About average daily solar exposure maps
How were the maps created?
The daily global solar exposure is calculated by a computer model which uses visible images from geostationary meteorological satellites to estimate daily global solar exposures at ground level. At each location for each satellite acquired image, the brightnesses are averaged over each grid cell and used to estimate solar irradiance at the ground. These instantaneous irradiance values are integrated over the day to give daily solar exposure in megajoules per square metre.
Monthly and annual average values of the daily global solar exposure were calculated from these daily grids.
Finally, the gridded data were visualised in a geographic information system and the colour maps created through this process.
Data used in the analysis
Satellite-derived global solar exposure estimates are based on images from the Geostationary Meteorological Satellite GMS-4, GMS-5, MTSAT-1R (from Nov. 2005) and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-9) satellites which are provided with permission of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the United States National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Solar exposure metadata
The following metadata summary, and detailed metadata file, provide information about the average monthly, season and annual gridded solar exposure datasets. For example, information is provided about the format, spatial extents and analysis techniques used to generate the grids.
| TITLE: | Mean monthly, season and annual solar exposure data. |
| DESCRIPTION: | Mean monthly, season and annual solar exposure grids. The grids show the solar exposure values across Australia in the form of a two-dimensional array. The mean data are based on the period 1990 to 2019. |
| CUSTODIAN: | Bureau of Meteorology |
| GEOGRAPHIC EXTENT NAMES(s): | Australia |
| AVAILABLE FORMAT TYPE(S): | ASCII row major, netCDF |
| SCALE/RESOLUTION | The resolution of the data is 0.05 degrees (approximately 5km) |