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Acronyms

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Acronym

Description

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Acronym	Description
ADS	Atmosphere Data Store
AOD	Aerosol optical depth
AM	Ammonium
APOLLO	AVHRR Processing scheme Over cLouds, Land and Ocean
APOLLO_NG	APOLLO Next Generation
ASCII	American Standard Code for Information Interchange
BC	Black carbon
BHI	Beam Horizontal Irradiation
BNI	Beam Normal Irradiation
BRDF	Bidirectional reflectance distribution function
CAMS	Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service
CRS	CAMS Radiation Service
CSV	comma/semicolon separated data format
DHI	Diffuse Horizontal Irradiation
DU	Dust
GHI	Global Horizontal Irradiation
Heliosat-4	All-sky method
MACC	Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate
McClear	Cloud-free method
MODIS	Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
MSG	Meteosat Second Generation
netCDF	Network common data format
NI	Nitrate
OR	Organic matter
ISO	International Organization for Standardization
SS	Sea salt
SU	Sulphate
TST	True Solar Time
UT	Universal Time

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The CAMS Radiation Service is designed to meet the requirements that have been specified for the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). The precursor projects MACC and MACC-II/-III prepared the CAMS Radiation Service in terms of implementation, sustained operation and availability. It was ensured that the service lines have been designed to best meet both the requirements of downstream service providers and end users at the European, national and local levels, and the requirements of the global scientific user community. This page provides a high level overview of the solar radiation service; more details can be found in the Section Detailed documentation.

Solar radiation service

The CAMS solar radiation

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services provide historical values (2004 to present) of global (GHI), direct (BHI) and diffuse (DHI) solar irradiation, as well as direct normal irradiation (BNI). The aim is to fulfil the needs of European and national policy

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development and the requirements

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of both commercial and public downstream services

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, e.g. for planning, monitoring, efficiency improvements

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and the integration of solar energy systems into energy supply grids.

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For clear-sky conditions, an irradiation time series is provided for any location in the world using information on aerosol, ozone and water vapour from the CAMS global forecasting system. Other properties, such as ground albedo and ground elevation, are also taken into account.

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Similar time series

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are available for cloudy conditions but, since the high-resolution cloud information is directly inferred from satellite observations,

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these are currently only available

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inside the field-of-view of the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite, which is roughly Europe, Africa, the Atlantic Ocean and the Middle East.

Input quality control, regular quarterly benchmarking against ground stations, and regular monitoring the consistency and detecting possible trends is performed.

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Table 1: Overview of key characteristics

	Clear-Sky (McClear)	All-Sky (Heliosat-4)
ADS name	Cloud-free conditions only	Both cloud-free and actual weather conditions
Type of product	Point data, time-series
Parameters	GHI, DHI, BHI, BNI
Geographical area	global	Europe / Africa / Middle East / Atlantic Ocean (Meteosat Second Generation field of view)
Horizontal resolution	Interpolated to point of interest from various spatial input data resolutions
Time coverage	from 2004-01-01 to (current – 2 days)	from 2004-02-01 to (current – 2 days)
Temporal resolution	1 min, 15 min, 1 h, 1 day, 1 month Following meteorological standards, the time given for an irradiation value is the end of the integration period.
Data format	ASCII (CSV), NetCDF
Data file size	File size depends on the temporal resolution. Largest files are in 1 min temporal resolution and the CSV data format (e.g. 60 MB for a 1 year time series in the standard output mode and 10 MB if zipped; 138 MB for a 1 year time series in the expert mode and 19 MB if zipped)
Data access	Atmosphere Data Store
Processing	on request; data normally available within a few minutes
Update of the databases	2 days delayed mode

The CAMS Radiation Service CSV formatted products are presented as a metadata header section, followed by lines of values (columns). The metadata header section helps the user to understand the data, and describing the various features of the products. These metadata are written as text in the delivered file, and conform to the ISO standard where available. Currently these metadata are:

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Standard output variables

Main Variable Names	NetCDF Units	Description
BHI	Wh m-2

All-sky direct (beam)

Direct horizontal all sky irradiation, i.e., the direct part of the surface solar downward irradiation integrated over the whole spectrum available at ground level, on a horizontal surface
BNI	Wh m-2

All-sky direct (beam) normal Irradiation

Direct normal all sky irradiation. Part of the radiation that is received from the direction of the sun by a plane facing the sun.
DHI	Wh m-2

All-

Diffuse horizontal all sky

diffuse

irradiation, i.e., the diffuse part of the surface solar downward irradiation integrated over the whole spectrum available at ground level, on a horizontal surface.
GHI	Wh m-2

All-

Global horizontal all sky

global

irradiation, i.e., the surface solar downward irradiation integrated over the whole spectrum available at ground level, on a horizontal surface.

Expert mode variables

BHIc	Wh m-2	Direct horizontal clear sky irradiation
BNIc	Wh m-2	Direct normal clear sky irradiation.
DHIc	Wh m-2	Diffuse horizontal clear sky irradiation
GHIc	Wh m-2	Global horizontal clear sky irradiation

Expert mode variables

For expert users, all input and output variables are For expert users, all input and output variables are provided in the ‘detailed info expert output mode’. It can only be retrieved when requesting 1 min resolved time series from the Atmosphere Data Store. Besides the standard outputs, it provides:

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Known issues and version updates

Date

Version

Description

2021

2022-

06

09

v4.

0

5 (current)

Since 2013

New version of the all-sky model. Version 4.5 uses a new clear sky model (McClear 3.5) and no bias correction anymore. The clear-sky model McClear 3.5 uses now the CAMS Reanalysis for 2004-2020.
2021-06	v4.0	Since 2013, CAMS Radiation service used the cloud retrieval scheme APOLLO. The version 4.0 of CAMS Radiation Service includes a new version APOLLO Next Generation (APOLLO_NG) that improves cloud detection using fuzzy logic. Fix in the MSG satellite projection handling for all data before 12/2017. A new global bias correction was implemented.
2018-06	v3.2	Fix of a mathematical bug in the (latitude, longitude) position of the pixels of the Meteosat satellite images.
2018-03	v3.1	CAMS McClear benefits from the successive enhancements of the Aerosol Optical Depth versions. McClear version, and consequently CAMS radiation service version as well, have been incremented from 3.0 to 3.1. Results are slightly modified in October 2012 and September-November 2015.
2017-10	v3	McClear clear sky model v3 New empirical bias correction algorithm
2015-10	v2.7	McClear v2.7
2015-07	v2.6	Bug fixed in verbose expert mode
2015-02	v2.6	Bug fixed in the filling of MACC AOD databases
2015-01	v2.6	Bug fixed bug for cloud coverage > 100% Add a verbose expert mode for the one minute requests Edition format file version 2
2014-11	v2.5	APOLLO data coverage extension: 2004-02-01 to D-2
2014-11	v2.4	Call to McClear v2.4
2014-08	v2.3	Call to McClear v2.3 Bug fixed in APOLLO data interpolation
	v2.2	does not exist (synchronization with McClear versions)
2014-07	v2.1	Bug fixed for the shift of one pixel in APOLLO files import
2013-07	v2.0	Edition format file version 1

How to acknowledge and cite the data

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(1) provide clear and visible attribution to the Copernicus programme by citing the web catalogue page:

CAMS solar radiation time-series. Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Atmosphere Data Store (ADS). (Accessed on DD-MMM-YYY), https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cams-solar-radiation-timeseries?tab=overview

(2) acknowledge according to the data licence (i.e. licence to use Copernicus products (Clause 5 in particular)

(3) Cite the relevant peer-review publication for the CAMS-Radiation Service:

catalogue page:

CAMS solar radiation time-series. Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Atmosphere Data Store (ADS). (Accessed on DD-MMM-YYY), https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cams-solar-radiation-timeseries?tab=overview

(2) acknowledge according to the data licence (i.e. licence to use Copernicus products (Clause 5 in particular)

(3) Cite the relevant peer-review publication for the the CAMS-Radiation Service:

Qu, Z., Oumbe, A., Blanc, P., Espinar, B., Gesell, G., Gschwind, B., Klüser, L., Lefèvre, M., Saboret, L., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., and Wald L.: Fast radiative transfer parameterisation for assessing the surface solar irradiance: The Heliosat-4 method, Meteorol. Z., 26, 33-57, doi: 10.1127/metz/2016/0781,2017. Available for download at https://www.schweizerbart.de/papers/metz/detail/26/87036/Fast_radiative_transfer_parameterisation_for_asses?af=crossref.

Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., Azam, F., Betcke, J., Hanrieder, N., Lefèvre, M., Saboret, L., Saint-Drenan, Y.-M.: Surface solar irradiation retrieval from MSG/SEVIRI based on APOLLO Next Generation and HELIOSAT-4 methods, Contrib. Atm. Sci./Meteorol. Z.,2022, doi:10.1127/metz/2022/1132.

and for the CAMS clear-sky time series:

Gschwind, B., Wald L., Blanc, P., Lefèvre, M., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., Arola, A., 2019. Improving the McClear model estimating the downwelling solar radiation at ground level in cloud free conditions – McClear-V3., Meteorol. Z./Contrib. Atm. Sci., 28, 2, 147-163Qu, Z., Oumbe, A., Blanc, P., Espinar, B., Gesell, G., Gschwind, B., Klüser, L., Lefèvre, M., Saboret, L., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., and Wald L.: Fast radiative transfer parameterisation for assessing the surface solar irradiance: The Heliosat-4 method, Meteorol. Z., 26, 33-57, doi:10.1127/metz/20162019/0781,20170946. Available for download at https://www.schweizerbart.de/papers/metz/detail/26/87036/Fast_radiative_transfer_parameterisation_for_asses?af=crossref.

...

/28/90593/Improving_the_McClear_model_estimating_the_downwelling_solar_radiation_at_ground_level_in_cloud_free_conditions_McClear_v3

Lefèvre, M., Oumbe, A., Blanc, P., Espinar, B., Gschwind, B., Qu, Z., Wald, L., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., Hoyer-Klick, C., Arola, A., Benedetti, A., Kaiser, J., W., and Morcrette, J.-J.: McClear: a new model estimating downwelling solar radiation at ground level in clear-sky conditions, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 2403–2418, doi: 10.5194/amt-6-2403-2013, 2013. Available for download at http://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/6/2403/2013/amt-6-2403-2013.pdf

References

Gschwind, B., Wald L., Blanc, P., Lefèvre, M., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., Arola, A., 2019. Improving the McClear model estimating the downwelling solar radiation at ground level in cloud free conditions – McClear-V3., Meteorol. Z./Contrib. Atm. Sci., 28, 2, 147-163, doi:10.1127/metz/2019/0946. Available for download at https://www.schweizerbart.de/papers/metz/detail/28/90593/Improving_the_McClear_model_estimating_the_downwelling_solar_radiation_at_ground_level_in_cloud_free_conditions_McClear_v3

References

QuLefèvre, ZM., Oumbe, A., Blanc, P., Espinar, B., Gesell, G., Gschwind, B., Klüser, L., Lefèvre, M., Saboret, L., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., and Wald L.: Fast radiative transfer parameterisation for assessing the surface solar irradiance: The Heliosat-4 method, Meteorol. Z., 26, 33-57Gschwind, B., Qu, Z., Wald, L., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., Hoyer-Klick, C., Arola, A., Benedetti, A., Kaiser, J., W., and Morcrette, J.-J.: McClear: a new model estimating downwelling solar radiation at ground level in clear-sky conditions, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 2403–2418, doi: 10.1127/metz/2016/0781,20175194/amt-6-2403-2013, 2013. Available for download at https http://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/6/2403/2013/amt-6-2403-2013.pdf

Qu, Zschweizerbart.de/papers/metz/detail/26/87036/Fast_radiative_transfer_parameterisation_for_asses?af=crossref.Lefèvre, M., Oumbe, A., Blanc, P., Espinar, B., GschwindGesell, BG., QuGschwind, ZB., WaldKlüser, L., Schroedter-HomscheidtLefèvre, M., Hoyer-KlickSaboret, CL., Arola, A., Benedetti, A., Kaiser, J., W., and Morcrette, J.-J.: McClear: a new model estimating downwelling solar radiation at ground level in clear-sky conditions, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 2403–2418Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., and Wald L.: Fast radiative transfer parameterisation for assessing the surface solar irradiance: The Heliosat-4 method, Meteorol. Z., 26, 33-57, doi: 10.5194/amt-6-2403-2013, 20131127/metz/2016/0781,2017. Available for download at httphttps://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/6/2403/2013/amt-6-2403-2013.pdfschweizerbart.de/papers/metz/detail/26/87036/Fast_radiative_transfer_parameterisation_for_asses?af=crossref.

Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., Azam, F., Betcke, J., Hanrieder, N., Lefèvre, M., Saboret, L., Saint-Drenan, Y.-M.: Surface solar irradiation retrieval from MSG/SEVIRI based on APOLLO Next Generation and HELIOSAT-4 methods, Contrib. Atm. Sci./Meteorol. Z.,2022, Gschwind, B., Wald L., Blanc, P., Lefèvre, M., Schroedter-Homscheidt, M., Arola, A., 2019. Improving the McClear model estimating the downwelling solar radiation at ground level in cloud free conditions – McClear-V3., Meteorol. Z./Contrib. Atm. Sci., 28, 2, 147-163, doi:10.1127/metz/2019/0946. Available for download at https://www.schweizerbart.de/papers/metz/detail/28/90593/Improving_the_McClear_model_estimating_the_downwelling_solar_radiation_at_ground_level_in_cloud_free_conditions_McClear_v32022/1132.

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_{The activities leading to these results have been contracted by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, operator of CAMS on behalf of the European Union (Delegation Agreement signed on 11/11/2014 and Contribution Agreement signed on 22/07/2021). All information in this document is provided "as is" and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any particular purpose.}
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Acronyms

Acronyms

Solar radiation service

Standard output variables

Expert mode variables

Expert mode variables

Known issues and version updates

How to acknowledge and cite the data

References

References

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