Premium
An economical method for computing the radiative energy transfer in circulation models
Author(s) -
Hense A.,
Raschke E.,
Kerschgens M.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49710845514
Subject(s) - radiative transfer , water vapor , cloud cover , environmental science , atmospheric radiative transfer codes , flux (metallurgy) , atmospheric sciences , radiative flux , cloud computing , circulation (fluid dynamics) , ozone , absorption (acoustics) , liquid water content , radiant energy , meteorology , computational physics , physics , mechanics , materials science , computer science , optics , metallurgy , operating system , radiation
Based on the methodology of a two‐stream approximation (Kerschgens et al. 1978) the transfer of radiative energy in model atmospheres can now be calculated with high economy and sufficient accuracy. In this model the number of spectral intervals has been minimized to four (solar spectrum) and six (infrared spectrum) for which new effective transmission functions have been computed, where standard aerosol profiles and absorption and scattering coefficients are incorporated. The concentrations of major atmospheric gases (water vapour, carbon dioxide, ozone), the cloud cover and cloud liquid water content of each layer can be changed freely. Thus this model could be used in any numerical circulation model. In the first part of this paper we discuss the basic principles of the method and results obtained for cloudless model atmospheres. The accuracy of computed flux densities is better than 5% and of flux divergences better than 20% in the worst cases. In the second part this method will be applied to total and partial cloud cover in each layer.