Estimation of daily average net radiation and its variation over West Bengal, India using MODIS products

Abstract

A simple and exclusively satellite-based instantaneous net radiation (INR) and its components have been estimated and it is based on the method proposed. The method has been used to check its suitability over West Bengal, India on clear sky days which is eliminating the need for ground-based observations. The method explicitly recognizes the need for spatially varied input parameters to estimate net radiation using remote sensing information and provides a distributed daily average net radiation map with finer spatial resolution. The satellite-derived radiative flux components were compared with the Eddy Flux Tower measurements located at Bonnie camp within mangrove forest. The bias, root-mean square error and R² between modelled and measured INR are 52.07, 49.5 W m⁻² and 0.74, respectively which are within the acceptable limit. The errors in the downward short wave and long wave as well as upward short-wave and long-wave radiative flux are 13.78, 3.54, 12.41 and 3.54%, respectively. Further, variations of all the radiative flux components were analysed over different eco-systems.

Keywords:

• DANR
• Eddy Flux Tower
• INR
• mangrove ecosystem
• sinusoidal model

Acknowledgements

The authors thank RRSC-East colleagues for the support at various stages. The authors are thankful to MODIS team for providing the data freely in public domain. Valuable suggestions provided by the anonymous reviewers are thankfully acknowledged.