RTTOV
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Link
Papers
Saunders, R., Hocking, J., Turner, E., Rayer, P., Rundle, D., Brunel, P., Vidot, J., Roquet, P., Matricardi, M., Geer, A., Bormann, N., and Lupu, C., 2018: An update on the RTTOV fast radiative transfer model (currently at version 12), Geosci. Model Dev., 11, 2717-2737, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2717-2018.
Given an atmospheric profile of temperature, water vapour and, optionally, trace gases, aerosols and hydrometeors, together with surface parameters and a viewing geometry, RTTOV computes the top of atmosphere radiances in each of the channels of the sensor being simulated.
The core of RTTOV is a fast parameterisation of layer optical depths due to gas absorption. In addition, RTTOV also optionally computes the Jacobian matrix which describes the change in radiance for a change in any element of the state vector assuming a linear relationship about a given atmospheric state.
More recent versions of the software have extended its capabilities in numerous ways. Since version 11, RTTOV has had a built-in GUI which allows the user to modify an atmospheric/surface profile, run RTTOV for a given instrument, produce radiances and brightness temperatures and display instantaneously the results. It is also possible to calculate Jacobians, run PC-RTTOV and perform a basic 1DVar retrieval.