Assessing the suitability of American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) agro-climatology archive to predict daily meteorological variables and reference evapotranspiration in Sicily, Italy

Abstract For decades, the importance of evapotranspiration processes has been recognized in many disciplines, including hydrologic and drainage studies, irrigation systems design and management. In this research, the suitability of the Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resource database published by the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (POWER-NASA), to estimate daily meteorological variables and ET 0 was assessed in Sicily, Italy, for the period 2006–2014, based on ground data measured by a network of climate stations belonging to the regional Agro-meteorological Information Service (SIAS). After comparing the climate data (minimum, T min , maximum, T max , and average, T…