Evaluation of radiative transfer models in atmospheric profiling with broadband infrared radiance measurements

The infrared (IR) profile sounding based on satellite observations is an irreplaceable technique to monitor global atmospheric moisture information with high spatial resolutions. The long-term record of satellite IR measurement provides invaluable information for global climate study. Radiative transfer models (RTMs) are key issues in the sounding technique. The community radiative transfer model (cRTM), radiative transfer for Television and Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounde (TOVS) (RTTOV) and pressure layer fast algorithm for atmospheric transmittances (PFAAST) are tested in the legacy atmospheric profile (LAP) retrieval algorithm for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) advanced baseline image (ABI). The Meteosat Second Generation/Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Image (MSG/SEVIRI) measurements are used as proxy in the RTM evaluation. It is found that cRTM has the best performance in brightness temperature simulation and the tangent linear scheme integrated in both cRTM and RTTOV is better than the currently used approximate analytic scheme in deriving Jacobian matrix.