The behavior of the atmospheric downward longwave radiation at the surface under overcast conditions is studied. For optically thick clouds, longwave radiation depends greatly on the cloud base height (CBH), besides temperature and water vapor profiles. The CBH determines the cloud emission temperature and the air layers contributing to the longwave radiation that reaches the surface. Overcast situations observed at Girona (NE Iberian Peninsula) were studied by using a radiative transfer model. The data set includes different seasons, and a large range of CBH (0–5000 m). The atmosphere profiles were taken from the European Center for Medium‐Range Weather Forecast analysis. The CBH was determined from ceilometer measurements and also estimated by using a suitable method applied to the vertical profile of relative humidity. The agreement between calculations and pyrgeometer measurements is remarkably good (1.6 ± 6.2 W m⁻²) if the observed CBH is used; poorer results are obtained with the estimated CBH (4.3 ± 7.0 W m⁻²). These results are better than those obtained from a simple parameterization based upon ground‐level data (1.1 ± 11.6 W m⁻²), which can be corrected by adding a term that takes into account the CBH (−0.1 ± 7.3 W m⁻²). At this site, the cloud radiative effect (CRE) at the surface lies in the range 50–80 W m⁻², has a clear seasonal behavior (higher CRE in winter), and depends upon the CBH. For the cold and the warm seasons, CRE decreases with CBH at a rate of −5 and −4 W m⁻²/km, respectively. Results obtained for other climates (subarctic and tropical) are also presented.

The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF) Edition 4.1 data product provides global surface irradiances. Uncertainties in the global and regional monthly and annual mean all-sky net shortwave, longwave, and shortwave plus longwave (total) irradiances are estimated using ground-based observations. Error covariance is derived from surface irradiance sensitivity to surface, atmospheric, cloud and aerosol property perturbations. Uncertainties in global annual mean net shortwave, longwave, and total irradiances at the surface are, respectively, 5.7 Wm−2, 6.7 Wm−2, and 9.7 Wm−2. In addition, the uncertainty in surface downward irradiance monthly anomalies and their trends are estimated based on the difference derived from EBAF surface irradiances and observations. The uncertainty in the decadal trend suggests that when differences of decadal global mean downward shortwave and longwave irradiances are, respectively, greater than 0.45 Wm−2 and 0.52 Wm−2, the difference is larger than 1σ uncertainties. However, surface irradiance observation sites are located predominately over tropical oceans and the northern hemisphere mid-latitude. As a consequence, the effect of a discontinuity introduced by using multiple geostationary satellites in deriving cloud properties is likely to be excluded from these trend and decadal change uncertainty estimates. Nevertheless, the monthly anomaly timeseries of radiative cooling in the atmosphere (multiplied by −1) agrees reasonably well with the anomaly time series of diabatic heating derived from global mean precipitation and sensible heat flux with a correlation coefficient of 0.46.