Dear Colleagues, you receive this eMail because you are either a user of the radiative transfer package libRadtran or because we think that you might be interested in this information. Should you not be interested in receiving further information, please let us know! Attached to this eMail is the 10th libRadtran Newsletter. The main issue of this Newsletter is to send Seasons Greetings! If you followed the history of libRadtran carefully, you probably expected a different sentence here; something like "The main issue of this Newsletter is to announce the new version, *** libRadtran x.y ***". We actually intended to do so until about yesterday but decided otherwise today since the current version is not yet as stable and complete as we would like it to be and updates during the coming weeks are almost certain. 2009 was certainly one of the most exciting years in the history of libRadtran - a lot has happened, although a considerable fraction of that has been going on "below the surface". We need some more tuning and need to recalculate the cloud optical properties databases. Be prepared for a new release in January! And now, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy and successful New Year! Bernhard Mayer, Claudia Emde, Robert Buras, Ulrich Hamann, and Arve Kylling. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Prof. Dr. Bernhard Mayer Bernhard.Mayer@dlr.de Lehrstuhl fuer Experimentelle Meteorologie Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Theresienstrasse 37, 80333 Muenchen Phone: +49 89 21804383, Fax: +49 89 2805508 also at: DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Inst. fuer Physik der Atmosphaere Phone: +49 8153 282568, Fax: +49 8153 281841, Homepage: http://www.bmayer.de ------------------------------------------------------------------ /*---------------------------------------------------------------- * libRadtran Newsletter No. 10 * * December 24, 2009 * * Bernhard Mayer (bernhard.mayer_at_lmu.de) * Claudia Emde (claudia.emde_at_dlr.de) * Robert Buras (robert.buras_at_lmu.de) * Ulrich Hamann (ulrich.hamann_at_dlr.de) * Arve Kylling (arve.kylling_at_gmail.com) * * ### More info: http://www.libradtran.org ### *----------------------------------------------------------------*/ Dear libRadtran users, merry Christmas and a good start into the New Year! In a good tradition, now for the 8th time in a row, a newsletter is sent out on Christmas Eve. Usually the Christmas Newsletter comes together with a new release. We planned to do that and worked hard to finnish it. However, since it is not yet as stable and complete as we would like it to be and since we would need to update the release in January anyway, we decided against it and promise the new release for January! A lot has happened since last year, not only to the model but also to some of the authors: Three of us (Bernhard Mayer, Robert Buras, Claudia Emde) changed to the University of Munich, Chair of Experimental Meteorology. While this is not a large step in distance (30km), it is quite a change in daily work. University of Munich has a long tradiation in radiative transfer starting with Boltzmann and Wien in the 19th century through Moeller and Bolle in the 20th century (Moeller was among the first in the 1960s and earlier to introduce radiation in climate models; and both Moeller and Bolle were presidents of the International Radiation Commission). As you may guess, we will focus on radiative transfer and libRadtran will be an important piece of that work. Also, Robert Buras joined the development team and, among other things, completely restructured the handling of phase functions by disort. Some highlights of this year: * In March 2008 we started an exciting project funded by ESA: ESASLight is a 2-years project (March 2008 - March 2010) aiming at the development of a comprehensive radiative transfer package to support ESA's present and future satellite missions. libRadtran was selected as the starting point of this development. We are on schedule and will probably finish the project on time in March 2010. Things introduced during ESASLight include a much better treatment of polarization, the implementation of inelastic (Raman) scattering, Gigabytes of improved data bases of water and ice clouds as well as aerosols, and a first version of a graphical user interface (GUI). * A major fraction of the work has concentrated on the 3D module MYSTIC which is still not part of the release but possibly will be somewhen in the not-so-far-away future. If you are interested in 3D radiative transfer, you may have a look here http://www.epj-conferences.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2009/01/epjconf1008.pdf This is a textbook article intended for students who are not radiative transfer experts. * The libRadtran homepage was redesigned in fall 2008. We added a user area anybody who has an interesting application or knows some tips and tricks may add a section. So far, nobody was brave enough to do so except Bernhard Mayer and Arve Kylling. Don't be shy! * The "Publications that used libRadtran" (http://www.libradtran.org/publications.html) hasn't been updated as frequently as it should have been. The number current number is 144 and I certainly have 10-20 papers waiting to be added. If you published a paper which uses libRadtran, please let us know! Most of these papers will be discovered by SCOPUS, but I only add those which I can access electronically from my Desktop. This includes AGU, AMS, OSA, ELSEVIER and of course all electronic reprints you send me. Stay tuned for a new release in January! * Bernhard Mayer (bernhard.mayer_at_lmu.de) * Claudia Emde (claudia.emde_at_dlr.de) * Robert Buras (robert.buras_at_lmu.de) * Ulrich Hamann (ulrich.hamann_at_dlr.de) * Arve Kylling (arve.kylling_at_gmail.com)