SARAH-3 – a new satellite-based Climate Data Record of Surface Solar Radiation parameters

The EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) generates and distributes high quality long-term climate data records (CDR) of energy and water cycle parameters, which are freely available.

In 2022, a new version of the “Surface Solar Radiation data set – Heliosat” will be released: SARAH-3. As the previous editions, the SARAH-3 climate data record is based on satellite observations from the first and second METEOSAT generations and provides various surface radiation parameters, including global radiation, direct radiation, sunshine duration, photosynthetic active radiation and others. SARAH-3 covers the time period 1983 to 2020 and offers 30-minute instantaneous data as well as daily and monthly means on a regular 0.05° x 0.05° lon/lat grid.

In this presentation, an overview of the SARAH climate data record and their applications will be given. A focus will be on the SARAH-3 developments and validation with surface reference observations. Further, SARAH-3 will be used for a first analysis of the climate variability and potential trends of global radiation in Europe during the last decades. The data record reveals that there is an increasing trend of surface solar radiation in Europe during the last decades, which is superimposed by decadal and regional variability.