Solar (or visible)

    Water vapor amount (Lab 6)
    Surface characteristics (desert, water, snow/ice)
    Ozone amount (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer, TOMS)
    Aerosols (Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement, SAM II)
 
Infrared

    Atmospheric temperature structure (15-um CO2 band)
    Water vapor structure
    Cloud amount and properties
 
 

All these quantities come from various instruments aboard satellites.