The CAT weather station (Meteocat) brings together different elements for measuring parameters related to climatology and radiometry. Thanks to this, you can access data on temperature, relative humidity and atmospheric pressure, among others; and also take into account radiometric variables, for example, direct irradiance or albedo. These measurements are stored and made freely available to anyone who wants to consult them, both instantly and in the form of history by day, month and year.
The weathercat website born as an initiative of the CAT andhas been developed by the student of the Double Degree in Computer Engineering and Software Engineering Antonio Alcojor Patilla. It has been directed by Diego Martín Martín, professor at the Higher School of Experimental Sciences, and José Manuel Colmenar Verdugo, professor at the ETSII. In addition, they have also had the help of Alejandro Comin, a technician from the Renewable Energies Unit.
This TFG allows access to all this information and presents it in the format we want: daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. In addition, it will show the minimum and maximum within the chosen period and will allow the download of the desired data thanks to its friendly and intuitive interface. To do this, the information is collected by highly accurate and reliable measurement equipment belonging to CAT, also located in the Renewable Energy Unit. “Specifically, there is a radiometric station with a state-of-the-art Kipp-Zonen Solys 2 two-axis solar tracker, similar to those used in the AEMET National Radiometric Network, and meteorological instrumentation from the Bavarian company Alhborn. The data provided by all the teams is recorded with several dataloggers and sent to a CAT data server also located on the Móstoles Campus”, explains José Antonio Calles Martín, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the URJC and one of the developers of this project.
The main objective of the CAT weather station is to provide information to all those researchers who need it in their studies. "In many of these investigations, it is necessary to have historical data of these parameters to be able to apply models, make predictions and analyze other data", comments Calles. These data are stored in the database and are offered free of charge to any interested party. The CAT weather station has been a huge success because "we knew that there was a demand for researchers from both the university itself and other research centers," explains Calles.
You can access the website through this link.