Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 223, 2621–2630 (2014)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2014-02211-2

Regular Article

Impact of aerosols on the forecast accuracy of solar irradiance calculated by a numerical weather prediction model

¹ Storm, Flood and Landslide Research Unit, Department of Monitoring and Forecasting Research, National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, 3-1, Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0006, Japan
² Research Center for Photovoltaic Technology, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, AIST Tsukuba Central 2, 1-1-1, Umezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568, Japan
³ Meteorological Research Institute, Japan Meteorological Agency, 1-1, Nagamine, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0052, Japan

^a e-mail: kshimose@bosai.go.jp

Received: 10 January 2014
Revised: 9 May 2014
Published online: 24 June 2014

Abstract

The impact of aerosols on the forecast accuracy of solar irradiance calculated by a fine-scale, one day-ahead, and operational numerical weather prediction model (NWP) is investigated in this study. In order to investigate the impact of aerosols only, the clear sky period is chosen, which is defined as when there are no clouds in the observation data and in the forecast data at the same time. The evaluation of the forecast accuracy of the solar irradiance is done at a single observation point that is sometimes affected by aerosol events. The analysis period is one year from April 2010 to March 2011. During the clear sky period, the root mean square errors (RMSE) of the global horizontal irradiance (GHI), direct normal irradiance (DNI), and diffuse horizontal irradiance (DHI) are 40.0 W m⁻², 84.0 Wm⁻², and 47.9 W m⁻², respectively. During one extreme event, the RMSEs of the GHI, DNI, and DHI are 70.1 W m⁻², 211.6 W m⁻², and 141.7 W m⁻², respectively. It is revealed that the extreme events were caused by aerosols such as dust or haze. In order to investigate the impact of the aerosols, the sensitivity experiments of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) for the extreme events are executed. The best result is obtained by changing the AOD to 2.5 times the original AOD. This changed AOD is consistent with the satellite observation. Thus, it is our conclusion that an accurate aerosol forecast is important for the forecast accuracy of the solar irradiance.