Relationship between net radiation and solar radiation for semi-arid shrub-land

This paper presents the results obtained by analysing a set of measurements of surface radiation balance components at a semi-arid location in SE Spain. The relationships between net and surface shortwave radiation were explored by using 38 months of 5 min surface radiation. The study area is covered by sparse clumped shrub-land of different species, although close to the radiometric station Retama sphaerocarpa is dominant. After this study, it is evident that a single model based on surface shortwave radiation could provide appropriate estimates. The inclusion of albedo information provides a slight improvement on the estimation model. The use of seasonal models provides an appreciable improvement, while the benefits of including cloud information are only marginal. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.