A calculation of total, direct, and diffuse solar radiation fluxes in 0.2-5μm spectral region in the cloudless atmosphere for different water vapor continuum absorption models at the variable atmospheric total water vapor content, typical for winter and summer conditions of Western Siberia is made. It is shown that the CAVIAR continuum absorption model, based on new experimental data, can give a higher sensitivity of the simulated fluxes to the total water vapor content than the MT_CKD model, widely used in the radiative calculations. It is caused by the fact that the water vapor continuum in the CAVIAR data exceeds the MT_CKD prediction on average by the order of magnitude in the atmospheric windows of the near infrared spectral region.
water vapor continuum, molecular absorption, atmospheric radiative transfer