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ARS Home » Plains Area » Bushland, Texas » Conservation and Production Research Laboratory » Soil and Water Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #231895
Title: Estimating shortwave solar radiation using net radiation and meteorological measurements

Author
item AKASHEH, OSAMA - UNIV OF TEXAS-AUSTIN
item NEALE, CHRISTOPHER - UTAH STATE UNIV-LOGAN
item Gowda, Prasanna
item SCANLON, BRIDGET - UNIV OF TEXAS-AUSTIN
item Howell, Terry

Submitted to: American Geophysical Union
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/23/2008
Publication Date: 12/15/2008
Citation: Akasheh, O., Neale, C., Gowda, P., Scanlon, B., Howell, T.A. 2008. Estimating shortwave solar radiation using net radiation and meteorological measurements. American Geophysical Union, American Geophysical Union meeting, December 15-19, 2008, San Francisco, California. 2008 CDROM.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Shortwave radiation has a wide variety of uses in land-atmosphere interactions research. Actual evapotranspiration estimation that involves stomatal conductance models like Jarvis and Ball-Berry require shortwave radiation to estimate photon flux density. However, in most weather stations, shortwave radiation and net radiation are not measured. Nevertheless, if one is measured, the other can be estimated. Net radiation is the difference between downward and upward radiative fluxes, including shortwave and long-wave radiation. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a shortwave radiation estimation model as a function of measured net radiation, air and soil temperatures, and relative humidity. The model was written in Visual Basic 6 to automate all calculations. A statistical comparison of measured and estimated shortwave radiation showed excellent agreement with R**2 of 0.98 and a root mean square error of 4%.