A GIS-based study of monthly average global solar radiation

Global solar radiation is essential to the earth and human beings. Because of the scarcity of solar radiation observation stations, climatologic calculation methods and interpolation techniques are commonly adopted to derive the monthly global solar radiation and generate the regional distribution map. In this paper, the Angstrom-Prescott linear regression formula is applied to calculate monthly average solar radiation. A case study of Shanghai is also designed and carried out. With the observation data of global solar radiation and sunshine-hours from one observation station, the Angstrom-Prescott linear regression formula is trained to determine all necessary parameters, by which the monthly average solar radiation data of the other six weather stations with only sunshine-hour observation data can be derived. Several distribution maps of the global solar radiation in Shanghai are then generated using interpolation models in GIS, based on which spatial and temporal variation pattern of the monthly global solar radiation is discussed.