Performance of Angstrom-Prescott Coefficients under Different Time Scales in Estimating Daily Solar Radiation in South Korea

While global solar radiation is an essential input variable in crop models, the observation stations are relatively sparse compared with other meteorological elements. Instead of using measured solar radiation, the Angstrom-Prescott model estimates have been widely used. Monthly data for solar radiation and sunshine duration are a convenient basis for deriving Angstrom-Prescott coefficients (a, b), but it is uncertain whether daily solar radiation could be estimated with a sufficient accuracy by the monthly data - derived coefficients. We derived the Angstrom-Prescott coefficients from the 25 years observed global solar radiation and sunshine duration data at 18 locations across South Korea. In order to figure out any improvements in estimating daily solar radiation by replacing monthly data with daily data, the coefficients (a, b) for each month were derived separately from daily data and monthly data. Local coefficients for eight validation sites were extracted from the spatially interpolated maps of the coefficients and used to estimate daily solar radiation from September 2008 to August 2009 when, pyranometers were operated at the same sites for validation purpose. Comparison with the measured radiation showed a better performance of the daily data - derived coefficients in estimating daily global solar radiation than the monthly data - derived coefficients, showing 9.3% decrease in the root mean square error (RMSE).