Validating Meteosat-derived surface solar irradiance in Mozambique

Philippe Blanc (1) , Benoît Gschwind (1) , Mireille Lefèvre (1) , Fabien Wald (2) , Lucien Wald (1)

1 CEP/Sophia
2 CEP - Centre Énergétique et Procédés

he solar radiation reaching the ground level on horizontal surfaces is of interest to many domains. The database HelioClim-1 contains daily values of radiation for 21 years: 1985-2005. It has been derived from Meteosat images and covers Europe, Africa and Atlantic Ocean. It is compared to ground-based measurements in Mozambique collected from the World Radiation Data Center. The quality of HelioClim-1 is good: the root mean square difference is approximately 30 W/m², and the correlation coefficient is greater than 0.85. These results are similar to those obtained by previous studies for Europe. HelioClim-1 is freely available through the SoDa Service and offers a reliable and accurate knowledge of the solar radiation and its daily, seasonal and annual variations over recent years.

Mots clés: Essential Climate Variable; Africa; equatorial climate; remote sensing; satellite; radiation; GMES; Earth observation

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]; Océan, Atmosphère; Planète et Univers [physics]; Sciences de la Terre; Climatologie; Sciences de l'environnement; Milieux et Changements globaux

Philippe Blanc, Benoît Gschwind, Mireille Lefèvre, Fabien Wald, Lucien Wald. Validating Meteosat-derived surface solar irradiance in Mozambique. 30th Symposium of the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories, May 2011, Prague, Czech Republic. pp.561-568. ⟨hal-00660935⟩