Solar Radiation Atlas for Spain based on Surface Irradiance Data from EUMETSAT Climate Monitoring-SAF

Abstract

A Solar Radiation Atlas for Spain has been performed using monthly mean data provided by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM-SAF) for the period 1983-2005 and 0.03ºx0.03º spatial resolution. The main goal of this work was to obtain a high spacial resolution climatological characterization for incident surface irradiance in Spain. Surface incoming solar radiation (SIS) and direct irradiance (SID) variables from CM-SAF data sets have been used in order to discern direct and diffuse components from global irradiance. These data are derived from the information provided by MVIRI instrument onboard the Meteosat First Generation (MFG) satellites and using the MAGICSOL algorithm. There are shown maps, graphics and tables of monthly, seasonal and annual means for global, direct and diffuse irradiance on horizontal plane. In addition, in order to geographically characterize SIS and SID uncertainties, derived satellite data have been validated against 29 ground-based stations belonging to AEMET (Spanish Meteorological Agency) National Radiometric Network. The estimated relative Mean Absolute Difference (MAD) is less than 7% indicating a good performance of the algorithm used and a remarkable high quality of SIS and SID datasets.