Chronology | Current Month | Current Thread | Current Date |
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] | [Date Index] [Thread Index] | [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] | [Date Prev] [Date Next] |
The assumptions of absorption are certainly
dependent on
the thickness of the atmosphere. A very thin atmosphere
won't absorb
100% of the outgoing IR, for example. However, if you can meet my
assumptions (or close to it - say, 80%), then in a sense it is
independent of the thickness of the atmosphere.
I disagree.
For a thick atmosphere, if you want a self-consistent
theory, you need to divide the atmosphere into layers
and iterate your argument. The Nth layer shields the
N-1 lower layers as surely as the first layer shields
the surface. The effect is cumulative. The radiation
is _diffusing_ outwards.
It would be quite a coincidence if the atmosphere's
thickness just happened to exactly equal one mean-free-path.