Recent studies suggest that either clouds or water vapor in clear air
absorb significantly more solar radiation (roughly 25 W m(-2) averaged
globally) than previously thought. It is interesting, in this connect
ion, that solar diurnal surface pressure tides, which are forced prima
rily by insolation absorbed in the troposphere, are significantly unde
restimated in current calculations. In this paper it is shown that inc
reased absorption of the above magnitude results in sizable increases
in the migrating diurnal surface pressure tide computed from classical
tidal theory. Depending on how this extra forcing is distributed in t
he troposphere, the annually averaged peak tide increases by 150 to 25
0 mu b when the anomalous absorption is considered, resulting in much
better agreement with observations.