What's new vs. Meteonorm 8

These are the main changes from Meteonorm 8:

• Complete overhaul of the algorithmic core and the API (previously called "web service"), including many bug fixes and improvements. Forecast and observation APIs (our previous solarwebservices.ch) are now integrated into the Meteonorm API. The Meteonorm 8 desktop application is becoming a web application.

• 2001–2020 is now the default climate period for radiation, temperature, and other meteorological parameters.

• New station data from newly accessible open data sources (primarily from national meteorological services adopting open data policies).

• Enhanced quality and quality control mechanisms for surface observations.

• New satellite data: MSG 2008–2023, IODC, Himawari and GOES-E: 2018–2023.

• Improved algorithms for blending surface observations with satellite data.

• Introduction of new IPCC AR6 scenarios SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP3-7.0. Our future TMY are based on the averages of 15 global climate models from the CMIP6.

• Topographical data is now based on the Copernicus GLO-30 digital elevation model, which is globally available and has a higher spatial resolution (30m) than the previously used SRTM dataset (90m resolution).

• Aerosol and Linke turbidity information has been updated. New climatologies based on Merra2¹ and the reference period of 2001–2020 are used instead of the blended dataset (Aeronet ground data, Merra2 and MODIS) in Meteonorm 8.