under different atmospheric conditions. These observations are essential for improving solar energy applications, atmospheric research, and our understanding of how factors such as clouds and aerosols influence incoming radiation.
At the Limassol solar station, we monitor this incoming energy using a suite of advanced radiometric instruments operating under BSRN standards. Our station is equipped with a sun-tracker for accurate solar tracking, pyranometers for measuring global and diffuse horizontal irradiance, a pyrheliometer for direct normal irradiance, and a pyrgeometer for longwave radiation. In addition, a SUV-E actinometer measures erythemal UV exposure, a spectrophotometer provides high-resolution spectral measurements in the 280–600 nm range, and an All Sky Imager continuously monitors cloud cover.