Abstract

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program is a Department of Energy multi-year effort whose primary goal is the improvement of the quality of general circulation models (GCMs) of the atmosphere which are used for climate prediction. ARM seeks to improve these models through an extensive effort combining observations and basic process modeling. The proper performance of climate prediction models depends on the quality of the representations of the basic atmospheric processes within the model. The processes of most important to the ARM program are radiative transfer under a variety of physical conditions and those processes responsible for the formation, maintenance, and dissipation of clouds. One of the challenges in study of radiative processes, in particular, is the characterization of the state of the atmosphere on a time scale appropriate to radiative processes, essentially instantaneously. Optical remote sensing techniques offer excellent tools for such characterizations. However, many of the algorithms and basic approaches to optical remote sensing depend exactly on the same models and basic data that need to be tested in the radiative transfer codes. The method by which ARM combines optical techniques with other remote sensing techniques offers an interesting set of solutions to this problem.

© 1991 Optical Society of America