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High‐resolution atmospheric absorption by water vapor in the 830–985 nm region: Evaluation of spectroscopic databases
Author(s) -
Smith K. M.,
Newnham D. A.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2001gl013155
Subject(s) - hitran , water vapor , database , environmental science , sky , absorption (acoustics) , high resolution , spectral line , atmosphere (unit) , absorption spectroscopy , atmospheric research , remote sensing , materials science , meteorology , optics , physics , geology , computer science , astronomy , composite material
We present high spectral resolution (0.05 cm −1 ) ground‐based measurements of direct solar absorption in the clear‐sky atmosphere by water vapor over the 830 to 985 nm (10,150–12,050 cm −1 ) region. Observations were made from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory on several days in different seasons during 1999. Using these observations water vapor line data in HITRAN and the ESA‐WVR database, derived from new laboratory measurements and theoretical calculations, are evaluated. Examples of inter‐comparisons between these databases and high‐resolution atmospheric transmittance spectra are given. The ESA‐WVR and HITRAN 2000 databases were found to give consistently better representations of clear‐sky absorption by water vapor in our measurements than previous editions of HITRAN, confirming that spectroscopic errors in databases account in part for discrepancies between modeled and observed short‐wave absorption.