A High-Spectral-Resolution Radiative Transfer Model for Simulating Multilayered Clouds and Aerosols in the Infrared Spectral Region

A fast and flexible model is developed to simulate the transfer of thermal infrared radiation at wavenumbers from 700 to 1300 cm−1 with a spectral resolution of 0.1 cm−1 for scattering–absorbing atmospheres. In a single run and at multiple user-defined levels, the present model simulates radiances at different viewing angles and fluxes. Furthermore, the model takes into account complicated and realistic scenes in which ice cloud, water cloud, and mineral dust layers may coexist within an atmospheric column. The present model is compared to a rigorous reference model, the 32-stream Discrete Ordinate Radiative Transfer model (DISORT) code. For an atmosphere with three scattering layers (water, ice, and mineral dust), the root-mean-square error of the simulated brightness temperatures at the top of the atmosphere is approximately 0.05 K, and the relative flux errors at the boundary and internal levels are much smaller than 1%. Within the same computing environment, the fast model runs more than 10 000, 6000, and 4000 times faster than DISORT under single-layer, two-layer, and three-layer cloud–aerosol conditions, respectively. With its computational efficiency and accuracy, the present model may optimally facilitate the forward radiative transfer simulations involved in remote sensing implementations based on high-spectral-resolution and narrowband infrared measurements and in the data assimilation applications of the weather forecasting system. The selected 0.1-cm−1 spectral resolution is an obstacle to extending the present model to strongly absorptive bands (e.g., 600–700 cm−1). However, the present clear-sky module can be substituted by a more accurate model for specific applications involving spectral bands with strong absorption.