A test of the ability of current bulk optical models to represent the radiative properties of cirrus cloud across the mid-and far-infrared

Abstract. Measurements of mid- to far-infrared nadir radiances obtained from the UK Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) BAe-146 aircraft during the Cirrus Coupled Cloud-Radiation Experiment (CIRCCREX) are used to assess the performance of various ice cloud bulk optical (single-scattering) property models. Through use of a minimisation approach, we find that the simulations can reproduce the observed spectra in the mid-infrared to within measurement uncertainty but are unable to simultaneously match the observations over the far-infrared frequency range. When both mid and far-infrared observations are used to minimise residuals, first order estimates of the flux differences between the best performing simulations and observations indicate a strong compensation effect between the mid and far infrared such that the absolute broadband difference is