Syllabus

The spectrum of electromagnetic radiation; Solid angle, Fundamental of radiometric quantities, Concepts of scattering, absorption and polarization of radiation, Quantitative description of radiation; Blackbody Radiation: The Plank Function, Wiens displacement Law, The StefanBoltzmann Law; Kirchoff’s Law, Radiative equilibrium.

Absorption line profiles: Line formation and line shape, Absorption and emission by gas molecules, Physics of scattering and absorption by particles, Rayleigh Scattering, Raman Scattering, Lorentz-Mie theory of light scattering, Geometric Optics.

Radiative transfer in planetary atmosphere, Equation of radiative transfer, Radiative transfer in a plane parallel atmosphere, Beer-Bouguer Law, Reflection and absorption by a layer of the atmosphere, Absorption and emission of infrared radiation in cloud-free atmosphere, Vertical profiles of radiative heating rate; Earth's radiation budget, the Role of radiation in climate.

Application of radiative transfer to remote sensing of atmospheric properties: Retrieval of meteorological variables, gases, particulate information and surface properties