RTTOV Overview | NWP SAF

Please note that resources and documentation for older versions of RTTOV can be found on the archived old site.

Introduction

Current version: v11.3, September 2015

RTTOV Overview

1 Introduction
2 Obtaining RTTOV
3 Documentation and Resources
4 RTTOV-related Publications

RTTOV (Radiative Transfer for TOVS) is a very fast radiative transfer model for passive visible, infrared and microwave downward-viewing satellite radiometers, spectrometers and interferometers. It is a FORTRAN 90 code for simulating satellite radiances, designed to be incorporated within user applications.

Given an atmospheric profile of temperature, water vapour and, optionally, trace gases, aerosols and hydrometeors, together with surface parameters and a viewing geometry, RTTOV will compute the top of atmosphere radiances in each of the channels of the sensor being simulated.

In addition, RTTOV also optionally computes the Jacobian matrix which describes the change in radiance for a change in any element of the state vector assuming a linear relationship about a given atmospheric state. For a brief mathematical overview of radiative transfer modelling see this page.

The most recent version of RTTOV is v11.3, released in September 2015.

Some example applications of using RTTOV software are given on the RTTOV applications page.

Obtaining RTTOV

RTTOV is available to licensed users free of charge. To become a licensed user of RTTOV, please register with the NWP SAF (or login if you have already done so) and add RTTOV to your list of software preferences. Older versions of RTTOV are available to download to maintain compatibility with certain software but are not supported by the NWP SAF.

It is recommended (though not mandatory) to compile RTTOV against the HDF5 library (v1.8.8 or later required). This enables the use of HDF5 format coefficient files (the preferred format for hyperspectral sounders), the land surface emissivity and BRDF atlases, the Python and C++ interface to RTTOV and the RTTOV GUI.

If you do not compile against the HDF5 library you can still use the land surface emissivity and BRDF atlases and the Python/C++ interface if you compile RTTOV against the netCDF library (v3.6 or later).

In order to compile the RTTOV GUI or to call RTTOV from Python scripts you must also have F2PY (part of NumPy ) installed.

The GUI has additional requirements which are given in the GUI users’ guide.

Documentation and Resources

Instructions for compiling and running the most recent version of RTTOV may be found here. The User Guide also contains comprehensive details of the new features in RTTOV v11 and the changes from RTTOV v10. Further documentation, including the RTTOV ‘Science and validation report’ can be found on the RTTOV 11 homepage.

Resources (coefficients, atlases, etc.) compatible with RTTOV v11 can be accessed on the downloads page.

Details of future development planned for RTTOV can be found on the Future Plans page. Users wishing to make suggestions for new features should contact the helpdesk.

RTTOV-related Publications

Show Press Release (21 More Words)

Visiting Scientist reports

Title	Author(s)	Date	Doc ID
Enhancing the capabilities of the PC-RTTOV model	Marco Matricardi	08/04/2024	NWPSAF-EC_VS-063
Comparison of RTTOV and CRTM in JEDI	Benjamin T. Johnson, James Hocking and David Rundle	17/04/2023	NWPSAF-MO_VS-060
Improvement of the scattering parameterisation in RTTOV	Laurent C.-Labonnote, James Hocking and Jérôme Vidot	05/09/2022	NWPSAF-EC-VS-059
Cloud particle orientation and polarisation for cross-track microwave sensors in RTTOV	Vasileios Barlakas, Alan J. Geer, Patrick Eriksson	18/08/2022	NWPSAF-EC-VS-061
Preparing an extension of RTTOV-DOM for application to ICON-ART aerosol	Lukas Muser, Christina Stumpf , Leonhard Scheck. Christina Köpken-Watts	14/04/2022	NWPSAF-DWD-VS-059
RTTOV v13 beta test reports and responses		19/10/2020	NWPSAF-MO-TV-045
Updating the CAMEL surface emissivity atlas for RTTOV	Eva Borbas and Michelle Feltz	18/01/2019	NWPSAF-MO-VS-058
Inter-comparison of line-by-line radiative transfer models MonoRTM and AMSUTRAN for microwave frequencies from the Top-Of-Atmosphere	Karen Cady-Pereira, Emma Turner and Roger Saunders	21/11/2018	NWPSAF-MO-VS-057
Atmospheric clear-sky Radiative Transfer model intercomparison at mm/submm wavelengths	Juan R. Pardo and Peter Rayer	12/12/2016	NWPSAF-MO-VS-056
Comparison of MFASIS fast RT model and RTTOV-12	Leonhard Scheck	28/06/2016	NWPSAF-MO_VS-054
Investigation into the partitioning of cloud signals into IASI reconstructed radiances	Olaf Stiller, Fiona Smith, and Christina Köpken-Watts	01/11/2015	NWPSAF-MO-VS-052
MFASIS - a fast radiative transfer method for the visible spectrum	Leonhard Scheck	10/07/2015	NWPSAF-MO-VS-051
Microwave Surface Emissivity over sea-ice	Fabrizio Baordo and Alan Geer	02/07/2015	NWPSAF-EC-VS-026
The RTTOV UWiremis module: Investigation into the angular dependence of IR surface emissivity	Eva Borbas	13/10/2014	NWPSAF-MO-VS-050
Validation of foam coverage derived from wave dissipative energy from a wave model for RTTOV	M. Anguelova, L.-F. Meunier, M. Bettenhausen, P.Janssen and S. English.	10/07/2014	NWPSAF-EC-VS-025
The Zeeman effect implementation for SSMIS in ARTS v. RTTOV	Richard Larsson	10/06/2014	NWPSAF-MO-VS-049
Improved ocean emissivity modelling for assimilation of microwave imagers using foam coverage derived from a wave model	Louis-François Meunier, Stephen English and Peter Janssen	24/02/2014	NWPSAF-EC-VS-024
Cloud information from high spectral resolution IR sounders	Kozo Okamoto, Anthony P. McNally and William Bell	28/09/2012	NWPSAF-EC-VS-022
Report on land surface data assimilation activities in Europe and the Americas in the context of NWP SAF objectives	Luis Gustavo Goncalves de Goncalves and Joao Gerd Zell de Mattos	11/04/2012	NWPSAF-EC-VS-021
TELSEM 1D-var experiments at the Met Office: final report	Filipe Aires, Sreerekha Thonipparambil, Catherine Prigent and Roger Saunders	21/02/2012	NWPSAF-MO-VS-046
Development of the GPU-based RTTOV-7 IASI and AMSU Radiative Transfer Models	Bormin Huang, Jarno Mielikainen, Hung-Lung Allen Huang, and Roger Saunders	04/07/2011	NWPSAF-MO-VS-043
FASTEM-4 Validation	Quanhua Liu	16/06/2011	NWPSAF-MO-VS-045
The RTTOV UWiremis IR land surface emissivity module	Eva E. Borbas and Benjamin C. Ruston	02/06/2010	NWPSAF-MO-VS-042
Comparison of CPTEC AIRS L2 intercomparison and validation with Met Office IASI L2 intercomparison and validation	Simone Costa	01/03/2010	NWPSAF-MO-VS-041
TELSEM: a Tool to Estimate Land Surface Emissivities at Microwave frequencies	F.Aires, C.Prigent, F.Bernardo, C.Jiménez, R.Saunders and P.Brunel	01/11/2009	NWPSAF-MO-VS-040
Incorporation of the JCSDA Zeeman RT model in RTTOV v9	Y. Han	11/12/2007	NWPSAF-MO-VS-035
Investigation of the suitability of the 6S radiative transfer model to extend RTTOV to solar wavelengths	N. Huneeus	13/12/2007	NWPSAF-MO-VS-034
Comparison of radiative transfer models for AMSU-B in presence of ice clouds	N. Courcoux, A. Doherty, T. R. Sreerekha	24/05/2007	NWPSAF-MO-VS-020
SMOS Community Microwave Emission Model (SMOS-CHEM)	T.R.H. Holmes	18/12/2006	NWPSAF-EC-VS-014
Incorporation of RTTOV-8 in the JCSDA CRTM	P.F.W. van Delst and R.W. Saunders	29/09/2006	NWPSAF-MO-VS-022
91-level ECMWF diverse profile dataset	F. Chevallier	30/06/2006	NWPSAF-EC-VS-013
Quantitative precipitation estimation from satellite data (password protected — NWPSAF members only)	S. Laviola	15/04/2006	NWPSAF-MO-VS-024
RTTOVCLD version 8: Independent Assessment, v1.1	C.J. Merchant, O. Embury, C.P. Old	03/04/2006	NWPSAF-MO-VS-018
RTTOVSCATT model summary & reviewer comments	A. Gasiewski	15/06/2004	NWPSAF-MO-VS-014
Comparison of radiative transfer model jacobians in the presence of hydrometeors between JCSDA model and NWP SAF model	G. Wick	01/05/2005	NWPSAF-MO-VS-023

Technical Reports

Title	Author(s)	Date	Doc ID
Sub-millimetre Spectroscopy for AMSUTRAN. Part One: TheTheoretical Basis	Turner, E. and Saunders, R.	10/12/2019	NWPSAF-MO-TR-038
Modeling on nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium effects in the classical and principal component based version of the RTTOV fast radiative transfer model	M. Matricardi, M. Lopez Pueras and B. Funke	2017	ECMWF Tech. Memo 812
An evaluation of radiative transfer modelling errors in AMSU-A data	Lupu, C., A. J. Geer, N. Bormann and S. English	2016	ECMWF Tech. Memo 770
A visible/infrared multiple-scattering model for RTTOV	James Hocking	20/12/2016	NWPSAF-MO-TR-031
NE∆T specification and monitoring for microwave sounders	Nigel Atkinson	17/12/2016	NWPSAF-MO-TR-033
Radiometric calibration for microwave sounders	Nigel Atkinson	08/12/2016	NWPSAF-MO-TR-034
Meteorological satellite data rescue: Assessing radiances from Nimbus-IV IRIS (1970-1971) and Nimbus-VI HIRS (1975-1976)	Poli, P. and P. Brunel	2016	ECMWF ERA Report Series 23
A comparison of MFASIS and RTTOV-DOM	Scheck, L., Hocking, J., Saunders, R.	2016	Scheck, L., Hocking, J., Saunders, R.
Evaluation and operational implementation of the RTTOV-11 in the IFS	Lupu, C. and A. J. Geer	2015	ECMWF Tech. Memo 748
Revision of the microwave coefficient files in the IFS.	Lupu, C., A. J. Geer and N. Bormann	2015	ECMWF Tech. Memo 749
Diverse profile datasets from the ECMWF 137-level short-range forecasts	Reima Eresmaa and Anthony McNally	30/10/2014	NWPSAF-EC-TR-017
Interpolation methods in the RTTOV radiative transfer model	Hocking, J.	2014	Met Office Forecasting Research Technical Report 590
Characterising channel center frequencies in AMSU-A and MSU microwave sounding instruments	Lu, Q. and W.Bell	2013	ECMWF Technical Memorandum 700
Evaluation of RTTOV-11 in the IFS	Lupu C.	2013	RD Memorandum RD13-090
MACC profile dataset	Reima Eresmaa, Angela Benedetti and Anthony P. McNally	21/02/2012	NWPSAF-EC-TR-015
Evaluation of the microwave ocean surface emissivity model FASTEM-5 in the IFS	Bormann, N., A. Geer, and S. English	2012	ECMWF Technical Memorandum 667

Peer-reviewed publications

Author(s)	Title	Publication	Date	Direct relevance to deliverables	Phase
Turner, E., Rayer, P. and Saunders, R.	AMSUTRAN: A microwave transmittance code for satellite remote sensing	JQSRT Volume 227, April 2019, Pages 117-129, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jqsrt.2019.02.013	2019	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
Vidot J., Brunel P., Dumont M., Carmagnola C., Hocking J.	The VIS/NIR Land and Snow BRDF Atlas for RTTOV: Comparison between MODIS MCD43C1 C5 and C6. Remote Sens., 10, 21.	Remote Sensing. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10010021, Vol 10(1)	2018	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
Scheck, L., Mayer, B., Weissmann, M.	Efficient methods to account for cloud top inclination and cloud overlap in synthetic visible satellite images	J. Atmosph. Ocean Tech., Vol 35, pp665-685	2018	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
Saunders, R., Hocking, J., Turner, E., Rayer, P., Rundle, D., Brunel, P., Vidot, J., Roquet, P., Matricardi, M., Geer, A., Bormann, N., and Lupu, C.	An update on the RTTOV fast radiative transfer model (currently at version 12)	"Geosci. Model Dev. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2717-2018", Vol 11, pp 2717-2737	2018	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
Poli, P. and Brunel, P.	Assessing reanalysis quality with early sounders Nimbus-4 IRIS (1970) and Nimbus-6 HIRS (1975)	Advances in Space Research, DOI:10.1016/j.asr.2018.04.022, Vol 62(2), pp 245-264	2018	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
Aumann, H. H., Chen, X., Fishbein, E., Geer, A., Havemann, S., Huang, X., Liuzzi, G., DeSouza‐Machado, S., Manning, E. M., Masiello, G., Matricardi, M., Moradi, I., Natraj, V., Serio, C., Strow, L., Vidot, J., Wilson, R. C., Wu, W., Yang, Q. and Yung Q. L.	Evaluation of radiative transfer models with clouds	Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, DOI:10.1029/2017JD028063	2018	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
Havemann, S., J.-C.Thelen, J. P.Taylor, and R. C. Harlow	The Havemann-Taylor Fast Radiative Transfer Code (HT-FRTC): A multipurpose code based on principal components	Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jqsrt.2018.09.008	2018	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
De Angelis F., Cimini D., Löhnert U., Caumont O., Haefele A., Pospichal B., Martinet P., Navas-Guzmán F., Klein-Baltink H., Dupont J-C, and Hocking J.	Long-term observations minus background monitoring of ground-based brightness temperatures from a microwave radiometer network	Atmos. Meas. Tech. https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3947-2017	2017	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
Kneifel, S., J. D. Neto, D. Ori, D. Moisseev, J. Tyynelӓ, I. S. Adams, K-.S. Kuo, R. Bennartz, A. Berne, E. E. Clothiaux, P. Eriksson, A. J. Geer, R. Honeyager, J. Leinonen, C. D. Westbrook	The First International Summer Snowfall Workshop: Scattering properties of realistic frozen hydrometeors from simulations and observations, as well as defining a new standard for scattering databases	10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0208.1	2017	metaRTTOV	CDOP3
De Angelis, F., Cimini, N., Hocking, J., Martinet, P., Kneifel, S.	RTTOV-gb – adapting the fast radiative transfer model RTTOV for the assimilation of ground-based microwave radiometer observation	Geosci. Model Development doi:10.5194/gmd-9-2721-2016 , Vol 9, pp 2721-2739	2016	metaRTTOV	CDOP2
Poli, P., D. Dee, R. Saunders, V. John, P. Rayer, J. Schulz, K. Holmlund, D. Coppens, D. Klaes, J. Johnson, A. Esfandiari, I. Gerasimov, E. Zamkoff, A. Al-Jazrawi, D. Santek, M. Albani, P. Brunel, K. Fennig, M. Schroeder, S. Kobayashi, D. Oertel, W. Doehler, D. Spaenkuch, and S. Bojinski	Recent advances in satellite data rescue	Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society	2016	metaRTTOV	CDOP2
Vogelzang, J. and A. Stoffelen	ASCAT ultrahigh-resolution wind products on optimized grids	IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth O, 2016, doi:10.1109/JSTARS.2016.2623861	2016	metaRTTOV	CDOP2
Larsson, R., M. Milz, P. Rayer, R. Saunders, W. Bell, A. Booton, S. A. Buehler, P. Eriksson, and V. John	Modeling the Zeeman effect in high altitude SSMIS channels for numerical weather prediction profiles: comparing a fast model and a line-by-line model	Atmos. Meas. Tech. doi:10.5194/amt-9-841-2016, 2016, Vol 9, pp 841-857	2016	metaRTTOV	CDOP2
Vidot, J. , A. J. Baran, and P. Brunel	A new ice cloud parametrization for infrared radiative transfer simulation of cloudy radiances: Evaluation and optimisation with IIR observations and ice cloud profile retrieval products	Journal of Geophysical Research. Atmospheresdoi: 10.1002/2015JD023462, Vol 120, pp 6937-6951	2015	metaRTTOV	CDOP2
Peubey C. and William Bell	The influence of frequency shifts in microwave sounder channels on NWP analyses and forecasts.	Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. doi: 10.1175/JTECH-D-13-00016.1, Vol 31, pp 788-807	2014	metaRTTOV	CDOP2
Lu, Q. and W. Bell	Characterising channel center frequencies in AMSU-A and MSU microwave sounding instruments	Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-13-00136.1, Vol 31, pp 1713-1732	2014	metaMonitoring metaRTTOV	CDOP2
Vidot, J. and E. Borbas	Land surface VIS/NIR BRDF atlas for RTTOV-11: Model and validation against SEVIRI Land SAF albedo product	Q.J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc. Article first published online: 12FEB 2014. DOI: 10.1002/qj.2288	2014	metaRTTOV	CDOP2
Weston P P, W Bell and J R Eyre	Accounting for correlated error in the assimilation of high resolution sounders.	Q J R Meteorol Soc., 2013. Accepted manuscript online: 3 Dec 2013, DOI: 10.1002/qj.2306	2013	metaRTTOV meta1DVar	CDOP2
Martinet P, Fourrié N, Guidard V, Rabier F, Montmerle T and Brunel P	Towards the use of microphysical variables for the assimilation of cloud-affected infrared radiances	Q. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc.	2012	metaRTTOV	CDOP2