Technical note: The libRadtran software package for radiative transfer calculations - description and examples of use

TLDR

The libRadtran software package is a suite of tools for radiative transfer calculations in the Earth's atmosphere, with its main tool being the uvspec program. The uvspec tool computes radiances, irradiances, and actinic fluxes across the solar and terrestrial spectrum, and its design enables simple problems to be solved with defaults while also offering flexible input options for advanced research, as illustrated by realistic examples. The libRadtran software package is available at http://www.libradtran.org. Abstract.

Abstract

Abstract. The libRadtran software package is a suite of tools for radiative transfer calculations in the Earth's atmosphere. Its main tool is the uvspec program. It may be used to compute radiances, irradiances and actinic fluxes in the solar and terrestrial part of the spectrum. The design of uvspec allows simple problems to be easily solved using defaults and included data, hence making it suitable for educational purposes. At the same time the flexibility in how and what input may be specified makes it a powerful and versatile tool for research tasks. The uvspec tool and additional tools included with libRadtran are described and realistic examples of their use are given. The libRadtran software package is available from http://www.libradtran.org.