The amplitude, the temperature dependence, and the physical origin of the water vapour absorption continuum are a long-standing issue in molecular spectroscopy with direct impact in atmospheric and planetary sciences. In recent years, we have determined the self-continuum absorption of water vapour at different spectral points of the atmospheric windows at 4.0, 2.1, 1.6, and 1.25µm, by highly sensitive cavity-enhanced laser techniques. These accurate experimental constraints have been used to adjust the last version (3.2) of the semi-empirical MT_CKD model (Mlawer-Tobin_Clough-Kneizys-Davies), which is widely incorporated in atmospheric radiative-transfer codes. In the present work, the self-continuum cross-sections, CS, are newly determined at 3.3µm (3007cm−1) and 2.0µm (5000cm−1) by optical-feedback-cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (OFCEAS) and cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS), respectively. These new data allow extending the spectral coverage of the 4.0 and 2.1µm windows, respectively, and testing the recently released 3.2 version of the MT_CKD continuum. By considering high temperature literature data together with our data, the temperature dependence of the self-continuum is also obtained.
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The near-infrared water vapor absorption is measured in the 2000-8000 cm−1 spectral region. Spectra were recorded using an IFS 125 HR Fourier spectrometer at a temperature of 287 K and a spectral resolution of 0.03 cm−1. The water vapor continuum absorption spectrum is retrieved using the known absorption in the 2500 cm−1 region as a reference point. It is shown that the continuum absorptions in four windows differ by no more than 20% under investigation conditions. This contradicts the MT_CKD continuum model, which predicts a much stronger variability of the continuum in these windows.
