Interpretation: Atmospheric Window and LWCRE
This equality, WIN(all) = LWCRE, if true, would serve with the explanation of the quasi-opacity of the whole clear-sky region. If the open atmospheric window in the all-sky is closed by the longwave effect of clouds, then the surface would experience an opaque sky above, since the energy being lost in the window is gained back by the greenhouse effect of clouds, mimicking the infrared-opaque model.
The pictograms below are intended to help to imagine and interpret these hardly imaginable circumstances.
There is a window (or STI, Surface Transmitted Irradiance, as Costa and Shine call it) ...
But there are clouds --- to close the window!
... and what you get is Eq. (4)
(All-sky) Surface SW + LW Absorbed = Emitted LW + Convection = 2OLR + LWCRE
(Original: Wild et al. 2015)
(The same as the opening slide of our first presentation at a CERES Science Team Meeting in 2017)
Further description is given in this presentation (pdf).
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