The objective of this work is to develop a commercial software system with the capability of computing daily, short-term, mean incident, and net solar irradiance at any location on the surface of the globe with a spatial resolution of 1 to 50 km. These computations will be based on existing methods and new techniques developed within the scope of this project.During Phase I, the firm converted the Gautier et al. (1980) shortwave algorithm into a prototype, image-processing system for mapping earth-surface, solar irradiance and photosynthetically active radiation from GOES/VISSR satellite data. The project's major accomplishments were the design and construction of an integrated software system under the NASA-developed Transportable Applications Executive and the Land Analysis System image analysis package. This work included development of GOES data ingestion and manipulation functions, enhancement and integration of shortwave processing functions, and construction of display functions for Raster Technologies display systems. The technical feasibility of the prototype solar energy mapping system was established in Phase I.Potential Commercial Application:Applications can be broadly placed into five areas: agriculture, land management, weather services, energy production and land and ocean research. These have markets both nationally and internationally.STATUS: Phase I Only
