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The balance between energy absorbed by the earth and energy reflected back into space is fundamental in determining how warm or cool the planet becomes. The proportion of radiation reflected away by a surface is called its albedo. Albedo can range between 0 (no reflectance) and 1 (complete reflectanceâlike a mirror). The earthâs average albedo is .31, which means that, overall, the planet reflects about 31% of incoming solar radiation back into space.
Note how the Sun emits the most radiation in the visible range (with some overlap in the UV and IR) while the Earth emits mostly infrared radiation. The incoming energy from the Sun to Earth is mainly visible sunlight, called the visible portion of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation.We perceive visible sunlight as colors from violet (short-wave radiation) to red (long-wave radiation).raph showing the mostly visible radiation spectrum emitted from the Sun as seen from the surface of the Earth (left curve) and the IR radiation emitted Earth as seen from space (right curve). Compared it to Figure 1 this graph shows the wavelengths that are absorbed by atmospheric gases, causing gaps in the spectrum.