[Bldg-sim] Simulation or historic weather files for Northern Pakistan

[Joe Huang]

As you probably realize, this is an  area of the world with almost no observed weather 
data.  The only remotely usable data I have from the ISD (Integrated Surface Hourly 
Database)  are nine months of data (April - October) 2011 in Skardu. However, there are 
satellite-derived solar radiation and computer-modeled weather conditions from the MERRA-1 
Climate Forecast Model for anywhere in South Asia from 2000 through 2014 available as part 
of NREL's National Solar Radiation Database on line at https://nsrdb.nrel.gov/nsrdb-viewer 
.  Unless you want to spend several weeks doing so, I would not suggest that you delve 
into either data sources, nor would I recommend using the modeled weather data from 
MERRA-1, which I have found can be wildly off, especially in South Asia locations.

Since I've already got the data for Skardu for both data sets, I can see if I can use the 
partial 2011 data for Skardu to bias correct the MERRA-1 data,   which would then get you 
a weather file for 2011.  I'm not promising anything though, as I've got a lot of others 
things to do as well.

Joe

Joe Huang
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 205A
Moraga CA 94556
yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com for simulation-ready weather data
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"

On 3/1/2019 11:35 AM, Arfa Aijazi via Bldg-sim wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm working on a project to design affordable housing and temporary shelters for 
> refugees and disaster recovery in Pakistan. One of our target areas is the remote 
> northern areas of the country, called Hunza Valley. Some larger cities here include 
> Gilgit and Skardu. The nearest weather files available from EnergyPlus are 200-300 miles 
> away. The Hunza Valley region is mountainous, so given the influence of altitude and 
> microclimate effects I'd like to at least find historical weather data  to validate 
> simulation weather file selection.
>
> Let me know if you have any thoughts on where I can get weather data. It's a student 
> project, so we don't have budget to purchase weather files from a commercial service.
>
> Best,
> Arfa
>
> *Arfa Aijazi*
> PhD Student, Building Science and Sustainability
> Center for the Built Environment <http://cbe.berkeley.edu/> | Architecture 
> <https://ced.berkeley.edu/academics/architecture/> | UC Berkeley <http://www.berkeley.edu/>
> (m) 703-508-6535 | (e) arfa at berkeley.edu <mailto:arfa at berkeley.edu>
>
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