ATOC 5560 : Radiative Processes in Planetary Atmospheres
Peter Pilewskie
Associate Professor, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
Contact Number: 303- 492 -5724
Email at : peter.pilewskie@lasp.colorado.edu
Office Hours: M-W 10:15-11:30 AM
More about Radiative Processes in Planetary Atmospheres:
Includes application of radiative transfer theory to problems in planetary atmospheres, with primary emphasis on the Earth's atmosphere; principles of atomic and molecular spectroscopy; infrared band representation; absorption and emission of atmospheric gases; radiation flux and flux divergence computations; radiative transfer and fluid motions; additional applications such as the greenhouse effect, inversion methods and climate models.
Credit Hours : 3.0
Recommended pre-requisites : ATOC 5235. Same as ASTR 5560.
Meets on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00-10:15 am in DUANE D-318.
Outline of the topics covered in the class :
Part I :
Introduction to Radiative Transfer Radiative definitions Absorption, emission, and Planck functions Radiative transfer equation Simple radiative transfer solutions
Part II:
Radiation and Gases
Temperature structure and gas composition profiles
Rotational and vibrational molecular transitions
Absorption line shapes and broadening mechanisms
Absorption line intensities
Atmospheric absorption spectrum
Line-by-line models
The k - distribution and correlated k-distribution methods
Clear sky longwave radiative transfer
Heating rates: calculation and results
Weighting functions and the cooling to space approximation
Part III:
Radiation and Particles
Particle size distributions
Cross sections and phase functions
Polarization
Molecular (Rayleigh) scattering
Mie theory (method and results for aerosols and water droplets)
Indices of refraction
Discrete Dipole Approximation
Geometric optics scattering
Part IV:
Radiative Transfer with Scattering
Radiative transfer equation with scattering of sunlight
First order scattering
Two-stream methods
Discrete ordinates solution methods
Doubling-adding method
Surface reflection: Lambertian, Fresnel, general BRDF
Plane-parallel radiative transfer results
3D radiative transfer: Monte Carlo method and results
Part V:
Radiative Equilibrium and Atmospheric Applications Sun-Earth geometry and solar insolation; solar measurements Earth's radiative energy budget and measurement Radiative Equilibrium: Gray models (single layer and profile) Non gray models, the atmospheric window 1D radiative convective equilibrium; temperature structure Radiative forcing and climate feedbacks Cloud radiation interactions Aerosols radiative forcing Greenhouse gas warming Planetary applications