MONTHLY AND YEARLY MAPS OF DAILY AVERAGE GLOBAL SOLAR RADIATION OF THE MADEIRA ARCHIPELAGO (PORTUGAL), OBTAINED FROM METEOSAT IMAGES AND SIX METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS

摘要

In this paper, the Atlas of Global Solar Radiation of the Madeira Archipelago (Portugal) is presented. In a first approach, horizontal global solar irradiances at ground level are obtained applying the Heliosat-2 method to earth images taken by the Meteosat-6 satellite. These values are then integrated and averaged to obtain the “first approach” monthly average daily global solar radiation values in each pixel of the image. These results are, in turn, calibrated (normalized) with data of solar radiation measured in six meteorological stations in the region. Both data base are from the period January 2002- December 2005. Twelve monthly tables of daily average global solar radiation in each pixel of the image included in the study are obtained and yearly values are calculated from them. The thirteen tables are taken to the ArcGIS application to obtain yearly and monthly radiation maps for the region.