Lecture Notes

(S): Lecture taught by Prof. Sara Seager

(M): Lecture taught by Dr. Robert McClatchey

LEC # TOPICS LECTURE NOTES NOTES
1 Course overview and role of radiation in climate system (S and M) (PDF)

Lecture 1

- Global energy Budget
- Chemical composition and radiative effects
- Thermal structure of the atmosphere
2 Physics of radiation (S) (PDF)

Lecture 2

- Thermodynamic concepts
- Energy levels in molecules
3 Molecular spectroscopy (S) (PDF)

Lecture 3

- Absorbtion and emission rules
- Spectra (rotational, vibrational, electronic)
- Line shapes
4-5 Equation of radiative transfer (M) (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Lecture 4

- Derivation - special cases

Lecture 5

- Fluxes and simple solutions - radiative equilibrium approximation
6-8 Modeling atmospheric transmission and emission (M) (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Lecture 6

- The HITRAN data base and applications

Lecture 7

- Band models (weak line, strong line, random, regular, k Distribution)

Lecture 8

- MODTRAN - R.M.
9-10

Scattering of radiation by molecules and particles (M)

Multiple scattering (M)

 (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Lecture 9

- Single scattering
- Size distributions
- Mie scattering (Exercise 4)

Lecture 10

- Discrete ordinates
11-14 Remote sensing (M) (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Lecture 11

- Scattered sunlight (observations from ground, from satellite)
- Retrieval of gases, particulate information, surface properties

Lecture 12

- Thermal emission
- Weighting functions
- Temperature and water vapor retrieval
- Limb scanning

Lecture 13

- Application of MODTRAN to remote sensing

Lecture 14

- Miscellaneous topics and summary (microwave remote sensing, active remote sensing - LIDAR and RADAR)