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Atmospheric Absorption Spectrum

Notes:

Cyan -> water vapor
Green -> CO2
Red -> CH4
Blue -> Ozone
298˚K -> spectrum of surface radiation
255˚K -> spectrum of Earths equilibrium temperature
gray line -> surface radiation + cloud radiation, proportional to cloud coverage and filtered by atmospheric absorption

The atmospheric absorption data comes from the Gemini project which uses it to compensate for atmospheric distortion related to telescope observations. The emitted radiation spectrum is produced by a thermodynamic Earth model.

The most relevant feature of the absorption spectrum is the relatively transparent window between 8μ and 13μ, which is unaffected by CO2 or CH4 absorption.