Creating a Global Surface Solar Irradiance Product from OMI and SCIAMACHY

Abstract

The solar energy market has grown rapidly over the last few years. Since solar energy depends strongly on weather and climate, solar resource assessment is essential for photovoltaic power plants. Accurate solar radiation climatology data sets are the foundation of photovoltaic power plant performance models. In this study data from two polar-orbiting satellite spectrometers (OMI and SCIAMACHY) was used to create a daily meanmonthly mean surface solar irradiance product. This product shows good agreement with surface measurements and a comparable surface solar irradiance product, CERES. The created surface solar irradiance product is used to analyze trends, time series and anomalies, globally and locally. It is found that a difference in aerosol optical depth input can affect the local surface solar irradiance up to 60 W/m2, but globally differences aerosol optical depth input does not affect the surface solar irradiance. There is no clear trend in the created surface solar irradiance product in the overlapping time period of the two satellites.