Atmospheric Radiative Transfer

Instructor:
Professor Irina N. Sokolik
office 3104, ph.404-894-6180
email: isokolik@eas.gatech.edu

Location and meeting time:
Tuesday/Thursday 1:35-2:55 PM
ES&T L1175

Aug. 18	Lecture 1.	Basic radiometric quantities.
Aug. 20	Lecture 2.	The Beer-Bouguer-Lambert law. Concepts of extinction (scattering plus absorption) and emission. Schwarzschild’s equation.
Aug. 25	Lecture 3.	Blackbody radiation. Main radiation laws. Sun as an energy source. Solar spectrum and solar constant
Aug. 27	Lecture 4.	Composition and structure of the atmospheres. Basic properties of gases, aerosols, and clouds that are important for radiative transfer modeling.
Sep. 1	Lecture 5.	Basics of gaseous absorption/emission. Line shapes. Absorption coefficient and transmission function.
Sep. 3	Lecture 6.	Absorption by atmospheric gases in the IR, visible and UV spectral regions.
Sep. 8	Lecture 7.	Terrestrial infrared radiative processes. Part 1:Line-by-line (LBL) method for solving IR radiative transfer.
Sep. 10	Lecture 8.	Terrestrial infrared radiative processes. Part 2: K-distribution approximation.
Sep. 15	Lecture 9.	Line-by-Line modeling of radiation transfer in the thermal IR
Sep. 17	Lecture 10.	Terrestrial infrared radiative processes. Part 3: Absorption band models.
Sep. 21	Lecture 11.	Terrestrial infrared radiative processes. Part 4: IR radiative heating/cooling rates .
Sep. 24	Lecture 12.	Modeling of radiative fluxes and heating/cooling rates in the IR
Sep. 29	Lecture 13.	Review for Midterm Exam 1
Oct. 1		Midterm Exam 1
Oct. 6		Fall Break
Oct. 8	Lecture 14.	Light scattering and absorption by atmospheric particulates. Part 1: Principles of scattering. Main concepts: elementary wave, polarization, Stokes matrix, and scattering phase function. Rayleigh scattering.
Oct. 13	Lecture 15.	Light scattering and absorption by atmospheric particulates. Part 2: Scattering and absorption by spherical particles.
Oct. 15	Lecture 16.	Optical modeling with Mie theory.
Oct. 20	Lecture 17.	Light scattering and absorption by atmospheric particulates. Part 3: Scattering and absorption by nonspherical particles.
Oct. 22	Lecture 18.	Principles of multiple scattering in the atmosphere. Radiative transfer equation with scattering for solar radiation in a plane-parallel atmosphere.
Oct. 27	Lecture 19.	Methods for solving the radiative transfer equation with multiple scattering. Part 1: Two-stream approximations.
Oct. 29	Lecture 20.	Methods for solving the radiative transfer equation with multiple scattering. Part 2: Inclusion of surface reflection and emissivity.
Nov. 3	Lecture 21.	Methods for solving the radiative transfer equation with multiple scattering. Part 3: “Exact” methods: Discrete-ordinate and Adding.
Nov. 5	Lecture 22.	Methods for solving the radiative transfer equation with multiple scattering. Part 4: Monte Carlo method. Radiative transfer methods for inhomogeneous clouds.
Nov. 10	Lecture 23.	Problem solving examples.
Nov. 12	Lecture 24.	Total radiative heating/cooling rates.
Nov. 17	Lecture 25.	Radiation and climate.
Nov. 19	Lecture 26.	Radiative forcing of gases, aerosols and clouds.
Nov. 24	Lecture 27.	Modeling of radiative TOA and surface forcing of aerosols and clouds
Dec. 1	Lecture 28.	Students' class project presentation
Dec. 3	Lecture 29.	Students' class project presentation

Homeworks