We're talking about how well the atmosphere can 'block' light, no matter how it does it, which is what is relevant for the laser discussion. Therefore, ONLY radiative light matters here. Like I said, you keep horribly confusing convection and radiation. Yes, a lot of energy reaches the surface but most of it happens via convection. This is not intuitively surprising at all, for the reasons and examples I already gave. Space suits, solar panels in orbit, telescopes, on and on. What's funny to me is how hard you're trying to argue something that has been CLEARLY disproven. If we can't believe Cambridge then let's all just be nihilists and call it a day!
Atmospheric convection carries heat away from the surface not to it. Again, what your saying makes no sense.
EXACTLY!
And that is precisely what those university gifs in #387 were telling you! That the atmosphere only absorbs 16% (in the first gif) and 19% (in the second gif) of the incoming solar radiation, NOT 95%!
Here is another...
University of Saint Louis says atmospheric absorption is 19%, not 95%...
This "19%" is the atmospheric absorption of the incoming solar radiation, and as you said, this "is what is relevant for the laser discussion".
--Boot Hill