A Physical Method for a Satellite Based Surface Radiation Database
Abstract
A physical based two stage algorithm for retrieving surface irradiance has been created for the GOES series of satellites but can be adapted to any other geostationary satellites measuring at visible and infrared wavelengths. As cloud properties are retrieved both Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) and Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI) can be directly calculated using a radiative transfer model. The goal of this research was to investigate the quality of satellite derived GHI from the GOES-11 (GOES-West) satellite for selected locations in the United States where quality ground measurements are available. The initial results, from analysis of a year (2009) of data, show that the methodology holds promise. We expect to build on this analysis and create a 10-15 year high quality surface radiation dataset which can be used by industry for site location purposes.