Open AccessIntercomparison of radiative transfer codes under non‐local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions
Author(s) -
von Clarmann T.,
Dudhia A.,
Edwards D. P.,
Funke B.,
Höpfner M.,
Kerridge B.,
Kostsov V.,
Linden A.,
LópezPuertas M.,
Timofeyev Yu.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2001jd001551
Subject(s) - radiative transfer , radiance , thermodynamic equilibrium , radiative equilibrium , atmospheric radiative transfer codes , computational physics , physics , spectral line , thermodynamics , optics , astronomy
Limb infrared spectra calculated by the Optimized and Precise Radiative Transfer Algorithm (KOPRA), GENLN2, Reference Forward Model (RFM), and Simulation Program for Infrared Radiative Transfer (SPIRT) radiative transfer algorithms were intercompared for both local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and non‐local thermodynamic equilibrium (non‐LTE) conditions, in the latter case for given profiles of vibrational temperatures. The overall agreement is usually better than approximately 0.5%, except for isolated phenomena that have been assessed in more detail. Most spectral radiance discrepancies occur also under LTE conditions and are attributed to different treatment of far wings of lines, integration schemes, and mass‐weighted averaging of atmospheric temperature and pressure along slant path segments as well as different spectral sampling during the calculation of monochromatic radiances.