scholarly journals Evaluation of Multi-Reanalysis Solar Radiation Products Using Global Surface Observations

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomin Peng ◽  
Jiangfeng She ◽  
Shuhua Zhang ◽  
Junzhong Tan ◽  
Yang Li
Keyword(s):  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Global Solar Radiation ◽  
Hydrological Process ◽  
China Meteorological Administration ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Spatial Coverage

Solar radiation incident at the Earth’s surface is an essential driver of the energy exchange between the atmosphere and the surface and is also an important input variable in the research on the surface eco-hydrological process. The reanalysis solar radiation dataset is characterized by a long time series and wide spatial coverage and is used in the research of large-scale eco-hydrological processes. Due to certain errors in their production process of the reanalysis of solar radiation products, reanalysis products should be evaluated before application. In this study, three global solar-radiation reanalysis products (ERA-Interim; JRA-55; and NCEP-DOE) in different temporal scales and climate zones were evaluated using surface solar-radiation observations from the National Meteorological Information Center of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA, Beijing, China) and the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA, Zürich, Switzerland) from 2000 to 2009. All reanalysis products (ERA-Interim; JRA-55; and NCEP-DOE) overestimated with an annual bias of 14.86 W/m2, 22.61 W/m2, and 31.85 W/m2; monthly bias of 15.17 W/m2, 21.29 W/m2, and 36.91 W/m2; and seasonal bias of 15.08 W/m2, 21.21 W/m2, and 36.69 W/m2, respectively. In different Köppen climate zones, the annual solar radiation of ERA-Interim performed best in cold regions with a bias of 10.30 W/m2 and absolute relative error (ARE) of 8.98%. However, JRA-55 and NCEP-DOE showed the best performance in tropical regions with a bias of 20.08 W/m2 and −0.12 W/m2, and ARE of 11.00% and 9.68%, respectively. Overall, through the evaluations across different temporal and spatial scales, the rank of the three reanalysis products in order was the ERA-Interim, JRA-55, and NCEP-DOE. In addition, based on the evaluation, we analyzed the relationship between the error (ARE) of the reanalysis products and cloud cover, aerosol, and water vapor, which significantly influences solar radiation and we found that cloud was the main cause for errors in the three solar radiation reanalysis products. The above can provide a reference for the application and downscaling of the three solar radiation reanalysis products.

scholarly journals Is global dimming and brightening in Japan limited to urban areas?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katsumasa Tanaka ◽  
Atsumu Ohmura ◽  
Doris Folini ◽  
Martin Wild ◽  
Nozomu Ohkawara
Keyword(s):  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Surface Radiation ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Decadal Time Scale ◽  
Global Dimming ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Abstract. Observations worldwide indicate secular trends of all-sky surface solar radiation on decadal time scale, termed global dimming and brightening. Accordingly, the observed surface radiation in Japan generally shows a strong decline till the end of the 1980s and then a recovery toward around 2000. Because a substantial number of measurement stations are located within or proximate to populated areas, one may speculate that the observed trends are strongly influenced by local air pollution and are thus not of large-scale significance. This hypothesis poses a serious question as to what regional extent the global dimming and brightening are significant: Are the global dimming and brightening truly global phenomena, or regional or even only local? Our study focused on 14 meteorological observatories that measured all-sky surface solar radiation, zenith transmittance, and maximum transmittance. On the basis of municipality population time series, historical land use maps, recent satellite images, and actual site visits, we concluded that eight stations had been significantly influenced by urbanization, with the remaining six stations being left pristine. Between the urban and rural areas, no marked differences were identified in the temporal trends of the aforementioned meteorological parameters. Our finding suggests that global dimming and brightening in Japan occurred on a large scale, independently of urbanization.

scholarly journals Spatial scales of temperature and salinity variability estimated from Argo observations

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1793-1814
Author(s):  
F. Ninove ◽  
P. Y. Le Traon ◽  
E. Remy ◽  
S. Guinehut
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Zero Crossing ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Covariance Functions ◽  
Salinity Variability ◽  
First Time

Abstract. Argo observations from 2005 to 2013 are used to characterize spatial scales temperature and salinity variations from the surface down to 1500 m. Simulations are first performed to analyze the sensitivity of results to Argo sampling; they show that several years of Argo observations are required to estimate the spatial scales of ocean variability over 20° × 20° boxes. Spatial scales are then computed over several large scale areas. Zonal and meridional spatial scales (Lx and Ly which are also zero crossing of covariance functions) vary as expected with latitudes. Scales are of about 100 km at high latitudes and more of 700 km in the Indian and Pacific equatorial/tropical regions. Zonal and meridional scales are similar: except in these tropical/equatorial regions where zonal scales are much larger (by a factor of 2 to 3) than meridional scales. Spatial scales are the largest close to the surface and have a general tendency for temperature to increase in deeper layers. There are significant differences between temperature and salinity scales, in particular, in the deep ocean. Results are consistent with previous studies based on sparse in-situ observations or satellite altimetry. They provide, however, for the first time a global description of temperature and salinity scales of variability and a characterization of their variations according to depths.

scholarly journals Global trends in downward surface solar radiation from spatial interpolated ground observations during 1961-2019

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-56
Author(s):  
Menghan Yuan ◽  
Thomas Leirvik ◽  
Martin Wild
Keyword(s):  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Spatial Interpolation ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
Cloud Coverage ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Spatial Coverage ◽  
Global Dimming

AbstractDownward surface solar radiation (SSR) is a crucial component of the Global Energy Balance, affecting temperature and the hydrological cycle profoundly, and it provides crucial information about climate change. Many studies have examined SSR trends, however they are often concentrated on specific regions due to limited spatial coverage of ground based observation stations. To overcome this spatial limitation, this study performs a spatial interpolation based on a machine learning method, Random Forest, to interpolate monthly SSR anomalies using a number of climatic variables (various temperature indices, cloud coverage, etc.), time point indicators (years and months of SSR observations), and geographical characteristics of locations (latitudes, longitudes, etc). The predictors that provide the largest explanatory power for interannual variability are diurnal temperature range and cloud coverage. The output of the spatial interpolation is a 0:5° ×0:5° monthly gridded dataset of SSR anomalies with complete land coverage over the period 1961-2019, which is used afterwards in a comprehensive trend analysis for i) each continent separately, and ii) the entire globe.The continental level analysis reveals the major contributors to the global dimming and brightening. In particular, the global dimming before the 1980s is primarily dominated by negative trends in Asia and North America, while Europe and Oceania have been the two largest contributors to the brightening after 1982 and up until 2019.

scholarly journals Concentrator photovoltaic module architectures with capabilities for capture and conversion of full global solar radiation

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (51) ◽  
pp. E8210-E8218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyu-Tae Lee ◽  
Yuan Yao ◽  
Junwen He ◽  
Brent Fisher ◽  
Xing Sheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Flat Plate ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Global Solar Radiation ◽  
Photovoltaic Module ◽  
Module Design ◽  
Direct Normal Irradiance ◽  
Cost Of Energy

Emerging classes of concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) modules reach efficiencies that are far greater than those of even the highest performance flat-plate PV technologies, with architectures that have the potential to provide the lowest cost of energy in locations with high direct normal irradiance (DNI). A disadvantage is their inability to effectively use diffuse sunlight, thereby constraining widespread geographic deployment and limiting performance even under the most favorable DNI conditions. This study introduces a module design that integrates capabilities in flat-plate PV directly with the most sophisticated CPV technologies, for capture of both direct and diffuse sunlight, thereby achieving efficiency in PV conversion of the global solar radiation. Specific examples of this scheme exploit commodity silicon (Si) cells integrated with two different CPV module designs, where they capture light that is not efficiently directed by the concentrator optics onto large-scale arrays of miniature multijunction (MJ) solar cells that use advanced III–V semiconductor technologies. In this CPV+scheme (“+” denotes the addition of diffuse collector), the Si and MJ cells operate independently on indirect and direct solar radiation, respectively. On-sun experimental studies of CPV+modules at latitudes of 35.9886° N (Durham, NC), 40.1125° N (Bondville, IL), and 38.9072° N (Washington, DC) show improvements in absolute module efficiencies of between 1.02% and 8.45% over values obtained using otherwise similar CPV modules, depending on weather conditions. These concepts have the potential to expand the geographic reach and improve the cost-effectiveness of the highest efficiency forms of PV power generation.

scholarly journals Time series modeling and large scale global solar radiation forecasting from geostationary satellites data

Solar Energy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 131-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril Voyant ◽  
Pierrick Haurant ◽  
Marc Muselli ◽  
Christophe Paoli ◽  
Marie-Laure Nivet
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Solar Radiation ◽  
Time Series Modeling ◽  
Geostationary Satellites

Using Modified Sandia Method in Developing Typical Solar Radiation Year for Photovoltaic Electricity Generation Projection

2011 ◽  
Vol 71-78 ◽  
pp. 4374-4381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuo Tsang Huang ◽  
Wen Sheng Ou
Keyword(s):  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Electricity Generation ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Global Solar Radiation ◽  
Climate Variations ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Estimation Process ◽  
Pv Panel ◽  
Southern Taiwan

The energy generation efficiency of Building Intergraded Photovoltaic Systems (BIPV) system relies much on the panel’s surface solar radiation received. In the projection of annual power generation of photovoltaic panels, local global solar radiation plays a pivotal role for reliable estimation process. The purpose of this paper is to develop an hourly typical solar radiation year (TSRY) as fundamental meteorological database for utilizing the estimation process. The TSRY should be interpretable to local long-term climate variations, thus, ten years' hourly meteorological data were gathered to formulate a typical year by means of modified Sandia method herein. A total of four cities' hourly typical years from northern to southern Taiwan were established in this paper. Orientation and inclination effect of the PV panel were also discussed in terms of daily averaged global solar radiation that cumulate from TSRY.

scholarly journals Surface global and diffuse solar radiation over China acquired from geostationary Multi-functional Transport Satellite data

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Jiang ◽  
Ning Lu ◽  
Jun Qin ◽  
Ling Yao
Keyword(s):  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Satellite Data ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Diffuse Radiation ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Global Solar Radiation ◽  
Surface Solar Radiation ◽  
Diffuse Solar Radiation

Abstract. Surface solar radiation drives the water cycle and energy exchange on the earth's surface, being an indispensable parameter for many numerical models to estimate soil moisture, evapotranspiration and plant photosynthesis, and its diffuse component can promote carbon uptake in ecosystems as a result of improvements of plant productivity by enhancing canopy light use efficiency. To reproduce the spatial distribution and spatiotemporal variations of solar radiation over China, we generate the high-accuracy radiation datasets, including global solar radiation (GSR) and the diffuse radiation (DIF) with spatial resolution of 1/20 degree, based on the observations from the China Meteorology Administration (CMA) and Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT) satellite data, after tackling the integration of spatial pattern and the simulation of complex radiation transfer that the existing algorithms puzzle about by means of the combination of convolutional neural network (CNN) and multi-layer perceptron (MLP). All data cover a period from 2007 to 2018 in hourly, daily total and monthly total scales. The validation in 2008 shows that the root mean square error (RMSE) between our datasets and in-situ measurements approximates 73.79 W/m2 (0.27 MJ/m2) and 58.22 W/m2 (0.21 MJ/m2) for GSR and DIF, respectively. Besides, the spatially continuous hourly estimates properly reflect the regional differences and restore the diurnal cycles of solar radiation in fine scales. Such accurate knowledge is useful for the prediction of agricultural yield, carbon dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems, research on regional climate changes, and site selection of solar power plants etc. The datasets are freely available from Pangaea at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.904136 (Jiang and Lu, 2019).

scholarly journals Intercomparison in spatial distributions and temporal trends derived from multi-source satellite aerosol products

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 7183-7207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Wei ◽  
Yiran Peng ◽  
Rashed Mahmood ◽  
Lin Sun ◽  
Jianping Guo
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Missing Values ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Temporal Variations ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Spatial Distributions ◽  
Spatial Coverage ◽  
The World

Abstract. Satellite-derived aerosol products provide long-term and large-scale observations for analysing aerosol distributions and variations, climate-scale aerosol simulations, and aerosol–climate interactions. Therefore, a better understanding of the consistencies and differences among multiple aerosol products is important. The objective of this study is to compare 11 global monthly aerosol optical depth (AOD) products, which are the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (ESA-CCI) Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR), Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer (VIIRS), and POLarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectance (POLDER) products. AErosol RObotic NEtwork (AERONET) Version 3 Level 2.0 monthly measurements at 308 sites around the world are selected for comparison. Our results illustrate that the spatial distributions and temporal variations of most aerosol products are highly consistent globally but exhibit certain differences on regional and site scales. In general, the AATSR Dual View (ADV) and SeaWiFS products show the lowest spatial coverage with numerous missing values, while the MODIS products can cover most areas (average of 87 %) of the world. The best performance is observed in September–October–November (SON) and the worst is in June–July–August (JJA). All the products perform unsatisfactorily over northern Africa and Middle East, southern and eastern Asia, and their coastal areas due to the influence from surface brightness and human activities. In general, the MODIS products show the best agreement with the AERONET-based AOD values on different spatial scales among all the products. Furthermore, all aerosol products can capture the correct aerosol trends at most cases, especially in areas where aerosols change significantly. The MODIS products perform best in capturing the global temporal variations in aerosols. These results provide a reference for users to select appropriate aerosol products for their particular studies.

scholarly journals Spatial scales of temperature and salinity variability estimated from Argo observations

Ocean Science ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Ninove ◽  
P.-Y. Le Traon ◽  
E. Remy ◽  
S. Guinehut
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Zero Crossing ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Covariance Functions ◽  
Salinity Variability ◽  
First Time

Abstract. Argo observations from 2005 to 2013 are used to characterize spatial scales of temperature and salinity variations from the surface down to 1300 m. Simulations are first performed to analyze the sensitivity of results to Argo sampling; they show that several years of Argo observations are required to estimate spatial scales of ocean variability over 20°  ×  20° boxes. Spatial scales are then computed over several large-scale areas. Zonal and meridional spatial scales (Lx and Ly which are zero crossing of covariance functions) vary as expected with latitudes. Scales are of about 100 km at high latitudes and more of 700 km in the Indian and Pacific equatorial–tropical regions. Zonal and meridional scales are similar except in tropical–equatorial regions where zonal scales are much larger (by a factor of 2 to 3) than meridional scales. Spatial scales are the largest close to the surface and have a general tendency for temperature to increase in deeper layers. There are significant differences between temperature and salinity scales, in particular, in the deep ocean. Results are consistent with previous studies based on sparse in situ observations or satellite altimetry. They provide, however, for the first time a global description of temperature and salinity scales of variability and a characterization of their variations according to depths.

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