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International audience; Measurements of the global surface solar irradiation and its direct and diffuse components performed at three Egyptian sites (Aswan, Cairo, and Port Said) are used to test the ability of two published decomposition models to estimate the hourly direct normal irradiance from the measured global horizontal one in cloud-free conditions. The tested models failed to reproduce the temporal variability of the measurements, which we show to be partly induced by the large variability of the atmospheric content in aerosols. We propose a revised formulation of the decomposition models that takes into account the aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 1000 nm derived from onsite measurements. It leads to a significant reduction of the bias and root mean square deviation of the original models and this at the three Egyptian sites. However, because the AOD is rarely measured at the meteorological stations, we also quantify the performance of the revised models when the AOD is either derived from the MODIS observations or obtained by the products from Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS). Probably because of their finer temporal resolution that makes them more apt to reproduce the rapid variations of the AOD, the best results are obtained with the CAMS products. Therefore, we recommend using a combination of the revised decomposition models and these CAMS products to estimate the hourly direct normal irradiance in areas such as Egypt where aerosols are ubiquitous. Note that the improved decomposition models are generally applicable in all-sky conditions, although their benefit has been demonstrated to be significant, and probably limited to, cloud-free conditions.

International audience; HelioClim-3 (HC3) is a database providing time series of the surface downwelling solar irradiance that are computed from images of the Meteosat satellites. This paper presents the validation results of the hourly global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and direct normal irradiance (DNI), i.e., beam irradiance at normal incidence, of versions four and five of HC3 at seven Egyptian sites. The validation is performed for all-sky conditions, as well as cloud-free conditions. Both versions of HC3 provide similar OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2015, 7 9270 performances whatever the conditions. Another comparison is made with the estimates provided by the McClear database that is restricted to cloud-free conditions. All databases capture well the temporal variability of the GHI in all conditions, McClear being superior for cloud-free cases. In cloud-free conditions for the GHI, the relative root mean square error (RMSE) are fairly similar, ranging from 6% to 15%; both HC3 databases exhibit a smaller bias than McClear. McClear offers an overall better performance for the cloud-free DNI estimates. For all-sky conditions, the relative RMSE for GHI ranges from 10% to 22%, except one station, while, for the DNI, the results are not so good for the two stations with DNI measurements.

International audience

A new method has been developed to estimate the global and direct solar irradiance in the UV-A and UV-B at ground level in cloud-free conditions. It is based on a resampling technique applied to the results of the k-distribution method and the correlated-k approximation of Kato et al. (1999) over the UV band. Its inputs are the aerosol properties and total column ozone that are produced by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). The estimates from this new method have been compared to instantaneous measurements of global UV irradiances made in cloud-free conditions at five stations at high latitudes in various climates. For the UV-A irradiance, the bias ranges between −0.8 W m−2 (−3 % of the mean of all data) and −0.2 W m−2 (−1 %). The root mean square error (RMSE) ranges from 1.1 W m−2 (6 %) to 1.9 W m−2 (9 %). The coefficient of determination R2 is greater than 0.98. The bias for UV-B is between −0.04 W m−2 (−4 %) and 0.08 W m−2 (+13 %) and the RMSE is 0.1 W m−2 (between 12 and 18 %). R2 ranges between 0.97 and 0.99. This work demonstrates the quality of the proposed method combined with the CAMS products. Improvements, especially in the modeling of the reflectivity of the Earth's surface in the UV region, are necessary prior to its inclusion into an operational tool., published version, peerReviewed

A database containing the global and diffuse components of the surface solar hourly irradiation measured from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2010 at eight stations of the Egyptian Meteorological Authority is presented. For three of these sites (Cairo, Aswan and El-Farafra), the direct component is also available. In addition, a series of meteorological variables including surface pressure, relative humidity, temperature, wind speed and direction is provided at the same hourly resolution at all stations. The details of the experimental sites and instruments used for the acquisition are given. Special attention is paid to the quality of the data and the procedure applied to flag suspicious or erroneous measurements is described in detail. Between 88 and 99 % of the daytime measurements are validated by this quality control. Except at Barrani where the number is lower (13 500), between 20 000 and 29 000 measurements of global and diffuse hourly irradiation are available at all sites for the 7-year period. Similarly, from 9000 to 13 000 measurements of direct hourly irradiation values are provided for the three sites where this component is measured. With its high temporal resolution this consistent irradiation and meteorological database constitutes a reliable source to estimate the potential of solar energy in Egypt. It is also adapted to the study of high-frequency atmospheric processes such as the impact of aerosols on atmospheric radiative transfer. It is planned to update regularly the current 2004–2010 database, which has been placed on the PANGAEA repository (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.848804) and contains the individual meteorological and irradiation data files of the eight stations.

International audience; The Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) is an instrument to be borne by the future geostationary meteorological satellite Meteosat Third Generation (MTG). A numerical simulator was set up to provide simulated outputs of the instrument. It includes top-of-atmosphere scene of upwelling spectral radiance obtained by a radiative transfer model in the clear atmosphere, and the transfer function of the FCI. The sensitivity of the sensor outputs to aerosol properties is studied by varying the inputs defining the scenes and their illumination. The Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA) with the Sobol' decomposition is applied to the outputs of the simulator, yielding a ranking of the inputs with respect to their influence on the FCI numerical outputs. The results are presented for all visible and near infrared channels of the FCI for desert type of aerosols according to the OPAC database. The study highlights the most relevant channels for aerosol detection and characterization and gives assessment of the different sources of uncertainties in aerosol retrieval with such channels.

International audience; The Flexible Combined Imager (FCI) is an instrument on the future geostationary meteorological satellite Meteosat Third Generation (MTG). This communication presents preliminary results on its capability in measuring and characterizing the optical properties of the aerosols, their load, and nature. A numerical simulator has been built that includes top-of-atmosphere scene simulation obtained by a radiative transfer model in the clear atmosphere, and the transfer function of the FCI (spectral response, SNR…) to provide simulated outputs of the instrument. Changes of inputs depicting the atmosphere and the ground yield a series of FCI outputs that are analyzed by means of global sensitivity analysis to assess the sensitivity of FCI to changing aerosol properties.