The water vapor foreign-continuum in the 1.6 µm window by CRDS at room temperature

Abstract

Water vapour foreign-continuum absorption cross-sections, CF, are measured for the first time at room temperature in the 1.6 µm transparency window, of importance for atmospheric applications. The measurements are performed by cavity ring down spectroscopy (CRDS) at 15 selected spectral data points. These data, covering the 5700–6640 cm−1 spectral range, are derived from the variation of the absorption signal during pressure ramps of humidified air up to 1 atm with a typical 1% water vapour relative concentration. The foreign-continuum absorption was obtained as the excess of the measured loss rate compared to the sum of the loss rate measured with dry air, the local water monomer contribution and the self-continuum absorption. CF values were derived from the linear dependence of the foreign-continuum absorption with the product of the partial pressures of water vapour and air. The semi-empirical MT_CKD CF values are found significantly underestimated in the centre of the window.