Summary
The flow of electromagnetic energy through the atmosphere and its interaction with Earth's surface underly an enormous range of weather and climate phenomena. Fluxes of radiation almost entirely determine Earth's temperature, act as a strong constraint on global precipitation and the height of the tropopause, and shape atmospheric motions from the global scale to the cloud scale. The laws of physics for electromagnetic radiation are very well known, particularly for the visible and infrared radiation relevant to Earth, but the application of these laws to the Earth's atmosphere and surface req
