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In this paper, we quantify the effect of the temporal sampling frequency of commonly measured climatic variables on the estimation of the reference evapotranspiration. Using a set of data sampled on an intensive basis (i.e. one measurement each minute) during a period of 6 months, we first analyse the effect of the temporal sampling frequency on the estimation of the daily means of the shortwave solar radiation, the wind speed, the dry and wet temperatures, and on the estimation of the daily maximum and minimum dry temperature. Subsequently, a sensitivity analysis of a reference evapotranspiration model is carried out to determine the most sensible meteorological variables. The sensitivity coefficients were then combined with the errors due to the temporal sampling to quantify for each variable the impact of the sampling frequency on the estimation of daily ETo. The results showed that the solar radiation and …