Daily grass reference evapotranspiration with Meteosat Second Generation shortwave radiation and reference ET products

Abstract This study assesses the accuracy of estimating daily grass reference evapotranspiration (PM-ETo) using daily shortwave radiation (Rs) and reference evapotranspiration (ETREF) products provided by the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) geostationary satellite delivered by the Satellite Applications Facility on Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF) framework. The accuracy of using reanalysis ERA5 shortwave radiation data (Rs ERA5) provided by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is also evaluated. The assessments were performed using observed weather variables at 37 weather stations distributed across continental Portugal, where climate conditions range from semi-arid to humid, and 12 weather stations located in Azores islands, characterized by humid, windy and often cloudy conditions. This study's use of data from a variety of climate conditions contributed to a unique and innovative assessment of the usability of LSA-SAF and ERA5 products for ETo estimation. The first assessment focused on comparing LSA-SAF estimates of Rs (Rs LSA-SAF) against ground stations (Rs ground). The results showed a good matching between the two Rs data sets for continental Portugal but a tendency for Rs LSA-SAF to under-estimate Rs ground in the cloudy islands of Azores. ETo values computed using Rs LSA-SAF data and observed temperature, humidity and wind speed (ETo LSA-SAF) were then compared with PM-ETo estimates with ground-based data, which were used as benchmark; input data of temperature and humidity needed for PM-ETo were quality checked for surface aridity effects. It was observed that ETo LSA-SAF is strongly correlated with PM-ETo (R2 > 0.97) for most locations in continental Portugal, with regression coefficient of a linear regression forced to the origin ranging between 0.95 and 1.05, mean root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.13 mm d−1, and Nash and Sutcliff efficiency of modeling (EF) above 0.95. For most Azores locations, ETo LSA-SAF over-estimated PM-ETo. This is likely a consequence of the high spatio-temporal heterogeneity of weather conditions that occur in these oceanic islands together with the different footprints of satellite (averaged over the pixel) and station observations. Reanalysis ERA5 shortwave radiation data presented similar behavior to the LSA-SAF products, however with slightly lower accuracy. The daily LSA-SAF ETREF product (ETREF LSA-SAF) was assessed and results have shown a good accuracy of this product, with acceptable RMSE and high EF values, for continental Portugal but a low accuracy for the Azores islands. A simplified bias correction approach was shown to improve both ETo derived from the LSA-SAF products, namely for Azores stations, which seem to be representative of smaller areas. The use of the FAO-PM temperature approach (PMT) was also assessed using the Rs LSA-SAF and Rs ERA5 data, which showed a superiority of the LSA-SAF product for ETo estimations (ETo PMT LSA-SAF). No significant differences (p