Abstract
Xinjiang, a region of China with arid and semi-arid areas, has abundant solar incidence with 166.5×104 km2 and diverse underlying surface. The meager number of surface radiation observatories cannot meet the need for efficient exploration of solar energy. In this study we classified Xinjiang into three regions: southern Xinjiang, northern Xinjiang and Tu-Ha region and applied satellite data to provide the surface solar radiation's temporal distribution for 10 typical cities. The study is focused on seasonal, annual and variations of all sky downward shortwave radiation flux at surface based on 24-year satellite dataset GEWEX-SRB from the WCRP/GEWEX (World Climate Research Program/Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment) from 1984 to 2007. The results are as follows. In general, the monthly average solar radiation flux for the cities in the Tu-Ha region was the largest followed by the south Xinjiang and northern Xinjiang. The solar radiation in the most northern cities were less than 150.0 W/m2 in winter, the minimum is 138.7 W/m2, while the other cities were greater than 150.0 W/m2. The maximum of monthly solar flux for the Tu-Ha region, southern and northern Xinjiang was 400.0 W/m2.
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