Assessment and Optimization of the Gamma-Weighted Two-Stream Approximation

The two primary foci of this note are to assess the ability of the multilayer gamma-weighted two-stream approximation (GWTSA) to compute domain-averaged solar radiative fluxes and to demonstrate how its execution time can be reduced with negligible impact on performance. In addition to the usual parameters needed by a 1D solar code, the GWTSA requires ν ∈ R+, which depends on both the horizontal mean and mean logarithm of cloud water content. …