Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics www.atmos-chem-phys.net 1680-7316 1680-7324 7 23 2007 10.5194/acp-7-6047-2007 http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/6047/2007/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/6047/2007/acp-7-6047-2007.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/6047/2007/acp-7-6047-2007.pdf 6047 6059 2007-12-10 Performance of the meteorological radiation model during the solar eclipse of 29 March 2006 B. E. Psiloglou H. D. Kambezidis Atmospheric Research Team, Institute of Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, Athens, Greece Various solar broadband models have been developed in the last half of the 20th century. The driving demand has been the estimation of available solar energy at different locations on earth for various applications. The motivation for such developments, though, has been the ample lack of solar radiation measurements at global scale. Therefore, the main goal of such codes is to generate artificial solar radiation series or calculate the availability of solar energy at a place. One of the broadband models to be developed in the late 80's was the Meteorological Radiation Model (MRM). The main advantage of MRM over other similar models was its simplicity in acquiring and using the necessary input data, i.e. air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure and sunshine duration from any of the many meteorological stations. The present study describes briefly the various steps (versions) of MRM and in greater detail the latest version 5. To show the flexibility and great performance of the MRM, a harsh test of the code under the (almost total) solar eclipse conditions of 29 March 2006 over Athens was performed and comparison of its results with real measurements was made. 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