Moderate Spectral Atmospheric Radiance and Transmittance (MOSART)

MOSART is a U.S. Department of Defense standard code for predicting the radiative environment in the UV/VIS/IR/MMW to provide input for scene and signature simulations. MOSART provides atmospheric transmission along sensor-target line-of-sight paths, optical radiance backgrounds (e.g., terrain, clouds, limb, and space) against which targets are detected by sensor systems, and appropriate irradiances (e.g., solar, lunar, earthshine, skyshine). An extensive set of global databases is incorporated into the code, including climatologies, terrain elevation, water/snow compositions, ecosystem type, climatology atmospheric profiles, hydrology, soils, and land cover classes. Coupled with the ecosystem and terrain elevations are composite terrain scene types with appropriate boundary layer aerosol compositions.

The global database model allows a full four-dimensional representation of the earth's atmosphere (i.e., altitude, latitude, longitude, and time) with radiative transfer varying as the line-of-sight moves within the spatially and temporally changing atmosphere. The MOSART code provides the path transmittance, path radiance, apparent solar and lunar irradiances, and the diffuse, multiple scattered irradiances on a three-dimensional spatial grid required to support scene generation software. It also provides the diffuse space background and appropriate geometry parameters including solar, lunar, and planetary ephemerides. The Global Emissive Observables Temperature (GEOTEMP) code, as a companion to MOSART, provides the terrain and ocean surface temperatures as a function of time of day for a four-dimensional grid for a set of surface orientations.

The current released version of MOSART is v2.0.4, which is available from the Naval Research Laboratory. V3.0 is an advanced version being used as one of the components in the development of the GAIA and OCEANUS scene generation models and the ISIS earthshine/skyshine model.

More details describing the capabilities of the GEOTEMP code and MOSART can be found in the GEOTEMP and MOSART brochures.