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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.
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.
If climate change causes low-level cloud cover to become more widespread, then these clouds will increase planetary albedo and contribute to cooling, making the overall cloud feedback negative (one that slows down the warming). But if clouds become higher and thinner due to climate change, then the net cloud feedback will be positive and ...
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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]
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 ...
Thick clouds reflect a large amount of incoming solar radiation, translating to a high albedo. Thin clouds tend to transmit more solar radiation and, therefore, have a low albedo. Changes in cloud albedo caused by variations in cloud properties have a significant effect on global climate, having the ability to spiral into feedback loops. [3]
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.