Radiative flux predicted by model is the same as or very close to that observed in Finland.

Calculation of solar irradiance i.e. shortwave radiation flux and the atmosphere's heat radiation i.e. longwave radiation flux is important.  The radiative flux predicted by the HIRLAM weather model was compared to observations made in Jokioinen and Sodankylä.  Extensive materials covering three hour averages over a period of ten years from 2006 to 2016 were used in the comparison. It was demonstrated that the models and observations were very similar to one another especially in cloudless conditions. When it was cloudy, the HIRLAM model's atmosphere seems to let a bit too much solar radiation through.

More information:

Researcher Laura Rontu, laura.rontu@fmi.fi

Laura Rontu, Emily Gleeson, Petri Räisänen, Kristian Pagh Nielsen, Hannu Savijärvi  and Bent Hansen Sass : The HIRLAM fast radiation scheme for mesoscale numerical weather prediction models. Adv. Sci. Res., 14, 195–215, 2017.https://doi.org/10.5194/asr-14-195-2017.