The range of the shortwave solar irradiance between 400 nm and 700 nm is also referred to as photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). The PAR is the driver for biochemical vegetation processes, mainly photosynthesis. The PAR steers the primary production and there the carbon fixation of terrestrial and marine vegetation and affects the energy and water exchange (evapotranspiration) between the vegetation and the atmosphere. In the field of the climatic research the PAR is for the computation of the carbon balance of terrestrial and marine vegetation an important parameter. Within this thesis a new method is presented for deriving the daily total of PAR and for deriving the mean value of PAR of different time intervals for cloudy and clear atmospheric conditions. For the computation of PAR remote sensing data of the sun-synchronous AVHRR/NOAA satellite system and a radiation transfer model (LibRadtran) are used. The derived PAR was validated and discussed with ground truth data from measurement sta-tions over Europe for the period May until September 1999. From sensitivity analysis of the radiation-relevant parameters it is shown that aerosols and clouds have the largest influence on PAR. The aerosol optical thickness and the cloud optical thickness are derived from remote sensing data at scanning time and are used as input parameters for the retrieval of PAR. The radiation transfer by the atmosphere was com-puted with the radiation transfer model (LibRadtran) for different combinations of the used parameters in advance and put down into Look Up tables (LUT). This shortens the long computing time of the model substantially. A processing chain was developed, with which the PAR is derived as instantaneous PAR from remote sensing data. The method presented in this work to derive a temporally inte-grated PAR is based on the correlation between spatial distribution of PAR and the temporal distribution of PAR over a point (P) at the earth's surface. There is a statistically significant dependence between spatially averaged PAR and the temporally integrated PAR from ground truth measurements. The results of the PAR for different time intervals and for the daily total were statistically analyzed and discussed. The best correlations (R) between derived PAR and ground truth data are calculated for a 75 * 75 pixel grid box and a time interval of 180 minutes (R = 0,91) as well as for a 99 * 99 pixel grid box and the daily total of PAR (R = 0,9). The root mean square error (RMSE) as a relative value amounts to 0,23 for a 180 minutes mean and 0,22 for the daily total, computed for a confidence level of 95 %. The spatial resolution of the derived PAR amounts to ~1 km for all time intervals using the proposed method.
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The range of the shortwave solar irradiance between 400 nm and 700 nm is also referred to as photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). The PAR is the driver for biochemical vegetation processes, mainly photosynthesis. The PAR steers the primary production and there the carbon fixation of terrestrial and marine vegetation and affects the energy and water exchange (evapotranspiration) between the vegetation and the atmosphere. In the field of the climatic research the PAR is for the computation o...
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