This paper summarizes recent calculations of the radiative cooling coefficient for molybdenum(Z=42),krypton(Z=36)and argon(Z=18).The radiative processes considered are collisional-radiative line emission, dielectronic recombination line emission, and radiative recombination and bremsstrahlung continuum emission. Collisional-radiative line emission dominates the power loss channels for a given impurity at all but the highest plasma electron temperatures. The atomic data for the line emission are computedab initiowith the HULLAC atomic physics suite of codes. Relativistic,ab initioatomic physics data are used to compute ionization and recombination rate coefficients; the resulting charge state distribution and recombination rates are used to estimate the radiative power from recombination processes. The calculations in the present work are benchmarked against absolute measurements of ion brightness profiles in the Frascati Tokamak Upgrade plasma. Integrated measurements from tokamak plasmas such as bolometry are then simulated. The atomic physics data used to predict the emissivity of individual ions is validated; the calculated cooling coefficients agree well with bolometric measurements. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.