PRESENTER: Table 7-1 gives the absorptivity and thus, emissivity, as well as the scattering and transmissivity for the visible and infrared. Remember that the fractions of absorptivity, scattering, and transmissivity of radiants must add up to one when radiants encounters matter. I want to point out two features in the table.

First, the atmosphere has little absorptivity and moderate scattering in the visible wavelengths while the atmosphere has large absorptivity, small transmissivity, and essentially no scattering in the infrared. Second, note that clouds behave a lot like Earth's surface in all aspects, except that scattering in the infrared can be large at Earth's surface while it is small for clouds.