Professor: Stephen G. Warrren
Office: 524 Atmospheric Sciences-Geophysics (ATG) Bldg.
Phone: 543-7230
e-mail: sgw@atmos.washington.edu

Purpose of Course: This course is offered in alternate years. It is particularly recommended for students whose research involves effects of clouds or aerosols on radiation. The first class meeting is Tuesday 30 September at 10:30 in ATG 610.

Course Description
(a) Radiative transfer: methods for solving the radiative transfer equation including scattering.
(b) Scattering and absorption of light by small atmospheric particles.

A particular application emphasized in the course is the interaction of clouds with solar radiation.

Course Outline:
A. Radiative Transfer

01. Definitions and radiation quantities
02. Radiative transfer equation (r.t.e.); formal solution of r.t.e.
03. Plane-parallel form of r.t.e, azimuthally-averaged r.t.e.
04. Integral equation for source function
05. Monte-Carlo method
06. Representation of anisotropic phase functions in r.t.e.
07. r.t.e. for plane-parallel atmosphere illuminated by direct solar beam.
08. Two-stream method
09. Eddington method for multi-layer atmosphere
10. Phase function truncation
11. Doubling method
12. Discrete ordinates method


B. Single Scattering
01. Review of electromagnetic theory
02. Polarized light
03. Reflection at an interface
04. Theory of optical constants
05. Mie theory
06. Results of Mie theory
07. Scattering by nonspherical particles

Applications:

reflection, transmission and absorption of light by clouds and snow
solar albedo of clouds and surfaces
microwave and infrared emissivity of surfaces
remote sensing of Earth's atmosphere and surface by reflected solar radiation
Earth radiation budget
climatic effects of aerosols
parameterization of solar radiation in the atmosphere