Updated CM SAF Surface Solar Radiation Climate Data Record available

Surface Solar Radiation, SARAH-2 1983-2015 Source: CM SAF

SARAH-2 provides high-quality satellite-based information on surface solar radiation parameters from 1983 to 2015 covering Europe, Africa, parts of South America as well as the surrounding ocean areas. The spatial resolution of 0.05° x 0.05° almost matches the spatial resolution of the MVIRI and SEVIRI sensors onboard the Meteosat satellites, which have been used to generate the SARAH-2 data records.

Six surface solar radiation parameters are provided as part of SARAH-2: the global radiation (SIS, also known as the surface irradiance), the direct radiation (SID), the direct normalized radiation (DNI, i.e., the radiation through a horizontal plate perpendicular to the sun), the sunshine duration (SDU), the spectrally-resolved surface irradiance (SRI), and the effective cloud albedo (CAL). The sunshine duration and the spectrally-resolved surface irradiance are newly provided parameters as part of the second edition of SARAH.

All data records are available as monthly mean products (monthly sum in the case of SDU) and all except the SRI data record are also available as daily mean products (daily sum in the case of SDU). For the SIS, SID, DNI, and CAL data records also instantaneous information is provided every 30 min. These highly temporal resolved data replace the hourly mean data provided in the first edition of the SARAH data record; this instantaneous information allows a better referencing of the data to the corresponding solar geometry, which is required for the calculation of the solar radiation on tilted surfaces, e.g., solar panels.
So far, more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles document the CM SAF Surface Solar Radiation Climate Data Records and their various fields of applications. These areas of application include (among others) climate monitoring and the assessment of trends and variability, the validation of climate models, the quality control of surface measurements, the estimation of the photovoltaic energy potential and its temporal variability and trend, and the use as input parameters for agro- and hydrometeorological models. Some of these applications can be found in the Outreach-Section of the CM SAF Webpage. The release of the second edition of the SARAH data record will further enhance the application of the CM SAF surface solar radiation data records.

JT / June2017