Relationships between satellite derived outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) and some important meteorological parameters

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine relationships between satellite derived outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) and several meteorological parameters using correlation and regression analyses. The meteorological parameters included rainfall, rain-days, moisture budget, cloud cover, incoming radiation and surface temperature. Principal component analysis (PCA) was further used to study the spatial and temporal characteristics of OLR and rainfall. The first step in the study involved the estimation of the few missing records. The quality of the estimated records was examined before they were included in the study. Both point and areally averaged records were used in the study for the four standard seasons namely March-May, June- August, September-November and December- February. The results from correlation analysis revealed significant correlation between OLR and the various meteorological parameters. The correlations between point records were generally weak compared to those obtained for areal records.