Digging the METEOSAT Treasure—3 Decades of Solar Surface Radiation

Abstract

Solar surface radiation data of high quality is essential for the appropriate monitoring and analysis of the Earth's radiation budget and the climate system. Further, they are crucial for the efficient planning and operation of solar energy systems. However, well maintained surface measurements are rare in many regions of the world and over the oceans. There, satellite derived information is the exclusive observational source. This emphasizes the important role of satellite based surface radiation data. Within this scope, the new satellite based CM-SAF SARAH (Solar surfAce RAdiation Heliosat) data record is discussed as well as the retrieval method used. The SARAH data are retrieved with the sophisticated SPECMAGIC method, which is based on radiative transfer modeling. The resulting climate data of solar surface irradiance, direct irradiance (horizontal and direct normal) and clear sky irradiance are covering 3 decades. The SARAH data set is validated with surface measurements of the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) and of the Global Energy and Balance Archive (GEBA). Comparison with BSRN data is performed in order to estimate the accuracy and precision of the monthly and daily means of solar surface irradiance.The SARAH solar surface irradiance shows a bias of 1.

Comparison of the existing photovoltaic power plant performance simulation in terms of different sources of meteorological data

“…A central task of the CMSAF is the generation of satellite based Climate Data Records (CDRs). A climate data record is a time series of sufficient length, consistency, and quality to determine climate variability and change [4]. The data are available from 2007 to 2016.…”

The South Atlantic Anticyclone as a key player for the representation of the tropical Atlantic climate in coupled climate models

“…Sub-surface ocean temperature (for the computation of thermocline depth) is taken from the Polar Science Center Hydrographic Climatology (PHC 3.0; Steele et al 2001). Information on Sea Surface Height is retrieved from the NCEP Climate Forecasting System Reanalysis (CFSR, Saha et al 2010) and, finally, incoming solar radiation at the Earth's surface data used here belong to the Surface Solar Radiation Dataset-Heliosat (SARAH; Müller et al 2015), from the Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) consortium.…”

Is the summer season losing potential for solar energy applications in South Africa?

“…The SIS or global radiation was derived from the long-term EUMETSAT CMSAF, a European Unionbased initiative to produce high-quality satellitederived data and services for climate monitoring (Müller et al, 2015). The SARAH dataset comprises derived global solar surface radiation with a resolution of 0.05° x 0.05° for the period 1983-2013 (Müller et al, 2015).…”

“…The SARAH dataset comprises derived global solar surface radiation with a resolution of 0.05° x 0.05° for the period 1983-2013 (Müller et al, 2015).…”