Water va
por s
pectrosco
py data for the 720 nm absor
ption band (
4ν polyad) are validated in the context of atmos
pheric radiative transfer calculations. We validate line
parameters from the HITRAN-2000 database and from the ULB-UFR-BIRA database which have been used for the 2004 release of HITRAN. For this
pur
pose, ground-based high resolution observations of the direct solar radiation are com
pared with simulated s
pectra. Line
parameters are selected for validation based on a full error characterization including instrument noise and uncertainties in the atmos
pheric
profile data. For a subset of the line
parameters validated in the
present study inde
pendent high-accuracy data are available. The com
parison with these inde
pendent reference data confirms the ca
pability of our a
pproach to im
prove water va
por s
pectrosco
pic data.