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The overall impact of clouds on global climate depends on factors such as cloud type, altitude, thickness, and the amount of water or ice they contain. Thin, high-altitude cirrus clouds tend to have a net warming effect, since they allow incoming solar radiation to pass through while trapping heat radiating from the Earth's surface.
Examples of some effects of global warming that can amplify (positive feedbacks) or reduce (negative feedbacks) global warming [26] Climate models have represented clouds and cloud processes for a very long time. Cloud feedback was already a standard feature in climate models designed in the 1980s.
This could be a potential tool to reduce global warming. [2] Cirrus cloud thinning is an alternative category of climate engineering, in addition to solar radiation management. In 2021 the IPCC described CCT as a proposal "to reduce the amount of cirrus clouds by injecting ice nucleating substances in the upper troposphere." However it reported ...
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Scientists subsequently tested the hypothesis. Some concluded that there was no evidence supporting the hypothesis. [3] Others found evidence suggesting that increased sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropics did indeed reduce cirrus clouds but found that the effect was nonetheless a positive climate feedback rather than the negative feedback that Lindzen had hypothesized.
In the 1980s, the terms global warming and climate change became more common, often being used interchangeably. [29] [30] [31] Scientifically, global warming refers only to increased surface warming, while climate change describes both global warming and its effects on Earth's climate system, such as precipitation changes. [28]
Collectively, feedbacks tend to amplify global warming or cooling. [31]: 94 Clouds are responsible for about half of Earth's albedo and are powerful expressions of internal variability of the climate system. [32] [33] They may also act as feedbacks to forcings, and could be forcings themselves if for example a result of cloud seeding activity.
Solar radiation modification (SRM) (or solar radiation management or sunlight reflection methods [1] or solar geoengineering), is a group of large-scale approaches to limit global warming by increasing the amount of sunlight (solar radiation) that is reflected away from Earth and back to space.