Inter-relationship between mean-daily irradiation and temperature, and decomposition models for hourly irradiation and temperature

Terrestrial temperature records have existed for centuries. These records are available for very many locations. Temperature is indeed the most widely measured meteorological parameter. In contrast, solar radiation being a parameter of secondary importance and also in view of the excessive measurement cost and the associated due care, it is recorded very infrequently. This article presents evaluation of a new type of model for mean-daily and hourly solar radiation based on temperature. The proposed model is of a very simple constitution and does not require any secondary meteorological parameters as required by other group of models that are available in literature. Furthermore, hourly temperature models are also presented that only require mean-daily temperature data. A comparison was undertaken regarding the performance of the presently proposed and previous models. It was found that the present models are able to provide reliable irradiation and hourly temperature estimates with a good accuracy. Copyright The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.