Troposphere: Weather and Climate

Weather and climate research involve the study and prediction of meteorological atmospheric properties, with regard to either short term fluctuations, or their mean values in space and time. A detailed understanding of the absorption and emission properties of the earth's atmosphere is essential to two major areas of weather and climate research. The first utilizes atmospheric absorption and emission properties to provide global monitoring of atmospheric conditions such as temperature, humidity, ozone, surface pressure and cloud cover, and ground conditions such as temperature, ground wetness and/or snow cover, and albedo. The second computes the radiative contribution to atmospheric and surface heating or cooling as a function of the above parameters. The following sections will briefly describe some of the major considerations in these areas. It will be shown that broad banded continuum features due to absorption from wings of distant lines, pressure induced absorption, or possible other sources such as water dimer absorption, are of primary importance for meteorological applications.