Parameters - Geographical Coverage - Time Period - Units - Accuracy - Methodology - Acknowledgements -

• hourly values
• daily values
• irradiance at top of atmosphere
• irradiance under clear-sky
• irradiance assessed by the Heliosat-2 method
• an error (standard-deviation)
• a code parameter

Approximately: 66 N - 66 S ; 66 E - 66 W. The field of view is restricted to the pixels belonging to the Earth and for which the elevation angle of Meteosat above horizon is larger than 12 degrees.

Clik on picture for magnification (copyright Eumetsat)

Satellite data are received at Ecole des Mines de Paris by the means of a receiving station and are processed on-fly. They are available 2-3 minutes after end of acquisition. For legal reasons, they are disseminated only 24 hours after.

Accuracy

Assessed by comparisons with measurements performed in 35 stations of the WMO radiometric network in Europe. The natural variability of the radiation should be removed from the values below (approx. 10-15 %) to evaluate the accuracy of the database.

	Mean value	Bias	RMSE
Hourly Values	357 Wh/m2 1285 kJ/m2 357 W/m2	-7 Wh/m2 -25 kJ/m2 -7 W/m2	91 Wh/m2 328 kJ/m2 91 W/m2
Daily Values	3384 Wh/m2 12182 kJ/m2 141 W/m2	110 Wh/m2 396 kJ/m2 5 W/m2	482 Wh/m2 1735 kJ/m2 20 W/m2

Methodology

The images taken by the satellite Meteosat, are processed by the means of the method Heliosat-2.

Please, contact Lucien Wald.

Acknowledgements

Eumetsat for their kind support in continuously supplying Meteosat data. Met-Offices from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, United Kingdom provided radiometric measurements for validation.