The HITRAN database: 1986 edition

Abstract

A description and summary of the latest edition of the AFGL HITRAN molecular absorption parameters database are presented. This new database combines the information for the seven principal atmospheric absorbers and twenty-one additional molecular species previously contained on the AFGL atmospheric absorption line parameter compilation and on the trace gas compilation. In addition to updating the parameters on earlier editions of the compilation, new parameters have been added to this edition such as the self-broadened halfwidth, the temperature dependence of the air-broadened halfwidth, and the transition probability. The database contains 348043 entries between 0 and 17,900 cm(-1). A FORTRAN program is now furnished to allow rapid access to the molecular transitions and for the creation of customized output. A separate file of molecular cross sections of eleven heavy molecular species, applicable for qualitative simulation of transmission and emission in the atmosphere, has also been provided.

H2O in stellar atmospheres

“…The average intensity of our computed combination bands follow the experimental values through the 9 orders of magnitude in the intensity reported on in the literature (Rothman et al 1987(Rothman et al , 1998, although, as expected, with a bigger scatter for the weaker bands. Most of the scatter in our data can be explained as pairs of bands which have similar experimental values for their band center frequencies, and therefore suffer from energy level mixing and corresponding intensity borrowing.…”

Theory of the water vapor continuum and validations

“…Using the theory outlined above together with the accurate position and intensity data of the H 2 O transitions (Rothman et al, 1987), and the dipole moment of H 2 O, n= 1.8546 D, the quadrupole moment Q= -1.04 eal of N 2 , and the same parameters of the isotropic interaction used by Rosenkranz (1985Rosenkranz ( , 1987) (C/ fc=8.0x 10 5 A 6 K, 5=48, and «r=3.13 A for H 2 O-H 2 O; and C/A:=8.2x 10 s A 6 K, s=9, and cr=2. Burch et al (1984Burch et al ( , 1985 for T=296 K in the spectral range 3000 cm-' <o><4100 cm-'.…”

Radiative forcing by contrails

“…Average transmission functions accounting for gaseous absorption in the wavelength intervals are approximated by exponential sum ®tting. The transmission functions result from line-byline calculations based on the HITRAN-86 data base (Rothman et al, 1987). The spectral extraterrestrial sun in the solar range is extracted from data incorporated in the LOWTRAN-7 radiative transfer code (Kneizys et al, 1988).…”