Authors / CoAuthors
Grant, I. | Kay, R.
Abstract
Hourly direct normal solar exposure is the total amount of direct beam solar energy falling over one hour on a surface whose orientation is maintained perpendicular to the solar beam. Typical values for hourly direct normal exposure range up to around 3 MJ/m2 (megajoules per square metre). The values are usually highest in clear skies and decrease rapidly with increasing cloudiness, and also decrease to a lesser extent with increasing haziness and decreasing solar elevation. Global solar exposure is the total amount of solar energy falling on a horizontal surface. The daily global solar exposure is the total solar energy for a day. Typical values for daily global exposure range from 1 to 35 MJ/m2 (megajoules per square metre). For mid-latitudes, the values are usually highest in clear sun conditions during the summer and lowest during the winter or very cloudy days. See LINEAGE below for more information.
Product Type
dataset
eCat Id
75050
Contact for the resource
Custodian
Owner
Owner
Custodian
Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378
Canberra
ACT
2601
Australia
Keywords
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- Database
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- solar
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- solar exposure
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- GIS
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- AU
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Meteorology
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- Published_Internal
Publication Date
2013-01-01T00:00:00
Creation Date
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Purpose
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notPlanned
Topic Category
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
Series Information
Lineage
Decommisioned- see Product Management Plan D2015-144492 The Bureau of Meteorology's computer radiation model uses visible images from geostationary meteorological satellites to estimate daily global solar exposures at ground level. At each location for each satellite acquired image, the brightnesses are averaged over each grid cell and used to estimate solar irradiance at the ground. Essentially, the irradiance at the ground can be calculated from the irradiance at the top of the earth's atmosphere, the amount absorbed in the atmosphere (dependant on the amount of water vapour present), the amount reflected from the surface (surface albedo) and the amount reflected from clouds (cloud albedo). These instantaneous irradiance values are integrated over the day to give daily insolation (daily radiant exposure) in megajoules per square metre. The daily exposure gridded datasets cover Australia with a resolution of 0.05 degrees in latitude and longitude. These datasets were produced by reprocessing archived raw satellite data using software that was extensively rewritten in 2006, but based on the physical model that has been used since 1990. The Time Series of Daily Global Horizontal Exposure and Direct Normal Exposure rasters were processed by the Bureau of Meteorology to create typical monthly mean rasters for the period 1990-2013. Monthly minimum rasters were also created by extracting, then combining, the lowest raster cell values for the period 1990-2013.
Parent Information
Extents
[-43.660886, -10.013967, 112.903114, 153.949355]
Reference System
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