Gridding of Daily Sunshine Duration by Combination of Station and Satellite Data

The distribution of sunshine duration in Switzerland is markedly influenced by weather phenomena related to the topography (e.g. low-level stratus in winter, topographically triggered clouds in summer). Operational surface station networks are hardly able to resolve the fine-scale patterns associated with such phenomena. The aim of the present master’s thesis is to develop and test a new method for the spatial analysis (gridding) of daily relative sunshine duration, which combines surface station measurements with satellite data. Input for the method are insitu measurements from 77 SwissMetNet stations and a 5-year data set of a Heliosat Clear-Sky Index (CSI, resolution 2 km) derived from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) albedo measurements.