Articles | Volume 6, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/asr-6-1-2011
https://doi.org/10.5194/asr-6-1-2011
10 Jan 2011
 | 10 Jan 2011

Geostatistical merging of ground-based and satellite-derived data of surface solar radiation

M. Journée and C. Bertrand

Abstract. In this paper, we demonstrate the benefit of using observations from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites in addition to in-situ measurements to improve the spatial resolution of solar radiation data over Belgium. This objective has been reached thanks to geostatistical methods able to merge heterogeneous data types. Two geostatistical merging methods are evaluated against the interpolation of ground-data only and the single use of satellite-derived information. It results from our analysis that merging both data sources provides the most accurate mapping of surface solar radiation over Belgium.