Technical Note: A new discrete ordinate first-order rotational Raman scattering radiative transfer model - implementation and first results

Abstract

Rotational Raman scattering in the Earth's atmosphere explains the filling-in of Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum. A new model including first-order rotational Raman scattering has been developed, based on a reimplementation of the versatile discrete ordinate radiative transfer (DISORT) solver in the C computer language. The solver is fully integrated in the freely available libRadtran radiative transfer package. A detailed description is given of the model including the spectral resolution and a spectral interpolation scheme that considerably speeds up the calculations. The model is used to demonstrate the effect of clouds on top and bottom of the atmosphere filling-in factors and differential optical depths. Cloud effects on vertical profiles of the filling-in factor are also presented. The spectral behaviour of the model is compared against measurements under thunderstorm and aerosol loaded conditions.