La durée d'insolation au centre de la Cuvette Congolaise

Summary Continuous records of sunshine are available since 1945. These records are carefully checked and interruptions are interpolated by aid of a second station nearby. The homogenized data indicate generally more sunshine from December to May and 15% less from July to November. The fluctuations from one year to the other are rather great, only 1736 hours in 1948 but 2135 hours in 1956. The daily variation is nearly symmetric at M'Bandaka compared to Kinshasa-Binza where are much more clouds in the morning and less in the afternoon. The energetic measurements of global radiation since 1961 show a pronounced minimum in July 346 cal/cm² d, a secondary maximum in October 416 cal/cm² d and the principal maximum of 445 cal/cm² d in March and April. These values are rather low due to clouds as well as to atmospheric turbidity.