Articles | Volume 11, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-1537-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-1537-2018
Model description paper
 | 
18 Apr 2018
Model description paper |  | 18 Apr 2018

ARTS, the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator – version 2.2, the planetary toolbox edition

Stefan A. Buehler, Jana Mendrok, Patrick Eriksson, Agnès Perrin, Richard Larsson, and Oliver Lemke

Abstract. This article describes the latest stable release (version 2.2) of the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS), a public domain software for radiative transfer simulations in the thermal spectral range (microwave to infrared). The main feature of this release is a planetary toolbox that allows simulations for the planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, in addition to Earth. This required considerable model adaptations, most notably in the area of gaseous absorption calculations. Other new features are also described, notably radio link budgets (including the effect of Faraday rotation that changes the polarization state) and the treatment of Zeeman splitting for oxygen spectral lines. The latter is relevant, for example, for the various operational microwave satellite temperature sensors of the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) family.

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Short summary
The Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS) is a public domain software for simulating how radiation in the microwave to infrared spectral range travels through an atmosphere. The program can simulate satellite observations, in cloudy and clear atmospheres, and can also be used to calculate radiative energy fluxes. The main feature of this release is a planetary toolbox that allows simulations for the planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, in addition to Earth.