SCIATRAN 2.0 – A new radiative transfer model for geophysical applications in the 175–2400 nm spectral region
Introduction
The SCIATRAN radiative transfer models (RTMs) are next generation RTMs based on the well-known GOMETRAN (Rozanov et al., 1997) model which was originally developed to simulate solar radiation backscattered from the atmosphere and reflected from the Earth’s surface in the spectral range 240–800 nm as measured by the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) in nadir viewing geometry. A successor RTM called SCIATRAN (Rozanov et al., 2002) was extended to cover the spectral range 240–2380 nm comprising the eight spectral channels of the SCIAMACHY (SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY) instrument. SCIATRAN versions up to 1.2 utilize the pseudo-spherical approach, including refraction, appropriate for solar zenith angles up to about 92° and near-nadir viewing angles.
A new generation of the SCIATRAN model comprises all features of the latest SCIATRAN 1.2 RTM supporting additionally radiative transfer calculations in a spherical atmosphere (Rozanov et al., 2001). The program is written in FORTRAN 95 and suitable for parallel execution using the OpenMP standard (OpenMP, 1997–2004). The wavelength range covered by the radiative transfer model is extended to 175–2380 nm including Schuman-Runge and Herzberg absorption bands of oxygen. The SCIATRAN 2.0 model exhibits many new capabilities making it valuable for a wide range of scientific applications.
Section snippets
Main features
Due to a newly implemented spherical mode and an improved plane-parallel mode, the SCIATRAN radiative transfer model becomes suitable to solve almost any scientific task associated to measurements of the scattered solar radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared (UV–Vis–NIR) spectral regions. The radiative transfer modeling can be performed at any viewing geometry common for measurements of the scattered solar radiation within or above the atmosphere,
Conclusion
The latest version of the radiative transfer model SCIATRAN has been discussed which is suitable to solve almost any scientific task related to measurements of the scattered solar radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere by means of satellite, ground-based, or air-borne instruments in UV–Vis–NIR spectral region. The program is freely available for non-commercial scientific applications (http://www.iup.physik.uni-bremen.de/sciatran). The work on the polarization is currently in progress.
Acknowledgments
This work has been funded in parts by the German Ministry of Education and Research BMBF (Grant 07UFE12/8), the German Aerospace Centre DLR (Grant 50EE0027), and the German Research Foundation DFG (Project BU 688/8-1).
Authors thank Dr. P. Wang (Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Germany), for her efforts on the OClO slant column modeling. We also thank B. Mayer and K. Wapler (German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany) for
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