Principles of remote sensing of atmospheric parameters from space
February 1998

By R. Rizzi and updated by R. Saunders
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Shinfield Park, Reading RG2 9AX, U.K.

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1 . Introduction

2 . Absorption and transmission of monochromatic radiation

3 . Black body radiation

4 . Emissivity, Kirchhoff law and local thermodynamical equilibrium.

5 . The equation for radiative transfer

6 . Spectral distribution of radiance leaving the atmosphere

7 . Modelling the interaction

	7.1 The molecule as a rigid quantized rotator
	7.2 The molecule as a quantized vibrator
	7.3 Vibro-rotational bands.

8 . Line shapes and the absorption coefficient.

	8.1 Natural broadening.
	8.2 Collisional broadening.
	8.3 Doppler broadening.

9 . Continuum absorption

10 . Integration over frequency

	10.1 Line-by-line methods
	10.2 Fast-transmittance models.

11 . The direct problem.

References.