One specific goal of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) program is to improve the treatment of radiative transfer in General Circulation Models (GCMs) under clear-sky, general overcast and broken cloud conditions. Our project was geared to contribute to this goal by attacking major problems associated with one of the dominant radiation components of the problem --longwave radiation. The primary long-term project objectives were to: (1) develop an optimum longwave radiation model for use in GCMs that has been calibrated with state-of-the-art observations for clear and cloudy conditions, and (2) determine how the longwave radiative forcing with an improved algorithm contributes relatively in a GCM when compared to shortwave radiative forcing, sensible heating, thermal advection and convection. The approach has been to build upon existing models in an iterative, predictive fashion. We focused on comparing calculations from a set of models with operationally observed data for clear, overcast and broken cloud conditions. The differences found through the comparisons and physical insights have been used to develop new models, most of which have been tested with new data. Our initial GCM studies used existing GCMs to study the climate model-radiation sensitivity problem. Although this portion of our initial plans was curtailed midway through the project, we anticipate that the eventual outcome of this approach will provide both a better longwave radiative forcing algorithm and from our better understanding of how longwave radiative forcing influences the model equilibrium climate, how improvements in climate prediction using this algorithm can be achieved.
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