CAMS radiation service v4.6 for solar energy: Evaluation of Himawari based surface solar irradiance products
Abstract
The Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) offers solar radiation service (CRS) which provides the time-series of surface solar irradiance (SSI) as its primary product. As a first step towards the service evolution on global scale for solar energy applications, the Himawari measurements by Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) are integrated since version 4.6. This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of the SSI time-series in the HIMAWARI field of view (FOV) against observations from BSRN and ABoM networks. The comparison is performed for the widely used all-sky and clear-sky conditions. The rMBE and rRMSE in all-sky conditions are in the ranges -11.6 – 5.1% and 9 – 23.8% for Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), and -30 – 17.2% and 19.3 – 61% for Beam Normal Irradiance (BNI), respectively. In clear-sky conditions, the rMBE and rRMSE are in the ranges 3.1 – 6.6% and 9.9 – 24% for GHI, and 6.6 – 18% and 16.3 – 45% for BNI, respectively. Furthermore, a novel evaluation framework exploiting the SSI variability classification based on sky-conditions is employed. This approach enables an unprecedented level of detail in the assessment of the satellite-derived irradiance estimates across different sky regimes. The evaluations show very good performance of CRS schemes under clear-sky and nearly clear-sky conditions and good handlings of thin clouds. However, the broken cloud fields are observed to introduce notable overestimation. While a direct comparison with other validation studies for the Himawari FOV is limited due to differences in temporal and spatial coverage, CRS v4.6 achieved performance levels comparable to or better than other published approaches.
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BibTeX
@article{azam2026cams,
title = {{CAMS radiation service v4.6 for solar energy: Evaluation of Himawari based surface solar irradiance products}},
author = {Faiza Azam and Diego Rodrigues de Miranda and Marion Schroedter-Homscheidt and Mireille Lefèvre and Laurent Saboret and Yves-Marie Saint-Drenan},
journal = {Remote Sensing of Environment},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1016/j.rse.2026.115505},
url = {https://minesparis-psl.hal.science/hal-05742508v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - CAMS radiation service v4.6 for solar energy: Evaluation of Himawari based surface solar irradiance products
AU - Faiza Azam
AU - Diego Rodrigues de Miranda
AU - Marion Schroedter-Homscheidt
AU - Mireille Lefèvre
AU - Laurent Saboret
AU - Yves-Marie Saint-Drenan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
JO - Remote Sensing of Environment
DO - 10.1016/j.rse.2026.115505
UR - https://minesparis-psl.hal.science/hal-05742508v1
AB - The Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) offers solar radiation service (CRS) which provides the time-series of surface solar irradiance (SSI) as its primary product. As a first step towards the service evolution on global scale for solar energy applications, the Himawari measurements by Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) are integrated since version 4.6. This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of the SSI time-series in the HIMAWARI field of view (FOV) against observations from BSRN and ABoM networks. The comparison is performed for the widely used all-sky and clear-sky conditions. The rMBE and rRMSE in all-sky conditions are in the ranges -11.6 – 5.1% and 9 – 23.8% for Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), and -30 – 17.2% and 19.3 – 61% for Beam Normal Irradiance (BNI), respectively. In clear-sky conditions, the rMBE and rRMSE are in the ranges 3.1 – 6.6% and 9.9 – 24% for GHI, and 6.6 – 18% and 16.3 – 45% for BNI, respectively. Furthermore, a novel evaluation framework exploiting the SSI variability classification based on sky-conditions is employed. This approach enables an unprecedented level of detail in the assessment of the satellite-derived irradiance estimates across different sky regimes. The evaluations show very good performance of CRS schemes under clear-sky and nearly clear-sky conditions and good handlings of thin clouds. However, the broken cloud fields are observed to introduce notable overestimation. While a direct comparison with other validation studies for the Himawari FOV is limited due to differences in temporal and spatial coverage, CRS v4.6 achieved performance levels comparable to or better than other published approaches.
SN - 0034-4257
SN - 1879-0704
ER -