Development of local atmospheric model for estimating solar irradiance in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Incoming solar irradiance covers a wide range of wavelengths with different intensities which drives almost every biological and physical cycle on earth at a selective wavelength. Estimation of the intensities of each wavelength for the solar irradiance on the earth surface provides a better way to understand and predict the radiance energy. It requires that the atmospheric and geometric input and the availability of atmospheric parameter is always the main concern in estimating solar irradiance. In this study, a local static atmospheric model for Peninsular Malaysia was built to provide the atmospheric parameters in the estimation of solar irradiance. Ten years of monthly Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) average data (water vapor, temperature, humidity and pressure profile) of the Peninsular Malaysia was used for the building of the atmospheric model and the atmospheric model were assessed based on the measured meteorological data with RMSE of 4.7% and 0.7k for both humidity and temperature respectively. The atmospheric model were applied on a wellestablished radiative transfer model namely SMARTS2. Some modifications are required in order to include the atmospheric model into the radiative transfer model. The solar irradiance results were then assessed with measured irradiance data and the results show that both the radiative transfer model and atmospheric model were reliable with RMSE value of 0.5Wm-2. The atmospheric model was further validated based on the measured meteorological data (temperature and humidity) provided by the Department of Meteorology, Malaysia and high coefficient of determination with R2 value of 0.99 (RMSE value = 4.7%) and 0.90 (RMSE value = 0.7k) were found for both temperature and humidity respectively