Developments in three-dimensional cloud radiation over the past few decades are assessed and distilled into this contributed volume. Chapters are authored by subject-matter experts who address a broad audience of graduate students, researchers, and anyone interested in cloud-radiation processes in the solar and infrared spectral regions. After two introductory chapters and a section on the fundamental physics and computational techniques, the volume extensively treats two main application areas: the impact of clouds on the Earth's radiation budget, which is an essential aspect of climate modeling; and remote observation of clouds, especially with the advanced sensors on current and future satellite missions.

Radiative heat transfer is a fundamental factor in the energetics of the terrestrial atmosphere: the system consisting of the atmosphere and the underlying layer is heated by the Sun, and this heating is compensated, on the average, by thermal radia tion. Only over a period of 1-3 days from some specified initial moment can the dynamic processes in the atmosphere be considered to be adiabatic. Global dynamic processes of long duration are regulated by the actual influxes of heat, one of the main ones being the radiative influx. Radiation must be taken into account in long-term, weather forecasting and when considering the global circulation of the atmosphere, the theory of climate, etc. Thus it is necessary to know the albedo of the system, the amount of solar radiation transmitted by the atmosphere, the absorptivity of the atmosphere vis-a-vis solar radiation, and also the effective radiation flux, the divergence of which represents the radiative cooling or heating. All these quantities have to be integrated over the wavelength spectrum of the solar or thermal radiation, and they must be ascertained as functions of the determining factors. The relation ships between the indicated radiation characteristics, the optical quantities directly determining them, the optically active compo nents of the atmosphere, and the meteorological fields will be discussed in this book.

This volume outlines the fundamentals and applications of light scattering, absorption and polarization processes involving ice crystals.

This Second Edition of An Introduction to Atmospheric Radiation has been extensively revised to address the fundamental study and quantitative measurement of the interactions of solar and terrestrial radiation with molecules, aerosols, and cloud particles in planetary atmospheres. It contains 70% new material, much of it stemming from the investigation of the atmospheric greenhouse effects of external radiative perturbations in climate systems, and the development of methodologies for inferring atmospheric and surface parameters by means of remote sensing. Liou's comprehensive treatment of the fundamentals of atmospheric radiation was developed for students, academics, and researchers in atmospheric sciences, remote sensing, and climate modeling. - Balanced treatment of fundamentals and applications - Includes over 170 illustrations to complement the concise description of each subject - Numerous examples and hands-on exercises at the end of each chapter