Study the Effect of the Amount of Clouds on the Number of Actual Hours of Sunshine at Selected Stations in Iraq

Abstract

This research aims to study the effect of the amount of clouds on the number of actual hours of Sunshine in selected stations in Iraq, namely (Mosul Station, Baghdad Station, Basra Station), using data (the amount of clouds and the number of actual hours of Sunshine) for a period of (31 years) for the period extending from (1980 - 2010), which were obtained by data available in the Iraqi Meteorological organization and Seismology. In this research, the effect of the amount of clouds on the number of actual hours of Sunshine was clarified by studying the monthly and seasonal change of the two variables, in addition to clarifying the nature of the relationship between them by calculating the correlation coefficient using Microsoft Excel (2010). The results indicated that there is a strong inverse correlation between both variables in The three study stations, where the values ​​of correlation coefficients ranged between (-0.92) – (-0.87) in the study sites, and this indicates that with the increase in the amount of clouds the number of hours of actual hours of Sunshine decreases, and vice versa.