Daily Diffuse Surface Solar Irradiance for Australia from Himawari Satellites

A source of daily exposure of diffusely transmitted downward surface solar irradiance for the Australian continent and surrounding waters, derived from daytime Himawari-8/9 satellite imagery. The data is generated using the Qin et al. (2021a) algorithm and is available in both a regular latitude/longitude grid and the original geostationary projection.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial patterns of diffuse solar irradiance across the Australian continent for renewable energy potential assessment.
• Validate and calibrate the Qin et al. (2021a) algorithm's performance for Himawari-8/9 imagery using the provided geospatial data.
• Study temporal trends in surface solar irradiance components for climate research over Australia and surrounding waters.

Strengths

• Data is derived from Himawari-8/9, a dedicated geostationary meteorological satellite series providing frequent observations.
• Algorithm is based on a peer-reviewed publication (Qin et al., 2021a), providing a documented methodology.
• Covers the Australian continent and surrounding waters, a specific and defined geographic region.

Limitations

• Data access requires contacting the authors, which may create a barrier to immediate use.
• The primary data is hosted on the Australian National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), which may require specific access procedures.
• Sample data and specific technical details like row/column counts or file sizes are unavailable for preview.

Provenance

Source

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network's Data Discovery, via data.gov.au.

Collection Method

Generated from daytime Himawari-8/9 imagery using the Qin et al. (2021a) algorithm.

Freshness

The dataset metadata was last updated in March 2026, indicating active maintenance.

Geography

Australian continent and surrounding waters.