A far‐infrared radiative closure study in the Arctic: Application to water vapor

Abstract

Far‐infrared (λ > 15.0 μm) (far‐IR) radiative processes provide a large fraction of Earth's outgoing longwave radiation and influence upper tropospheric vertical motion. Water vapor, because of its abundance and strong absorption properties over an extended spectral range, is the primary source of these radiative processes. Historically, the lack of spectrally resolved radiometric instruments and the opacity of the lower atmosphere have precluded extensive studies of far‐IR water vapor absorption properties. The U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program has organized a series of field experiments, the Radiative Heating in Underexplored Bands Campaigns (RHUBC), to address this deficiency. The first phase of RHUBC took place in 2007 at the ARM North Slope of Alaska Climate Research Facility. Measurements taken before and during this campaign have provided the basis for a clear‐sky radiative closure study aimed at reducing key uncertainties associated with far‐IR radiative transfer models. Extended‐range Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer infrared radiance observations taken in clear sky conditions were compared against calculations from the Line‐By‐Line Radiative Transfer Model. The water vapor column amounts used in these calculations were retrieved from 183 GHz radiometer measurements. The uncertainty in these integrated water vapor retrievals is approximately 2%, a notable improvement over past studies. This far‐IR radiative closure study resulted in an improvement to the Mlawer‐Tobin Clough‐Kneiyzs‐Davies (MT_CKD) water vapor foreign continuum model and updates to numerous, far‐IR water vapor line parameters from their values in the circa 2006 version of the HITRAN molecular line parameter database.