Although Lambert's law Tν=e-kνw presumably applies to the absorption of gases in the infrared, the experimentally observed transmission T'ν cannot be expressed by a simple relation of this type. It is observed, however, that in regions where the atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapor absorption bands overlap T'ν(CO2+H2O) =T'ν(CO2) T'ν(H2O) provided the total pressure P is constant. It is found that the total absorption IAνdv for a synthetic atmospheric sample containing water vapor, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen can be expressed as IAνdv =IAν(H2O)dν+εIAν(CO2)dv, where IAν(H2O)dν and IAν(CO2)dv are given by the empirical relations obtained in earlier studies in the present series and ε is a fraction, which can be expressed in terms of the total absorption by water vapor.
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