Effects of clouds and aerosols on downwelling surface solar irradiance nowcasting and short-term forecasting

Papachristopoulou, Kyriakoula; Fountoulakis, Ilias; Bais, Alkiviadis F.; Psiloglou, Basil E.; Papadimitriou, Nikolaos; Raptis, Ioannis-Panagiotis; Kazantzidis, Andreas; Kontoes, Charalampos; Hatzaki, Maria; Kazadzis, Stelios

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-1851-2024

Articles | Volume 17, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-1851-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-1851-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 7

Research article

|

03 Apr 2024

Research article |

| 03 Apr 2024

Effects of clouds and aerosols on downwelling surface solar irradiance nowcasting and short-term forecasting

Kyriakoula Papachristopoulou, Ilias Fountoulakis, Alkiviadis F. Bais, Basil E. Psiloglou, Nikolaos Papadimitriou, Ioannis-Panagiotis Raptis, Andreas Kazantzidis, Charalampos Kontoes, Maria Hatzaki, and Stelios Kazadzis

Data sets

OMI/Aura TOMS-Like Ozone, Aerosol Index, Cloud Radiance Fraction L3 1 day 1 degree x 1 degree V3 P. K. Bhartia https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/OMI/DATA3001

CAMS global reanalysis (EAC4) European Commission https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cams-global-atmospheric-composition-forecasts?tab=form

Short summary

The upgraded systems SENSE2 and NextSENSE2 focus on improving the quality of solar nowcasting and forecasting. SENSE2 provides real-time estimates of solar irradiance across a wide region every 15 min. NextSENSE2 offers short-term forecasts of irradiance up to 3 h ahead. Evaluation with actual data showed that the instantaneous comparison yields the most discrepancies due to the uncertainties of cloud-related information and satellite versus ground-based spatial representativeness limitations.