Influence of Topographic Shading on Multi-decadal Average Solar Irradiance: Implications for Fine Scale Eco-physiological and Climate Research

Abstract:

We have prepared a monthly topoclimatology covering the 385,000 km² land area of Norway at 1 km² resolution. The NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) provides cloud cover as well as downwelling shortwave solar flux at the top of the atmosphere and surface, with global coverage at 1^◦ spatial resolution, spanning 23 years at 3-hour temporal resolution. Solar positions and topographic influence are computed separately for each 1 km² grid cell at each 3-hour timestep. Coupling the spatially coarse trends in cloudcover and irradiance from the course resolution SRB product with topography and solar position at significantly higher spatial resolution produces an improved dataset for linking seasonal trends in surface irradiance with a wide variety of physical and ecological processes sensitive to surface energy budgets.