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Estimating surface long‐wave radiative fluxes at global scale
Author(s) -
Nussbaumer Eric A.,
Pinker Rachel T.
Publication year - 2011
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.974
Subject(s) - downwelling , parametrization (atmospheric modeling) , environmental science , radiative transfer , middle latitudes , sky , atmospheric sciences , atmospheric radiative transfer codes , spectroradiometer , latitude , moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer , meteorology , climatology , physics , satellite , geology , geodesy , reflectivity , oceanography , quantum mechanics , astronomy , upwelling , optics
Abstract A new approach for calculating downwelling surface long‐wave radiation (DSLW) under all sky conditions is presented. The DSLW model (DSLW/UMD) is driven with a synthesis of the latest 1° resolution Moderate‐resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) level‐3 cloud parameters and information from the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA‐Interim model. The DSLW/UMD's clear‐sky contribution is based on the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM) and is globally applicable, while a statistical cloud structure model and parametrization determine the cloud contribution to DSLW. Daily averaged estimates of DSLW for 2003–2007 along with four commonly used methods based on radiative transfer (RT) theory are compared against ground measurements from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN). It is shown that for all four years, the proposed approach performs as well as or better than the available RT‐based models when evaluated against BSRN measurements. Correlation coefficients, absolute value of bias (W m −2 ), and RMSE (W m −2 ) are 0.973 to 0.974, −0.07 to 1.9, and 16.82 to 17.35, respectively. When stratified into Tropical, Midlatitude, and Polar latitudinal belts, largest discrepancies against ground observations are found at high latitudes. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society