Surface emissivity refers to the ability of a material or surface to emit or release thermal radiation. It shows how well or poorly a surface can give off heat through radiation. A high
surface emissivity means that the material releases heat easily, while a low
surface emissivity means that it retains heat.
Full definition
Microwave imagery must allow for variations
in surface emissivity and can not act as a surrogate for air temperature over either snow - covered (Peterson et al., 2000) or sea - ice areas.
Guillou, C., W. Ellison, L. Eymard, K. Lamkaouchi, C. Prigent, G. Delbos, G. Balana, and S.A. Boukabara, 1998: Impact of new permittivity measurements on
sea surface emissivity modeling in microwaves.
Sea Surface Emissivity, Temperature and Atmospheric Measurements from the M - AERI during the ACAPEX Campaign.
RKS: there is a GHE because by
reducing surface emissivity, GHGs increase the impedance for the transfer to the atmosphere and space of the 160 W / m ^ 2 average solar warming of the surface.
Prigent, C., W.B. Rossow, and E. Matthews, 1998: Global maps of microwave
land surface emissivities: Potential for land surface characterization.
As you can see, it is more appropriate to divide the planet up into a bunch of patches which are relatively uniform in temperature (and
surface emissivity).
There's «resistance» that's a property of
the surface emissivity and of the S - B constant.
The real GHE is the reduction of
surface emissivity, also possibly coupled convection as atmospheric GHG thermal - emission Poynting Vectors annihilate the UP PVs in that wavelength interval.