Radiance is the variable directly measured by remote sensing instruments. Basically, you can think of radiance as how much light the instrument "sees" from the object being observed. When looking through an atmosphere, some light scattered by the atmosphere will be seen by the instrument and included in the observed radiance of the target. An atmosphere will also absorb light, which will decrease the observed radiance. Radiance most often has units of watt/(steradian/square meter).