Combination of Models to Generate the First PAR Maps for Spain

Francisco Ferrera-Cobos,Luis F Zarzalejo,Rita X Valenzuela,Ousmane Wane,Jose M Vindel,Ana A Navarro

doi:10.3390/rs13234950

Abstract

This work addresses the development of a PAR model in the entire territory of mainland Spain. Thus, a specific model is developed for each location of the study field. The new PAR model consists of a combination of the estimates of two previous models that had unequal performances in different climates. In fact, one of them showed better results with Mediterranean climate, whereas the other obtained better results under oceanic climate. Interestingly, the new PAR model showed similar performance when validated at seven stations in mainland Spain with Mediterranean or oceanic climate. Furthermore, all validation slopes ranged from 0.99 to 1.00; the intercepts were less than 3.70 μmol m−2 s−1; the R2 were greater than 0.988, while MBE was closer to zero percent than −0.39%; and RMSE were less than 6.21%. The estimates of the PAR model introduced in this work were then used to develop PAR maps over mainland Spain that represent daily PAR averages of each month and a full year at all locations in the study field.

Highlights

Peng Yue and Lei HuPhotosynthetically active radiation (PAR) is the portion of the solar spectrum that ranges from 400 to 700 nm [1,2]
The two models elaborated in [17] used estimates from two satellite datasets—CMSAF and MODIS—that cover the location of the Iberian Peninsula, where mainland Spain is located
The Climate Monitoring Satellite Facility (CM-SAF) data set corresponded to the years 1999 to 2011 of the Spectral Resolved Irradiance (SRI) product, which belongs to the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility network [42,43]

Summary

Introduction

Peng Yue and Lei Hu. Photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) is the portion of the solar spectrum that ranges from 400 to 700 nm [1,2]. PAR is an important variable for estimating the growth of biomass and microalgae [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Another example of PAR use is that when designing or choosing a greenhouse cover, the optical properties of the cover in the PAR range must be taken into account [12,13]. PAR is an interesting variable when assessing the potential growth of a crop or when determining, in terms of agricultural productivity, which is the most suitable place

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Discussion

Conclusion