libRadtran User's Guide

1 Edition for libRadtran version user s guideBernhard Mayer, Arve Kylling, Claudia Emde, Robert Buras,Ulrich Hamann, Josef Gasteiger, and Bettina RichterDecember 24, 2019 Contents1 Preface12 Radiative transfer .. radiative transfer equation .. streaming term .. source term .. radiative transfer equation in 1D .. - scalar versus vector .. solution considerations .. beam/diffuse radiation splitting .. approximation .. conditions .. of the azimuthal -dependence, Fourier decomposition . quantities .. equation .. of solution methods ..153 Radiative transfer simulations usage .. file .. to setup an input file for your problem (checklist) .. to translate old input files? .. fromuvspec.. solvers included inuvspec.. ORdinate Radiative Transfer solvers (DISORT).

2 (polradtran) .. zero scattering (tzs) .. RTE solver (mystic) .. , aerosol-free atmosphere .. resolution .. clouds .. clouds.. of radiances ..514 Calculation of optical properties usage .. file .. output .. for one particle .. for a size distribution ..565 Further tools .. -integrate.. -spline.. -conv.. level to profile -addlevel.. difference between two files -ndiff.. to generate input data to and analyse output data fromuvspec.. albedo of snow -Gen_snow_tab,snowalbedo.. cloud properties -cldprp.. zenith and azimuth angle -zenith.. noon time -noon.. response and tilted surfaces -angres.. response function -make_angresfunc.. function generator -make_slitfunction.. phase function from Legendre polynomials -phase.. Legendre decomposition of phase function -pmom.

3 Useful tools .. - Single Scattering Radar.. tables for ozone and cloud optical depth ..706 Complete description of input transfer tool -uvspec.. for Mie calculations -mie.. 132 Bibliography140 Index149 IVCONTENTSC hapter 1 PrefacelibRadtranis a library of radiative transfer routines and programs. The central programof thelibRadtranpackage is the radiative transfer originally de-signed to calculate spectral irradiance and actinic flux in the ultraviolet and visible partsof the spectrum (Kylling, 1992) where the name stems from. Over the years,uvspechasundergone numerous extensions and includes the full solar andthermal spectrum, currently from 120 nm to 100 m. It has been designed as a user -friendlyand versatile tool which provides a variety of options to setup and modify an atmospherewith molecules, aerosol particles, water and ice clouds, and a surface as lower of the unique features ofuvspecis that it includes not only one but a selection of aboutten different radiative transfer equation solvers, fully transparent to the user , including thewidely-used DISORT code by Stamnes et al.

4 (1988) and its C-code version (Buras et al.,2011), a fast two-stream code (Kylling et al., 1995), a polarization-dependent code polRad-tran (Evans and Stephens, 1991), and the fully three-dimensional Monte Carlo code for thephysically correct tracing of photons in cloudy atmospheres, MYSTIC (Mayer, 2009; Emdeand Mayer, 2007; Emde et al., 2010; Buras and Mayer, 2011; Emde et al., 2011). MYSTIC optionally allows to consider polarization and fully spherical geometry. Please note that thepublic release includes only a 1D version of provides related utilities, like a Mie program (mie), some utilities forthe calculation of the position of the sun (zenith,noon,sza2time), a few tools for interpola-tion, convolution, and integration (spline,conv,integrate), and several other small tools forsetting upuvspecinput and general information aboutlibRadtranincluding examples of use may be found inthe reference publication (Mayer and Kylling, 2005).

5 It is expected that the reader is familiar with radiative transfer terminology. In addition,a variety of techniques and parameterizations from various sources are used. For moreinformation about the usefulness and applicability of these methods in a specific context,the user is referred to the referenced note that this document is by no means complete. It is under rapid development andmajor changes will take people have already contributed tolibRadtran s addition toBernhard Mayer ( (at) ), Arve Kylling ( (at) ), Claudia Emde ( (at) ), Robert Buras( (at) ), Josef Gasteiger ( (at) ),Bettina Richter ( (at) ) and Ulrich Hamann (hamann (at) ) the following people have contributed tolibRadtranor helped out in various otherways (the list is almost certainly incomplete please let us know if we forgot somebody): Thedisortsolver was developed by Knut Stamnes, Warren Wiscombe, Tsay,and K.

6 Jayaweera The translation from the FORTRAN version of the DISORT solver to C-code wasperformed by Timothy E. Dowling Warren Wiscombe provided the Mie codeMIEV0, and the routines to calculate therefractive indices of water and ice,REFWATandICEWAT. Seiji Kato (kato (at) ) provided the correlated-k ta-bles described in Kato et al. (1999). Tom Charlock ( (at) ), Quiang Fu (qfu (at) ), and Fred Rose ( (at) ) provided themost recent version of the Fu and Liou code. David Kratz (kratz (at) ) provided the routines forthe simulation of the AVHRR channels described in Kratz (1995). Frank Evans (evans (at) ) provided thepolradtransolver. Ola Engelsen provided data and support for different ozone absorption cross sections. Albano Gonzales (aglezf (at) ) included the Yang et al.

7 (2000), Key etal. (2002) ice crystal parameterization. Tables for the radiative properties of ice clouds for different particle habits were ob-tained from Jeff Key and Ping Yang, Yang et al. (2000), Key et al. (2002). In addition,Ping Yang and Heli Wei kindly provided a comprehensive database of particle sin-gle scattering properties which we used to derive a consistent set of ice cloud opticalproperties for the spectral range - 100 micron following the detailed descriptionin Key et al. (2002). A comprehensive dataset including the full phase matrices hasbeen generated and provided by Hong Gang. Paul Ricchiazzi (paul (at) ) and colleagues allowed us to in-clude the complete gas absorption parameterization of their model SBDART Luca Bugliaro ( (at) ) wrote the analytical TZS solver(thermal, zero scattering).

8 Sina Lohmann ( (at) ) reduced the overhead time forreading the Kato et al. tables dramatically which resulted in a speedup of a factor of2 in a twostr solar irradiance calculation. Detailed ice cloud properties were provided by Bryan Baum ( (at) ). Yongxiang Hu ( (at) ) provided the delta-fit pro-gram used to calculate the Legendre coefficients foric_propertiesbaum_hufit. Caro Klinger ( (at) ) implemented thermal heatingand cooling rate calculations in MYSTIC and provided the approximate 3D neigh-boring column approximation (NCA), see Klinger and Mayer (2016), Klinger andMayer (2019). Nina Crnivec ( (at) ) developed thetwomaxrnd solver. Many unnamed users helped to improve the code by identifying or fixing bugs in 2 Radiative transfer OverviewRadiative transfer in planetary atmospheres is a complex problem.

9 The best tool for thesolution may vary depending on the problem. ThelibRadtranpackage contains numeroustools that handle various aspects of atmospheric radiative transfer. The main tools will bepresented later in chapter 3. To give the user a background for the problem to be solved, thetheory behind will briefly be presented below. The radiative transfer equation is presentedfirst, and solution methods and approximations are outlined number of equations in this chapter may be intimidating even for the brave-hearted. Ifyou just want to get things done and wonder if thelibRadtranpackage includes tools thatmay be used for your problem, jump directly to chapter 3. Another good starting point is totry the examples available through the Graphical user Interface to The radiative transfer equationQuite generally, the distribution of photons in a dilute gas may be described by the Boltz-mann equation1 f t+ r(vf) + p(Ff) =Q(r, n, ,t).

10 ( )Here, the photon distribution functionf(r, n, ,t)varies with location (r), direction ofpropagation ( n), frequency ( ) and time (t). It is defined such thatf(r, n, ,t)c n dSd d dt( )represents the number of photons with frequency between and +d crossing a surfaceelementdSin direction ninto solid angled in timedt(Stamnes 1986). The units of1 For a derivation of the Boltzmann equation see a textbook on statistical mechanics, for example Reif (1965).Also note that the Boltzmann equation is not a fundamental equation. For a derivation of the radiative transferequation from the Maxwell equations see Mishchenko (2002).6 RADIATIVE TRANSFER THEORYf(r, n, ,t)arecm 3sr 1Hz 1andcis the speed of light. Furthermore, rand pare the divergence operators in configuration and momentum space, respectively.