Dataset
MIDAS Open: UK hourly solar radiation data, v202007
Abstract
The UK hourly solar radiation data contain the amount of solar irradiance received during the hour ending at the specified time. All sites report 'global' radiation amounts. This is also known as 'total sky radiation' as it includes both direct solar irradiance and 'diffuse' irradiance as a result of light scattering. Some sites also provide separate diffuse and direct irradiation amounts, depending on the instrumentation at the site. For these the sun's path is tracked with two pyrometers - one where the path to the sun is blocked by a suitable disc to allow the scattered sunlight to be measured to give the diffuse measurement, while the other has a tube pointing at the sun to measure direct solar irradiance whilst blanking out scattered sun light.
This version supersedes the previous version of this dataset and a change log is available in the archive, and in the linked documentation for this record, detailing the differences between this version and the previous version. The change logs detail new, replaced and removed data.
The data were collected by observation stations operated by the Met Office across the UK and transmitted within the following message types: SYNOP, HCM, AWSHRLY, MODLERAD, ESAWRADT and DRADR35 messages. The data spans from 1947 to 2019.
This dataset is part of the Midas-open dataset collection made available by the Met Office under the UK Open Government Licence, containing only UK mainland land surface observations owned or operated by the Met Office. It is a subset of the fuller, restricted Met Office Integrated Data Archive System (MIDAS) Land and Marine Surface Stations dataset, also available through the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis - see the related dataset section on this record.
Details
| Previous Info: |
No news update for this record
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| Previously used record identifiers: |
No related previous identifiers.
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| Access rules: |
Access to these data is available to any registered CEDA user. Please Login or Register for a CEDA account to gain access.
Use of these data is covered by the following licence(s): http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record. |
| Data lineage: |
Data collated by the Met Office and archived in the Met Office's MIDAS database. Data are extracted from a sub-set of available tables and delivered to Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) approximately on a yearly basis. |
| Data Quality: |
Data undergo quality checking by the Met Office. State of the data in the quality control process and level of data quality are indicated using version numbers and quality control flagging with the data. See documentation about how to use the quality control flagging and version numbers.
There are also some known data from commissioning trials in the data, which are given a src_id of 99999. These should be ignored by the user.
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| File Format: |
Data are BADC-CSV formatted.
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Related Documents
Process overview
Instrument/Platform pairings
| Output Description | None |
- units: s
- long_name: Date at end of observation period
- names: Date at end of observation period
- long_name: Diffuse solar irradiation amount
- units: KJ/m2
- names: Diffuse solar irradiation amount
- long_name: Direct solar irradiation amount
- units: KJ/m2
- names: Direct solar irradiation amount
- units: minutes
- long_name: Elapsed time to storage in MIDAS
- names: Elapsed time to storage in MIDAS
- long_name: Global horizontal illumination
- units: KJ/m2
- names: Global horizontal illumination
- long_name: Global solar irradiation amount
- units: KJ/m2
- names: Global solar irradiation amount
- long_name: Irradiation balance amount
- units: KJ/m2
- names: Irradiation balance amount
- long_name: Mean global S latitude radiation
- units: KJ/m2
- names: Mean global S latitude radiation
- units: s
- long_name: Met Office receipt stamp time
- names: Met Office receipt stamp time
- units: hours
- long_name: Observation hour count
- names: Observation hour count
- units: 1
- long_name: QC code: Diffuse solar irradiation amount
- names: QC code: Diffuse solar irradiation amount
- units: 1
- long_name: QC code: Direct solar irradiation amount
- names: QC code: Direct solar irradiation amount
- units: 1
- long_name: QC code: Global horizontal illumination
- names: QC code: Global horizontal illumination
- units: 1
- long_name: QC code: Global solar irradiation amount
- names: QC code: Global solar irradiation amount
- units: 1
- long_name: QC code: Irradiation balance amount
- names: QC code: Irradiation balance amount
- units: 1
- long_name: QC code: Mean global S latitude radiation
- names: QC code: Mean global S latitude radiation
- units: 1
- long_name: The filename used for this station
- names: The filename used for this station
- units: 1
- long_name: The identifier associated with a particular report type for this station
- names: The identifier associated with a particular report type for this station
- units: 1
- long_name: The identifier type associated with a particular reporting capability for this station
- names: The identifier type associated with a particular reporting capability for this station
- units: 1
- long_name: The name for this station
- names: The name for this station
- units: m
- long_name: The station elevation
- names: The station elevation
- units: degrees
- long_name: The station latitude (WGS84)
- names: The station latitude (WGS84)
- units: degrees
- long_name: The station longitude (WGS84)
- names: The station longitude (WGS84)
- units: 1
- long_name: The unique MIDAS identifier for the station
- names: The unique MIDAS identifier for the station
- units: year
- long_name: first year of data associated with this id/id_type in this version of this dataset
- names: first year of data associated with this id/id_type in this version of this dataset
- units: year
- long_name: first year of data associated with this station in this dataset
- names: first year of data associated with this station in this dataset
- units: 1
- long_name: identifier type
- names: identifier type
- units: year
- long_name: last year of data associated with this id/id_type in this version of this dataset
- names: last year of data associated with this id/id_type in this version of this dataset
- units: year
- long_name: last year of data associated with this station in this dataset
- names: last year of data associated with this station in this dataset
- units: 1
- long_name: message type
- names: message type
- units: 1
- long_name: midas qc version number
- names: midas qc version number
- units: 1
- long_name: state indicator for the record
- names: state indicator for the record
- units: 1
- long_name: station identifier
- names: station identifier
- units: 1
- long_name: the historic county this station is within
- names: the historic county this station is within
- units: 1
- long_name: unique source identifier or station site number
- names: unique source identifier or station site number
Co-ordinate Variables
Temporal Range
1947-01-01T00:00:00
2019-12-31T23:59:59
Geographic Extent
60.8562° |
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-8.5636° |
1.7400° |
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49.9140° |