libRadtran
libRadtran is a freely available library of tools for calculating radiative transfer in the Earth's atmosphere. It grew out of the uvspec model, and Bernhard Mayer and Arve Kylling have developed it jointly since 1996, together with Claudia Emde, Robert Buras, Josef Gasteiger, Fabian Jakub, Caro Klinger, and others.
The package supports a broad range of applications, including solar and thermal radiation, UV irradiance, photolysis, remote sensing, and atmospheric heating and cooling.
MYSTIC
MYSTIC—the Monte Carlo code for the physically correct tracing of photons in cloudy atmospheres—is the three-dimensional Monte Carlo solver of the libRadtran package. It has been developed since 1997 for radiative-transfer calculations involving clouds, complex topography, and inhomogeneous surfaces.
The model follows individual photon paths through scattering, absorption, emission, and reflection. It is used for calculations of radiances, irradiances, heating rates, and related atmospheric-radiation quantities in one- and three-dimensional model geometries.
Primary documentation
MYSTIC has been documented in the following seven publications:
- 2009 B. Mayer. Radiative transfer in the cloudy atmosphere. European Physical Journal Conferences, 1, 75–99.
- 2010 B. Mayer, S. W. Hoch, and C. D. Whiteman. Validating the MYSTIC three-dimensional radiative transfer model with observations from the complex topography of Arizona's Meteor Crater. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 10, 8685–8696.
- 2010 C. Emde, R. Buras, B. Mayer, and M. Blumthaler. The impact of aerosols on polarized sky radiance: model development, validation, and applications. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 10, 383–396.
- 2011 R. Buras and B. Mayer. Efficient unbiased variance reduction techniques for Monte Carlo simulations of radiative transfer in cloudy atmospheres: the solution. Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 112, 434–447.
- 2011 C. Emde, R. Buras, and B. Mayer. ALIS: An efficient method to compute high spectral resolution polarized solar radiances using the Monte Carlo approach. Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 112, 1622–1631.
- 2007 C. Emde and B. Mayer. Simulation of solar radiation during a total eclipse: a challenge for radiative transfer. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 7, 2259–2270.
- 2014 C. Klinger and B. Mayer. Three-dimensional Monte Carlo calculation of atmospheric thermal heating rates. Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 144, 123–136.
Model scope
- How cloud geometry changes surface and top-of-atmosphere radiation
- How mountains cast shadows and redirect radiation
- How heterogeneous land cover and snow influence observed radiance
- When one-dimensional approximations remain adequate