climlab / climlab-rrtmg

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Full spectral flux diagnostics #21

Open brian-rose opened 4 months ago

brian-rose commented 4 months ago

For some applications it would be great to get more detailed diagnostics out of RRTMG.

For both LW and SW models, upward and downward fluxes are computed internally for individual spectral bands and then summed, and only the spectrally integrated flux diagnostics are provided.

We already modified RRTMG_LW to provide the option of spectrally-resolved Outgoing Longwave Radiation. Why not take this further and provide options for full vertically-resolved spectral diagnostics, in both LW and SW, and for both clear-sky and all-sky.

A related point is the possibility of obtaining separate diagnostics for direct and diffuse SW fluxes as discussed in #18.

It would be good to think through what the Python interface should look like. And how to implement these additional diagnostics while preserving as much backwards compatibility as possible.