Retrieving air humidity, global solar radiation, and reference evapotranspiration from daily temperatures: development and validation of new methods for Mexico. Part II: radiation

• Published in: Theoretical and applied climatology Vol. 133; no. 3-4; pp. 799 - 810
• Main Authors: Lobit, P., López Pérez, L., Lhomme, J. P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01.08.2018; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Atmospheric Sciences; Climate science; Climatology; Clouds; Daily; Daily temperature range; Daily temperatures; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Evapotranspiration; Global radiation; Global temperatures; Gompertz curves; Humidity; Humidity data; Mean square errors; Meteorological data; Methods; Minimum temperatures; Mountain regions; Original Paper; Parameter estimation; Radiation (Physics); Rangefinding; Relative humidity; Root-mean-square errors; Sky radiation; Solar radiation; Temperature; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Weather; Weather stations; Mexico
• ISSN: 0177-798X; 1434-4483
• DOI: 10.1007/s00704-017-2212-8

We propose a new model to estimate daily global radiation from daily temperature range measurements. This model combines that of Majumdar et al. (Sol Energy 13(4):383–394, 1972 ) to estimate clear sky radiation with a Gompertz function to estimate the relation between temperature range and cloud transmittance. Model parameters are estimated from historical weather data: maximum and minimum temperatures and, if available, relative humidity; no other calibration is required. The model was parametrized and validated using 788 weather stations in Mexico. When calibrated using historical humidity data, daily global radiation was estimated with a mean root mean square error of 3.06 MJ m −2  day −1 . The model performed well in all situations, except for a few stations around the Gulf of Mexico and in mountain areas. When using estimated humidity, the root mean square error of prediction was only slightly degraded (3.07 MJ m −2  day −1 ). Possible theoretical basis and applicability of this model to other environments are discussed.