Quality control of global solar radiation using sunshine duration hours

The aim of this study was to develop a new and automatic method for controlling the quality of daily global solar radiation, Gd, using sunshine duration hours. The new method has three levels of tests: first, Gd is compared against daily extraterrestrial radiation that is received on a horizontal surface (0.03×God⩽Gd<God); second, Gd should only exceed by a small amount of the daily clear sky irradiation that is observed under highly transparent clear skies (Gd<1.1Gcd); and third, the method uses a series of persistence checks that utilize the relation between daily global solar radiation and relative sunshine duration hours. The method is capable of identifying systematic and non-systematic errors and its ability has been shown in three different climates including semi-arid, coastal humid and very arid climates.