Streamer: Limitations

• Steamer does not do any plotting. It can, however, output results in a way that's easy to import into plotting programs.
• Unless the cloud phase function is input by the user, it is approximated using the asymmetry parameter and either the single or double Henyey-Greenstein function. This is fine for fluxes but can result in significant errors when radiances are being computed.
• No atmospheric refraction or spherical geometry is included so that results for solar zenith angles greater than about 70 degrees are subject to error.
• The only gases considered are water vapor, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and ozone.
• The flux/radiance that Streamer computes for the scene is the sum of the fluxes/radiances computed for each cloud part (individual clouds and overlap) weighted by their area fraction.
• Shortwave calculations are not done when the solar zenith angle is 90 degrees or more.
• While different surface types can occur within a scene, they do not occupy different portions of the scene; i.e., their reflectance signatures are used to create a weighted average albedo for the entire scene.