RTTOV (radiative transfer code)
RTTOV - the fast radiative transfer model for calculations of radiances for satellite infrared or microwave nadir scanning radiometers.
Given an atmospheric profile of temperature, variable gas concentrations, cloud and surface properties RTTOV calculates radiances and brightness temperatures. The only mandatory input is water vapour. Optionally ozone, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and carbon monoxide can be variable with all other constituents assumed
to be constant. The range of temperatures and water vapour concentrations over which the optical
depth computations are valid depends on the training datasets which were used. The spectral range of the RTTOV9.1 model is 3-20 micrometres in the infrared.
RTTOV contains forward, tangent linear, adjoint and K versions of the model; the latter three modules for variational
assimilation or retrieval applications.
One of several applications of RTTOV are retrievals of brightness temperature and sea surface temperature from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer sensor.