Using modis satellite data for the estimation of Turkey sunshine duration

Sunshine duration is one of the important and basic data source sforclimatic-based applications. For measuring this data on ground station heliographsare used. But measurement can not be conductedregion far from station or withoutstation, to determine the duration of sunshine in these regions can be done by estimation, and errorrates can reach highvalues depending on many reasons. Since satellites monitor and save the atmosphere of a particular height, rate of cloudiness can be calculated for each pixel. Sunshine duration can easily be determined in the acceptable error rate at any satellite coverage area. In this study by using 2004-2005 data of aqua and terra spacecraft, first lycloudiness index was calculated forTurkey. Then using these data calculated sunshine duration for each pixel in size 250mx250m, Turkey? s sunshine duration was mapped for daily and monthly period.