Surface measurement of total solar and ultraviolet irradiance and ancillary meteorological data at the South-West Indian Ocean Solar network (IOS-net) stations.

The observational data described in this article are collected at several locations in the South-West Indian Ocean (SWIO). Platforms equipped with radiometers and a weather transmitter, and located over Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, La Réunion and Seychelles islands, are used to measure incident global and diffuse shortwave radiation and incident global UV A + B-band radiation along with air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, air pressure and rainfall amount with a sampling frequency of 0.1 Hz. The data are stored as 1-min averages and automatically transmitted to the LE2P-ENERGY lab at the University of La Réunion. The dataset is hosted on the website: https://galilee.univ-reunion.fr, and is uploaded to Zenodo repository. Such a dataset will help in providing information related to solar energy forecasting and assessment for solar energy implementation at a regional and national level in the SWIO.

Algorithmic Probability Method Versus Kolmogorov Complexity with No-Threshold Encoding Scheme for Short Time Series: An Analysis of Day-To-Day Hourly Solar Radiation Time Series over Tropical Western Indian Ocean.

The complexity of solar radiation fluctuations received on the ground is nowadays of great interest for solar resource in the context of climate change and sustainable development. Over tropical maritime area, there are small inhabited islands for which the prediction of the solar resource at the daily and infra-daily time scales are important to optimize their solar energy systems. Recently, studies show that the theory of the information is a promising way to measure the solar radiation intermittency. Kolmogorov complexity (KC) is a useful tool to address the question of predictability. Nevertheless, this method is inaccurate for small time series size. To overcome this drawback, a new encoding scheme is suggested for converting hourly solar radiation time series values into a binary string for calculation of Kolmogorov complexity (KC-ES). To assess this new approach, we tested this method using the 2004-2006 satellite hourly solar data for the western part of the Indian Ocean. The results were compared with the algorithmic probability (AP) method which is used as the benchmark method to compute the complexity for short string. These two methods are a new approach to compute the complexity of short solar radiation time series. We show that KC-ES and AP methods give comparable results which are in agreement with the physical variability of solar radiation. During the 2004-2006 period, an important interannual SST (sea surface temperature) anomaly over the south of Mozambique Channel encounters in 2005, a strong MJO (Madden-Julian oscillation) took place in May 2005 over the equatorial Indian Ocean, and nine tropical cyclones crossed the western part of the Indian Ocean in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 austral summer. We have computed KC-ES of the solar radiation time series for these three events. The results show that the Kolmogorov complexity with suggested encoding scheme (KC-ES) gives competitive measure of complexity in regard to the AP method also known as Solomonoff probability.

Analysis of Solar Irradiation Time Series Complexity and Predictability by Combining Kolmogorov Measures and Hamming Distance for La Reunion (France).

Analysis of daily solar irradiation variability and predictability in space and time is important for energy resources planning, development, and management. The natural variability of solar irradiation is being complicated by atmospheric conditions (in particular cloudiness) and orography, which introduce additional complexity into the phenomenological records. To address this question for daily solar irradiation data recorded during the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 at 11 stations measuring solar irradiance on La Reunion French tropical Indian Ocean Island, we use a set of novel quantitative tools: Kolmogorov complexity (KC) with its derivative associated measures and Hamming distance (HAM) and their combination to assess complexity and corresponding predictability. We find that all half-day (from sunrise to sunset) solar irradiation series exhibit high complexity. However, all of them can be classified into three groups strongly influenced by trade winds that circulate in a "flow around" regime: the windward side (trade winds slow down), the leeward side (diurnal thermally-induced circulations dominate) and the coast parallel to trade winds (winds are accelerated due to Venturi effect). We introduce Kolmogorov time (KT) that quantifies the time span beyond which randomness significantly influences predictability.

Spatial and Temporal Non-Linear Dynamics Analysis and Predictability of Solar Radiation Time Series for La Reunion Island (France).

Analysis of daily solar irradiation variability and predictability in space and time is important for energy resources planning, development, and management. The natural intermittency of solar irradiation is mainly triggered by atmospheric turbulent conditions, radiative transfer, optical properties of cloud and aerosol, moisture and atmospheric stability, orographic and thermal forcing, which introduce additional complexity into the phenomenological records. To address this question for daily solar irradiation data recorded during the period 2011-2015, at 32 stations measuring solar irradiance on La Reunion French tropical Indian Ocean Island, we use the tools of non-linear dynamics: the intermittency and chaos analysis, the largest Lyapunov exponent, Sample entropy, the Kolmogorov complexity and its derivatives (Kolmogorov complexity spectrum and its highest value), and spatial weighted Kolmogorov complexity combined with Hamming distance to assess complexity and corresponding predictability. Finally, we have clustered the Kolmogorov time (that quantifies the time span beyond which randomness significantly influences predictability) for daily cumulative solar irradiation for all stations. We show that under the record-breaking 2011-2012 La Nina event and preceding a very strong El-Nino 2015-2016 event, the predictability of daily incident solar energy over La Réunion is affected.