The Use of Solar Radiation Models to Derive Atmospheric Turbidity from Measured Irradiance: An Inter-Comparison Study
Abstract
The present study provides an inter-comparison of eleven important retrieval methods to estimate atmospheric turbidity from measured DNI. To reduce error propagation, each turbidity index has been derived using appropriate set of models. Then, an inter-comparison between all the selected models has been carried out to establish their degree of agreement with particular attention to Kasten’s method. High-resolution radiometric data from Plataforma Solar del Desierto de Atacama (PSDA) is used in this investigation. The results have shown that these radiation models agree generally well. The study also concluded that Kasten’s pyrheliometric method performs as well as high-performance radiation models such as METSTAT, MWLT1, MWLT2, REST and Yang.