Comparison of modeled and empirical approaches for retrieving columnar water vapor from solar transmittance measurements in the 0.94‐μm region

Abstract

Four atmospheric transmittance models, LOWTRAN 7, MODTRAN 3, FASCOD3P, and the Thomason model, are investigated to quantify the relationship between water vapor transmittance as function of water vapor amount, Tw(U), for an instrument specific band pass in the 0.94‐μm region. In a second step an empirical Tw(U) function is established using long term measurements with our high‐precision Sun photometer (SPM) in Bern, Switzerland along with 1300 simultaneous and collocated water vapor retrievals performed with a dual‐channel microwave radiometer (MWR). In order to avoid a possible bias in the empirical Tw(U) function, the MWR data set is prescreened by comparing retrievals coincident with radiosonde ascents. Over a 2½‐year period of common observations, radiosondes and SPM agreed to within 0.19 cm (13%) of columnar water vapor (CWV) using the empirical Tw(U) relationship. Completely independent comparisons with an additional MWR and two Fourier transform spectrometers yielded agreement within 13% and 9%, respectively. Comparing empirical and modeled results, we found that with respect to the experimental data, LOWTRAN 7, MODTRAN 3, and FASCOD3P reported higher water vapor transmittances over almost the entire range of realistic absorber amounts. By relating these differences to differences in retrieved CWV for the case of two standard atmospheres, we found that using Tw(U) predicted by LOWTRAN 7, MODTRAN 3, and FASCOD3P leads to an overestimate of CWV by about 18–30%, 7–20%, and 2–18%, respectively. The Thomason model yields good agreement with respect to the experimental data up to medium absorber amounts, whereas at slant path amounts larger than 10 cm, errors up to 60% in retrieved CWV occurred. We also show in this work that a misinterpretation of the LOWTRAN 7 water vapor output counterbalances incorrectly predicted Tw, leading to results that agree well with experimental ones.