Cloud frequency with respect to remote sensing applications: example of Bavaria, southern Germany

Abstract

Twenty years of synoptic observations by the German Meteorological Service have been used to investigate the cloud frequency in Bavaria, Germany with respect to the special needs of commercial remote sensing applications. This is valuable because the available general cloud statistics are not suitable for such applications. The results show that during the vegetation period in general one third of a month can be used for remote sensing methods to determine the ground reflectance with reasonable accuracy. Only during approximately five days per month does a clear sky enable the determination of ground reflectance with very high accuracy. On the other days the presence of a certain amount of low and mid‐level cloud or the presence of high‐level cirrus cloud limits the retrieval accuracy.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the German Meteorological Service (DWD) for the provision of hourly cloud observations. The study has been funded by Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Landesentwicklung und Umweltfragen (StMLU) under project D1 in the framework of the Bavarian Joint Research Programme on Elevated UV Radiation (BayFORUV) and by Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst within the project ‘High Tech Offensive Zukunft Bayern’.