thanks for that link
Hi gb
I had forgotten that website - it's pretty cool.
As for the puzzle of atmospheric absorption - the stratosphere absorbs about 2%, the troposphere about 17%, and about 6% gets scattered. So the lower atmosphere - the bottom 8-17 km depending on latitude - does most of the absorbing. If you were above 50% of it, because it's an exponential function that's (0.75)^(1/2) = 0.866 that gets through or 1,150 watts if the ground gets 1000 watts.
But perception is a logarithmic thing - thus a 100-fold reduction isn't experienced as a 100 fold decrease in light levels. Besides the raw Sun is -26.65 magnitude, and a 100-fold reduction is still -21.65 magnitude. Bad news for eyes either way.