One-dimensional experiment features

Eradiate ships with an experiment dedicated to the simulation of radiative transfer on one-dimensional geometries. While the computation is not actually one-dimensional (Eradiate’s kernel is a 3D Monte Carlo ray tracer), scene setup ensures that the computed quantities are equivalent to what would be obtained with a proper 1D code. This guide introduces the features, configuration format and usage of this component.

Available features

Eradiate’s one-dimensional experiment is implemented by the AtmosphereExperiment class. Instances are configured using the class’s constructor. The operational mode, which defines how the spectral dimension of the computation is handled, must be selected prior to instantiating the class.

The constructor only accepts keyword arguments, each of which can be passed an object of an expected type or, alternatively and for relevant entries, dictionaries. These dict-configurable entries all require a type parameter which selects a programmatic component in Eradiate. In the following, the type value corresponding to each feature is specified in brackets.

In addition to the type parameter, an object configuration dictionary should contain the parameters required to initialize the corresponding programmatic element. Each allowed option is referenced, as well as the corresponding class in the Eradiate codebase. Class documentation lists all their parameters and allowed values.

Parameters can usually be omitted; in that case, they will be assigned default values. Default values are documented in the reference documentation of the AtmosphereExperiment class and other Eradiate classes.

Operational modes

The operational mode is selected using the eradiate.set_mode() function. AtmosphereExperiment currently supports the monochromatic (mono) and correlated-k distribution (ckd) modes.

Geometry [geometry]

Plane parallel [PlaneParallelGeometry, plane_parallel]

By default, the surface and atmosphere are assumed translationally invariant in the X and Y directions. This approximation provides satisfactory accuracy in many situations.

Spherical shell [SphericalShellGeometry, spherical_shell]

When this geometry configuration is used, the scene is built with a rotationally invariant symmetry. This configuration accounts for planetary curvature.

Illumination [illumination]

Directional illumination [DirectionalIllumination, directional]

An infinitely distant emitter which emits light in a single direction (angular Dirac delta distribution of incoming radiance). This type of illumination is used to simulate incoming solar radiation.

Astronomical object [AstroObjectIllumination, astro_object]

An infinitely distant emitter that emits light in a conical section of the angular space. It aims at providing a more realistic representation of natural illuminants than the directional emitter.

In addition, this angular distribution can be associated a spectrum. A variety of pre-defined Solar irradiance spectra are defined (see Solar irradiance spectra for a complete list of shipped irradiance spectra).

Measures [measures]

This experiment currently supports the computation of radiative quantities at the top of the atmosphere. This parameter can be specified as a single measure, or as a list of measures.

Distant radiancemeter [MultiDistantMeasure, distant]

This flexible measure records radiance exiting the scene. In practice, it outputs the top-of-atmosphere radiance under the set illumination conditions. The viewing directions for which radiance is computed can be controlled easily using various class method constructors.

When this measure is used, a number of derived quantities are computed. In the next paragraph, quantities available after post-processing are associated to the name of their corresponding field in the results dataset.

TOA outgoing radiance [radiance]

This is the radiance reflected by the entire scene (surface and atmosphere), since the scene only contains infinitely distant illumination.

TOA bidirectional reflectance distribution function (TOA BRDF) [brdf]

The TOA leaving radiance is post-processed together with scene illumination parameters to compute the TOA BRDF.

TOA bidirectional reflectance factor (TOA BRF) [brf]

The TOA BRDF normalised by the BRDF of a non-absorbing diffuse (Lambertian) surface.

Distant fluxmeter [DistantFluxMeasure, distant_flux]

This measure records the flux leaving the scene (in W/m²/nm) over the entire hemisphere. It is mostly used to compute the scene albedo. The following quantities are available from the result dataset:

Radiosity [radiosity]

The flux leaving the scene in W/m²/nm.

Albedo [albedo]

The total scene albedo.

Atmosphere [atmosphere]

An atmosphere can be optionally added to the scene. Currently, two types of atmosphere are supported.

Homogeneous atmosphere [HomogeneousAtmosphere, homogeneous]

The atmosphere has spatially invariant radiative properties.

Heterogeneous atmosphere [HeterogeneousAtmosphere, heterogeneous]

The atmosphere has spatially varying radiative properties along the altitude coordinate. The HeterogeneousAtmosphere class is configured by specifying a molecular component (MolecularAtmosphere), describing absorption and scattering by atmospheric gases, and an arbitrary number of aerosol layers (ParticleLayer).

Surface [surface]

In this experiment, surfaces are smooth and their geometry is controlled by the geometry parameter. Only the surface’s radiative properties can be selected. The bidirectional scattering distribution function (BSDF) can be directly passed as the surface parameter: Eradiate’s internals will wrap them in an appropriate shape.

Diffuse surface [LambertianBSDF, lambertian]

A diffuse or Lambertian surface reflects incoming radiation isotropically, regardless the incoming direction. This behaviour is modelled by the Lambert BRDF, parametrised by a reflectance parameter.

Rahman-Pinty-Verstraete (RPV) surface [RPVBSDF, rpv]

This reflection model features an anisotropic behaviour and is commonly used for land surface reflection modelling. Eradiate implements several variants of it with 3 or 4 parameters.

Ross thick-Li sparse (RTLS) surface [RTLSBSDF, rtls]

This reflection model is commonly used in remote sensing applications.

Hapke surface [HapkeBSDF]

A reflection model specialized for bare soil.

Black surface [BlackBSDF, black]

The black surface absorbs all incoming radiation, irrespective of incident angle or wavelength.

Result output

When running an experiment with the eradiate.run() function, the computed results are stored in the results attribute as a dictionary mapping measure identifiers to a Dataset object. Each data set has one variable for each computed physical quantity (e.g. spectral irradiance, leaving radiance, BRDF and BRF for the distant measure). Results can then be easily exported to files (e.g. NetCDF) and visualised using xarray’s integrated plotting features or external plotting components.