NASA Remote Sensing Validation Data: Saudi Arabia

About the Project

Since 1995, the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have co-operated to establish a 12 station network of high quality solar radiation monitoring installations across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. NREL and KACST realized the value of accurate surface solar radiation flux measurements for validation of satellite derived surface and atmospheric solar radiation flux measurements, and is making this data available to support validation of satellite data products related to the NASA Mission to Planet Earth component of the Earth Science Enterprise Earth Observing System (EOS) project to evaluate long term climate trends based on measuements from EOS Terra Platforms. A CIMEL 8 channel sunphotometer for measuring aerosol optical depth at 6 wavelengths and total column water has been deployed at the Solar Village station since February 24, 1999. Near real time and historical data are available at http://www.cimel.fr/photo/sunph_us.htm (choose the AERONET DATA link and the SOLAR VILLAGE station.) The current structure and availability of the data is best understood by reading about the format of the data files BEFORE accessing the data through the station list. The current contents of the site are the quality assessed and flagged measured data, as comma seperated variables, since January 1998, for each site (see Format of the Data Files). In the near future, METADATA concerning the specific instruments by serial number at each site, and individual calibration and deployment history will be added to this site. Questions and comments about this project should be directed to the principle investigaotrs and contacts. Please communicate questions, comments, and suggestions regarding this website to the Webmaster.

Network Station Latitude (°N) Longitude (°E) Elevation (meters)   BSRN   Solar Village*   24.91   46.41   650     Annex II   Abha 18.23   42.66   2039   Al-Ahsa 25.30   49.48   178   Gizan 16.90   42.58   7   Qassim 26.31   43.77   647   Jeddah 21.68   39.15   4   Al-Madinah 24.55   39.70   626   Al-Qaisumah 28.32   46.13   358   Sharurah   17.47   47.11   725   Al-Jouf 29.79   40.10   669   Solar Village*   24.91   46.41   650   Tabouk 28.38   36.61   768   Wadi Al-Dawaser 20.44   44.68   701

*Northwest of Riyadh

	Dr. Naif al-Abbadi		(v) 966-01-481-3500
	King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology		(f) 966-01-481-3880
	Energy Research Institute		(e) nabbadi@kacst.edu.sa
	P.O. Box 6086
	Riyadh 11442
	Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
	Steve Wilcox		(v) 303-275-4061
	National Renewable Energy Laboratory		(f) 303-275-4675
	MS 1612		(e) Stephen.Wilcox@nrel.gov
	1617 Cole Blvd
	Golden CO 80401

• Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM)

• King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST)

• National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA)
  • The NASA Langley Distributed Active Archive (DAAC) Surface Solar Energy Data Setv

  • AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork)

  • Earth Science Enterprise Earth Observing System (EOS)

  • EOS Terra Platforms

  • EOS Validation Program

• National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

• The World Radiation Data Centre (WRDC)

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