Approximate sunrise and sunset times
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This function is not perfect, but it does a reasonable job estimating sunrise and sunset times for my field site. If more accurate data are required, try here. Note, the command to calculate day of year is: strptime(x, “%m/%d/%Y”)$yday+1Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.
suncalc<-function(d,Lat=48.1442,Long=-122.7551){
## d is the day of year
## Lat is latitude in decimal degrees
## Long is longitude in decimal degrees (negative == West)
##This method is copied from:
##Teets, D.A. 2003. Predicting sunrise and sunset times.
## The College Mathematics Journal 34(4):317-321.
## At the default location the estimates of sunrise and sunset are within
## seven minutes of the correct times (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php)
## with a mean of 2.4 minutes error.
## Function to convert degrees to radians
rad<-function(x)pi*x/180
##Radius of the earth (km)
R=6378
##Radians between the xy-plane and the ecliptic plane
epsilon=rad(23.45)
##Convert observer's latitude to radians
L=rad(Lat)
## Calculate offset of sunrise based on longitude (min)
## If Long is negative, then the mod represents degrees West of
## a standard time meridian, so timing of sunrise and sunset should
## be made later.
timezone = -4*(abs(Long)%%15)*sign(Long)
## The earth's mean distance from the sun (km)
r = 149598000
theta = 2*pi/365.25*(d-80)
z.s = r*sin(theta)*sin(epsilon)
r.p = sqrt(r^2-z.s^2)
t0 = 1440/(2*pi)*acos((R-z.s*sin(L))/(r.p*cos(L)))
##a kludge adjustment for the radius of the sun
that = t0+5
## Adjust "noon" for the fact that the earth's orbit is not circular:
n = 720-10*sin(4*pi*(d-80)/365.25)+8*sin(2*pi*d/365.25)
## now sunrise and sunset are:
sunrise = (n-that+timezone)/60
sunset = (n+that+timezone)/60
return(list("sunrise" = sunrise,"sunset" = sunset))
}
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