We have used the surface radiation measurements taken at five sites in the Intensive Flux Array (IFA) during TOGA COARE and satellite-derived top-of-atmosphere (TOA) fluxes to estimate the time series of the (vertically integrated) atmospheric solar and IR heating rates in the IFA with 3-hourly resolution. This information will be useful for evaluating cloud models and radiation codes and for constraining analyses of the IFA heat and moisture budgets.
We first determined the relationship between the solar transmission and the co-located satellite-derived albedo at each surface site. Then we used this relationship to estimate the time series of surface solar transmission averaged over the IFA from the satellite-derived albedoes. The atmospheric radiative heating rates were obtained from the net solar and IR radiative fluxes into the atmosphere.
We also compared three independent estimates of TOA IR and solar broad-band radiative fluxes obtained from satellite narrow-band measurements during TOGA COARE over the IFA. While the outgoing IR estimates are quite similar, there is a significant range in the estimated global albedoes averaged over the four months of COARE: 0.23, 0.28, and 0.30