大气的光学性质决定了大气辐射平衡；各种先进光电技术的应用场景绝大部分都位于地球大气层内或通过大气路径，相关光电系统的功能受到大气光学特性不同程度的影响。大气光学特性(包括地表的光学特性和天空背景辐射特性)是光波在大气中传播和大气辐射传输研究必需的基础物理性质，在气象、气候和天文观测等基础和应用研究以及自适应光学技术、自由空间光通讯等光电工程应用中具有十分重要的作用。中国的自然环境十分复杂，相应的大气光学特性不能简单的套用国际上其它地区的模式。应进行中国大气光学特性的区域划分，在各个典型地区进行大气光学特性的系统测量和数据分析，对有关大量气象和大气光学特性观测资料进行分析研究，获得各典型地区大气光学特性的统计特征，建立可用于辐射大气传输、光波大气传播研究、光电系统分析与设计等的我国各个典型地区的大气光学特性的统计平均模式，研制光辐射大气传输及其光电应用软件包。

Optical properties of the atmosphere have important effects on the atmospheric radiation balance and on the functions of various advanced opto-electric instruments working in the atmospheric environments.Optical properties of the atmosphere including sky background radiation and surface reflectance are basic physical quantities for atmospheric radiative transfer, light propagation research, and can also find important application in remote sensing, adaptive optics, free-space optical communication, etc. The atmospheric environments of China are very complicated and popular models like US standard atmosphere can not be applied simply. We suggest to divide the whole territory into several typical regions according to the environment, the surface, the solar irradiance, and the climate condition. Systematic and long-term measurements on the optical properties of the atmosphere should be performed, and application models should be built on the statistical characteristics. Algorithm codes and softwares should be built in consideration of the atmospheric models.