Real-Time Global Computation of the Solar Position in Google Earth Engine

Real-Time Global Computation of the Solar Position in Google Earth Engine

October 11, 2022

Description: Information about the solar position at a given date and time is crucial for e.g. photovoltaic systems and numerous environmental analyses. For this purpose I created the “GlobalSolarPosition” module which enables global computation and visualization of solar position, both with and without respect to the surface slope and aspect in Google Earth Engine. Users can either incorperate the respective functions in their scripts or use the interactive GEE Application.

The calculations of the solar zenith and azimuth angles are based on the following equations. The angles are computed for a given local time with respect to the present time zone based on the Natural Earth time zones dataset.

Access: The code to the functions, example scripts, as well as an interactive Google Earth Engine Application can be accessed via the GlobalSolarPosition GitHub repository.

Citation: Philipp, M. (2022): GobalSolarPosition V.1.0. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7139847.

follow us and share it on:

you may also like:

EORC at InterGeo 2026

EORC at InterGeo 2026

We will be actively participating at InterGeo this September: we've got a small booth right next to Wingtra's exhibition space, over in Hall B6, booth B6E045. Come by and have a look on what we've been working on across the EORC especially focused on our UAS earth...

Research and Workshop in the Alps

Research and Workshop in the Alps

Last week a group of PhD and EAGLE MSc students visited the Umweltforschungsstation Schneefernerhaus (UFS) at the Zugspitze for a workshop on research in high alpine ecosystems. The workshop was kicked-off by presentations from some of our students, who are conducting...

DBU scholar Josipa Subotic

DBU scholar Josipa Subotic

Almost a year ago, Josipa Subotic showed up at EORC as a DBU scholar, and now her stay with us is coming to an end. Josipa spent her time digging into snow cover properties around the Zugspitze, working with Sentinel-2 time series data. Multispectral imagery, lots of...

Share This