Comparison of hourly surface downwelling solar radiation estimated from MSG–SEVIRI and forecast by the RAMS model with pyranometers over Italy

Federico, Stefano; Torcasio, Rosa Claudia; Sanò, Paolo; Casella, Daniele; Campanelli, Monica; Meirink, Jan Fokke; Wang, Ping; Vergari, Stefania; Diémoz, Henri; Dietrich, Stefano

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2337-2017

Articles | Volume 10, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2337-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2337-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 6

Research article

|

27 Jun 2017

Research article |

| 27 Jun 2017

Comparison of hourly surface downwelling solar radiation estimated from MSG–SEVIRI and forecast by the RAMS model with pyranometers over Italy

Stefano Federico, Rosa Claudia Torcasio, Paolo Sanò, Daniele Casella, Monica Campanelli, Jan Fokke Meirink, Ping Wang, Stefania Vergari, Henri Diémoz, and Stefano Dietrich

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Final revised paper (published on 27 Jun 2017)
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Preprint (discussion started on 23 Feb 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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SC1: 'RAMS versions and usage', Stephen Saleeby, 15 Mar 2017
- AC2: 'answers to the short comment', Stefano Federico, 12 Apr 2017
RC1: 'Βibliographic quantified comparisons and structure adjustments', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Mar 2017
- AC1: 'Answers to the reviewer #1 comments.', Stefano Federico, 12 Apr 2017
RC2: 'Review: Comparison of hourly surface downwelling solar radiation estimated from MSG/SEVIRI and forecast by RAMS model with pyranometers over Italy', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Apr 2017
- AC3: 'Answer to the reviewer 2 comments.', Stefano Federico, 13 Apr 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Stefano Federico on behalf of the Authors (11 May 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (17 May 2017) by Stelios Kazadzis

This is a very interesting work concerning the evaluation of
a. MSG/Seviri based GHI
b. RAMS based GHI
and c. RAMS-MOS (and persistence) based GHI

The work has been improved based on the reviewer's comments and the author’s revision and it fits very well to the AMT journal.
I would suggest the publication of this paper to AMT after taking into account some minor comments below.

MSG-GHI inputs

The MSG relate section (2.1). This sections mainly describes the SICCS and Greuel, 2013 paper. In order to assess the use of this method to the selected Italian stations, some more information have to be provided about the input data used for each station.

For example Greuel, 2013 tables 1 and 2 describe the inputs used but then a choice of these for each station has to be made. e.g. if water or ice clouds were used , if the change of albedo was taken into account, also what water vapour value was used. Finally, if the station height has been taken into account in the radiative transfer modling calculations.

line 492 "more than halved" - you can provide the actual percentages

Kosmopulos is actually Kosmopoulos

line 606 "big issues" I would rephrase that as despite the large discrepancies it is a challenging issue.

The cloud scenes are now divided to clear, contaminated and overcast based on MSG. They could be divided based on pyranometer data which represent more real conditions. Since, now it is difficult to be implemented, some discussion on this issue could be useful. For example that MSG failures on the cloud "typing" (clear, contaminated, overcast) will affect also the statistics.

for example contaminated data in theory are the most difficult ones to model as the hourly GHI is related with the percentage of time that the direct sun component is not attenuated by clouds. However largest RAMS deviations are shown in overcast data and maybe this has to do with the above cloud typing.

line 612-613 case to case, I think you mean location dependent.

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AR by Stefano Federico on behalf of the Authors (23 May 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (24 May 2017) by Stelios Kazadzis

AR by Stefano Federico on behalf of the Authors (24 May 2017)

Short summary

In this paper we evaluate the performance of two estimates of the global horizontal irradiance (GHI), one derived from the Meteosat Second Generation and one from a meteorological model (Regional Atmospheric Modeling System) forecast. The focus area is Italy, and the performance is evaluated for 12 pyranometers spanning a range of climate conditions, from Mediterranean maritime to Alpine.