What's New

RRTM SW Version	Release Date	Notes
v1.5	November 2017	Extended solar irradiance dataset to 86500 cm-1 (M. Iacono)
v1.4.1	August 2017	Minor fixes to code and documentation. (M. Iacono)
v1.4	March 2017	A solar irradiance dataset based on the NRLSSI2 model (Lean and Woods, 2010) has been implemented -- we recommend that users use this implementation. NRLSSI2 models solar variability, and AER's extract_solar package, used in conjunction with LBLRTM, now allows a number of options to handle variability consistent with NRLSSI2. To this end, extract_solar now includes a new database that consists of three components: a component that does not vary with solar cycle, constructed by merging functions from two separate spectral regions that together span the 100-50000 cm-1 at a spectral resolution of 0.01 cm-1: 1) from 4000-14800 cm-1, the high-resolution solar transmittance data from Toon scaled to be consistent with the coarser irradiance values of NRLSSI2; 2) from 100-4000 cm-1 and 14800-50000 cm-1, the high-resolution Kurucz irradiance values scaled to be consistent with the coarser irradiance values of NRLSSI2. NRLSSI2 facular brightening component at a spectral resolution of 0.01 cm-1. This component varies with solar cycle. The high-resolution values, when integrated in each NRLSSI2 channel, reproduce the respective NRLSSI2 irradiance values. NRLSSI2 sunspot darkening component at a spectral resolution of 0.01 cm-1. This component varies with solar cycle. The high-resolution values, when integrated in each NRLSSI2 channel, reproduce the respective NRLSSI2 irradiance values. These latter two terms are stored for average solar activity conditions for Solar Cycles 13-24 (from NRLSSI2). The extract_solar package also has a database that consists of the sum of these three components. We recommend that users not interested in solar variability use the option that is based on this combined database. extract_solar can generate a binary (SOLAR.RAD) or ascii file that utilizes this combined database. Alternatively, the code will extract (in binary or ascii) all three of the individual components, which can be combined in multiple ways when running LBLRTM (see extract_solar and LBLRTM instructions). The code retains its previous capability to generate a binary or ascii file based on the high-resolution Kurucz database (50-50000 cm-1) (Kurucz, 1992).
v1.3	May 2004	The solar source function is described in: Kurucz, R.L., Synthetic infrared spectra, in Infrared Solar Physics, IAU Symp. 154, edited by D.M. Rabin and J.T. Jefferies, Kluwer, Acad., Norwell, MA, 1992.