National Solar Radiation Data Base User's Manual (1961-1990)

Table of Contents

• Cover and Notice
• Preface
• Acronyms and Nomenclature
• How to Use This Manual

• List of Tables
• List of Figures

  Part 1: How to Use and Interpret Data Base Products

  • 1.0 Background and Overview: The National Solar Radiation Data Base (Version 1.0)
    • 1.1 General Description
    • 1.2 Rationale for a New Data Base
  • 2.0 Data Base Product Options
    • 2.1 Hourly Data
    • 2.2 Statistical Summaries
    • 2.3 Media
    • 2.4 Where to Order Data Base Products
  • 3.0 Reading and Understanding Data Base Products
    • 3.1 NSRDB Synoptic Format
    • 3.2 TD-3282 Format
    • 3.3 Statistical Summaries
      • 3.3.1 Daily Statistics
      • 3.3.2 Hourly Means, Standard Deviations, and Distributions
      • 3.3.3 Daily Persistence Data
    • 3.4 Quality Flags
      • 3.4.1 Quality Flags for Solar Radiation Elements
      • 3.4.2 Quality Flags for Meteorological Elements
      • 3.4.3 Quality Flags Applied to Solar Radiation Statistical Products
      • 3.4.4 Quality Statistics Product

  Part 2: How the Data Base was Produced

  • 4.0 Brief History of Solar Radiation Measurements in the United States
    • 4.1 NOAA'S Solar Radiation Network
    • 4.2 The SOLMET/ERSATZ Data Base
  • 5.0 Sources of Solar Radiation and Meteorological Data
    • 5.1 Data Acquisition
      • 5.1.1 Meteorological Data - TD-3280
      • 5.1.2 Precipitable Water
      • 5.1.3 Snow Depth - TD-3210
      • 5.1.4 Ozone
    • 5.2 Derived Input Meteorological Data
      • 5.2.1 Filling Gaps in the Data Record
      • 5.2.2 Deriving Precipitable Water Data
      • 5.2.3 Deriving Broadband Aerosol Optical Depth
  • 6.0 Model Estimates of Solar Radiation
    • 6.1 Direct Normal Algorithms
      • 6.1.1 Cloudless Sky Transmittance
      • 6.1.2 Cloud Transmittance
    • 6.2 Diffuse Horizontal Algorithms
      • 6.2.1 Atmospheric Scattering
      • 6.2.2 Scattering by Clouds
      • 6.2.3 Multiple Surface-to-Atmosphere/Cloud Reflections
      • 6.2.4 Precipitation Switch
    • 6.3 Statistical Algorithms
      • 6.3.1 Cloudless Sky Algorithms
      • 6.3.2 Random Effects of Cloud Cover
  • 7.0 Synthetic Calibration (SYNCAL) Procedures
    • 7.1 Developing the Calibration Correction Factors (CCFs)
    • 7.2 Applying the Calibration Correction Factors
    • 7.3 Summary Comments
  • 8.0 Data Base Quality
    • 8.1 Quality Assessment of Measured Solar Radiation Data
    • 8.2 Standard Methods for Calculating Uncertainities
    • 8.3 Calculating the Uncertainty of Solar Radiation Data
      • 8.3.1 Optimum Uncertainties
      • 8.3.2 Calculating the Uncertainity of Modeled Values
    • 8.4 The Total Uncertainty of Measured Solar Radiation Data
      • 8.4.1 Total Uncertainty of Post-1976 Data (Sources A and B)
      • 8.4.2 Total Uncertainty of Pre-1976 Data (Sources C)
      • 8.4.3 Total Uncertainty of Calculated Data (Source D)
      • 8.4.4 Total Uncertainty of Modeled Data (Sources E-H)
    • 8.5 Calculating the Uncertainty of Monthly and Annual Statistics
    • 8.6 Using the Solar Radiation Quality Flags
    • 8.7 The Uncertainty of Meteorological Data
  • 9.0 The Production Process
    • 9.1 Verification and Validation
    • 9.2 Production Control and Monitoring
      • 9.2.1 The Project Status Log
      • 9.2.2 The Production Status (ProStat) Data Base
      • 9.2.3 The File Status Log
      • 9.2.4 Process ID File
  • 10.0 Known Imperfections within the NSRDB
    • 10.1 Bad Meteorological Data
    • 10.2 Using Data from Other Years to Replace Missing Meteorological Data
    • 10.3 Present Weather Data
    • 10.4 Incomplete Replacement of Missing Meteorological Data
    • 10.5 Lack of Aerosol Optical Depth Data
    • 10.6 NWS Solar Radiation Measurements from 1981 to 1985
    • 10.7 Missing SOLMET Data
    • 10.8 Undetected Problems

  • 11.0 References
  • Appendix A: Units Conversion Factors
  • Appendix B: Station Notes
  • Appendix C: 30-Year Summary of Quality Flags
  • Appendix D: Key to the Present Weather Elements

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