A method for atmosphere characterization using mesoscale models, satellite data, and ground measurements

This thesis describes a new procedure for computing irradiances for the Earth's atmosphere including the three-dimensional structure of the local atmosphere around the point of observation. Simulated gridded model atmospheres are used as input for a radiative transfer procedure (based on libRadtran radiative transfer package) for irradiance and radiance determination. The atmospheric structure is obtained from the MM5 meteorological model providing gridded three-dimensional atmospheric profiles and cloud position. Simulated data are compared with ground sensors in UV and visible bands and Meteosat Second Generation satellite images. A fast algorithm is also developed for treating multilayer direct transfer with scattering. The effects of a variety of atmospheric constituents (including new characterizations for aerosols and clouds) are discussed.