• Cover and Notice
• Preface
• Acronyms and Nomenclature
• How to Use This Manual
• List of Tables
• List of Figures

Part 1: How to Use and Interpret Data Base Products

• 1.0 Background and Overview: The National Solar Radiation Data Base (Version 1.0)
  • 1.1 General Description
  • 1.2 Rationale for a New Data Base
• 2.0 Data Base Product Options
  • 2.1 Hourly Data
  • 2.2 Statistical Summaries
  • 2.3 Media
  • 2.4 Where to Order Data Base Products
• 3.0 Reading and Understanding Data Base Products
  • 3.1 NSRDB Synoptic Format
  • 3.2 TD-3282 Format
  • 3.3 Statistical Summaries
  • 3.3.1 Daily Statistics
  • 3.3.2 Hourly Means, Standard Deviations, and Distributions
  • 3.3.3 Daily Persistence Data
• 3.4 Quality Flags
• 3.4.1 Quality Flags for Solar Radiation Elements
• 3.4.2 Quality Flags for Meteorological Elements
• 3.4.3 Quality Flags Applied to Solar Radiation Statistical Products
• 3.4.4 Quality Statistics Product

Part 2: How the Data Base was Produced

• 4.0 Brief History of Solar Radiation Measurements in the United States
• 4.1 NOAA'S Solar Radiation Network
• 4.2 The SOLMET/ERSATZ Data Base
• 5.0 Sources of Solar Radiation and Meteorological Data
• 5.1 Data Acquisition
• 5.1.1 Meteorological Data - TD-3280
• 5.1.2 Precipitable Water
• 5.1.3 Snow Depth - TD-3210
• 5.1.4 Ozone
• 5.2 Derived Input Meteorological Data
• 5.2.1 Filling Gaps in the Data Record
• 5.2.2 Deriving Precipitable Water Data
• 5.2.3 Deriving Broadband Aerosol Optical Depth
• 6.0 Model Estimates of Solar Radiation
• 6.1 Direct Normal Algorithms
• 6.1.1 Cloudless Sky Transmittance
• 6.1.2 Cloud Transmittance
• 6.2 Diffuse Horizontal Algorithms
• 6.2.1 Atmospheric Scattering
• 6.2.2 Scattering by Clouds
• 6.2.3 Multiple Surface-to-Atmosphere/Cloud Reflections
• 6.2.4 Precipitation Switch
• 6.3 Statistical Algorithms
  • 6.3.1 Cloudless Sky Algorithms
  • 6.3.2 Random Effects of Cloud Cover
• 7.0 Synthetic Calibration (SYNCAL) Procedures
• 7.1 Developing the Calibration Correction Factors (CCFs)
• 7.2 Applying the Calibration Correction Factors
• 7.3 Summary Comments
• 8.0 Data Base Quality
• 8.1 Quality Assessment of Measured Solar Radiation Data
• 8.2 Standard Methods for Calculating Uncertainities
• 8.3 Calculating the Uncertainty of Solar Radiation Data
• 8.3.1 Optimum Uncertainties
• 8.3.2 Calculating the Uncertainity of Modeled Values
• 8.4 The Total Uncertainty of Measured Solar Radiation Data
• 8.4.1 Total Uncertainty of Post-1976 Data (Sources A and B)
• 8.4.2 Total Uncertainty of Pre-1976 Data (Sources C)
• 8.4.3 Total Uncertainty of Calculated Data (Source D)
• 8.4.4 Total Uncertainty of Modeled Data (Sources E-H)
• 8.5 Calculating the Uncertainty of Monthly and Annual Statistics
• 8.6 Using the Solar Radiation Quality Flags
• 8.7 The Uncertainty of Meteorological Data
• 9.0 The Production Process
• 9.1 Verification and Validation
• 9.2 Production Control and Monitoring
• 9.2.1 The Project Status Log
• 9.2.2 The Production Status (ProStat) Data Base
• 9.2.3 The File Status Log
• 9.2.4 Process ID File
• 10.0 Known Imperfections within the NSRDB
• 10.1 Bad Meteorological Data
• 10.2 Using Data from Other Years to Replace Missing Meteorological Data
• 10.3 Present Weather Data
• 10.4 Incomplete Replacement of Missing Meteorological Data
• 10.5 Lack of Aerosol Optical Depth Data
• 10.6 NWS Solar Radiation Measurements from 1981 to 1985
• 10.7 Missing SOLMET Data
• 10.8 Undetected Problems

• 11.0 References
• Appendix A: Units Conversion Factors
• Appendix B: Station Notes
• Appendix C: 30-Year Summary of Quality Flags
• Appendix D: Key to the Present Weather Elements

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