CLEAR SKIES AHEAD?: Researchers still aren't sure what role clouds will play in climate change, but a news study suggests that with warmth will come more sunshine...and more warmth.
Image: NASA
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Clouds aren't as easy to track deep into the past as carbon dioxide. But like CO2, clouds can play an important role in climate change: Either they can trap heat in the atmosphere, magnifying to the greenhouse effect, or they can reflect sunlight back into space, cooling the planet.
So will clouds contribute to climate change or help mitigate it? "Right now, we don't know what that relationship is," says NASA atmospheric scientist Anthony Del Genio, who works at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
But a new study, published today in Science, takes another step forward in trying to piece together this complicated dynamic, which will be crucial to understand for accurate pictures of what Earth will be like decades and centuries from now.
When it comes to predicting climate change, not all clouds are created equal, notes lead study author Amy Clement of the Rosentiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami. Higher-level clouds, such as thunderheads, have a greenhouse effect (producing moisture and reemitting radiation back onto the surface), she explains, whereas low-level clouds act more like an umbrella, sheltering Earth from the sun's warming rays.
Clement and her team examined low-level stratiform clouds over the northeastern Pacific Ocean. By comparing independent sets of observational data gathered by sailors and satellites during the past 50 years, they hoped to see how the cloud cover reports matched up with temperature and wind circulation—and with one another. To their surprise, the space and sea observations were uncannily similar, which helped add credence to these data sources, which many had criticized as unreliable.
They found one climate model (from the U.K.'s Hadley Center for Climate Change) that complemented their data especially well. It showed that warming surface temperatures and decreasing air circulation—trends which are both predicted to continue in a changing climate—meant fewer low-level clouds. And that meant even warmer surface temperatures.
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18 Comments
Add CommentOne would think that this issue would be well understood if, as they say, the science on climate change is "settled".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSoccerdad:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is about questioning everything. Nothing is ever settled, you may even question the most respected theories, though during your education you must answer questions based on the current accepted idea.
Though I am not a physicist I have always loved particle physics. When I read of the 4 fundamental forces, in my mind I always believed gravity was the result of the strong and weak force, it seemed logical to me. The recent NASA experiments using the most precise gyro meters ever made proves to me without a doubt I was wrong. But I did have the right to my thoughts. Cant imagine how Einstein came up with the concept that gravity bends space time but now accept that he was right.
Nothing is ever settled in science. Though based on the evidence, it looks like we are heading straight for extinction.
Don't worry life will return to our little planet in less than a million years better and stronger that what was lost, its been that way every time before and our planet has about a billion years to go.
Carbon shmarbon, what about the role of water vapor itself on global temperature? Oh yeah, you can't scare people away from thier Independence, with water vapor, and most peoples lives and livelyhood don't depend on producing water vapor as a by-product of their very survival.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's what this whole Al Gore "Global Warming" Shakedown is about!
It's nice to see someone collecting observations on a part of the hydrologic cycle, cloud formation and cloud cover, in a study of climate. Now for a little ordinal analysis between CO2 and water aerosols (H2Oa). An average of 10,000 ppm of H2O vapor (H2Ov) are cycled every week to hydrated aerosols (H2Oa - water coated particles and solute micro-droplets) by Condensation Vapor Pressure (CVP) of water and Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) which appear as clouds in the earth's atmosphere vs. 400 ppm CO2 cycled every 3.5 years. Which is greater 1 CO2 or 4550 H2O?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreenhouse effect is not un-like coriolis effect, both can be observed but nether is an actual physical force. They are the observable artifact of other forces. Gravity and kinetic rotation create the coriolis effect. Very complex electromagnetic radiation (EMR), thermal dynamic transport, and geophysics create the greenhouse effect. H2Ov, H2Oa, and surface water provide most of the thermal dynamic transport and have the widest range and strongest influence on EMR on planet Earth. A look at the 1 to 4550 ordinal ratio in the atmosphere plus the chemistry and water is the big physical force of climate with its controls Evaporation, CVP & CCN.
OK, now the question is "What controls cloud formation?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould it be the interaction between the Sun's magnetosphere and cosmic rays? or is it the Pacific Decadal Oscillation?
Either way CO2, jump in the backseat..."Shotgun!" has been called by something else.
Cloud formation is controlled by Condensation Vapor Pressure (CVP) of water vapor in reaction with Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscientific earthling,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI couldn't agree more that science is about questioning everything. Then why is it not OK to question global warming?
And what evidence suggests to you that we are heading straight for extinction? My reading of the evidence says that our population is continuing to grow. Hardly evidence of a species in decline.
Could Climate Change Mean Fewer Clouds?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO yes, in the way, which is illustrated on the above picture - the number of clouds above sea will increase, the number of clouds above land decrease just because increases level of vertical circulation over horizontal one.
Soccerdad:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou most definitely have the right to question global warming. Present some evidence to prove that the climate is not heating up. I am sure you studied about latent heat, both of melting and vaporisation and they cause no change in temperature. Further remember these processes require hundreds of calories of energy more than heating an equivalent amount of water by 1 Celsius.
Population numbers head straight up, before they drop dramatically, you can study this on a Petri dish with an agar-agar culture medium. You will develop colonies of bacteria which will keep growing rapidly for generations, then suddenly in less than a few generations they will almost completely die out. (the stock market graph also bears this out) In mathematics every J curve must become an S curve.
The theories that predict man can increase his numbers and science will always come to his aid are based on the concept of infinite resources. In my opinion infinity as a mathematical number does not exist. Any theory based on infinity is suspect, if you accept this then take all your economic theory and put it into the garbage bin. Economic theory is based on infinite markets, infinite resources and infinite money.
"A new study takes aim at the mysterious relationship between clouds and climate"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously, Common. And People wonder why some don't believe in Global Warming.
If "clouds" are mysterious, how in the hell can they actually say that Such n' such is the cause of global warming. Perhaps Clouds are the cause of global warming, Should we eradicate precipitation?
Random global warming supporting scientist "We completely understand that CO2 emissions cause Global warming. But those poofy white things in the sky are Mysterious. " Ha ha ha.
scientific earthling,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am quite familiar with latent heat. However, the heat capacity of air is quite low, and therefore the air will should be a very sensitive indicator of any warming that is occurring.
Our numbers have been rapidly growing for countless generations. We are able to sustain this growth through harnessing energy and converting it to food where and when we need it. We are also able to harness energy to treat our waste to avoid a build-up of these wastes. I will agree that there is a limit. However, population is not going to collapse when that limit is reached.
And, on the contrary, economic theory is built upon the idea of finite supply. When supply lags, prices go up and substitutes are developed. It's the same with energy. Governments on the other hand conceive of a world with infinite supply - infinite supply of taxpayer's money to throw around and distort this balance of supply and demand.
Read the article twice to make sure I did not miss the points in it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo wonder NASA can't get their weather guesses right. They can't even get their cloud facts straight. I would suggest they read the site;http://wattsupwiththat.com and learn from real weather guessing experts.
At the dawn of the "space age" in the late 1950's it was clear to me that "rocket science" would never yield true space travel and I abandoned that field of study. NASA rocket scientists studying weather / climate sounds like oxy-morons to me. And these people think that they can model real climate change and it's causes.
In computer programing we call that garbage in, garbage out.
Soccerdad,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe specific heat of air is low ie: little heat large temperature increase. For temperature to increase first ice must melt, and the latent heat of melting is 80 calories per gram with no change in temperature, think how much ice is melting, what will happen when the dampening effect of melting is reduced?
Population is the main driver of energy demand. It is now unsustainable. Only time will tell what the end result will be, and neither of us will be around to know. I for one will not want to be living in a high density population. High population densities change our ethics, we become less tolerant and very aggressive. Based on mathematical models I am certain populations will collapse when they reach a critical value. The book "Exploring New Ethics for Survival: The Voyage of the Spaceship Beagle" by Garrett Hardin takes your point of view, humans live like worms and need constant contact with one another to feel safe. I would hate to be part of that society.
Economic theory is based on infinite resources, infinite markets and infinite money. As far as I am concerned infinity does not exist, it should be removed from mathematics. Economic theory is therefore not science but art as far as I am concerned.
The basic concept of the most abundant form of money being debt, demands infinite supply of money and permanent expansion of economies. Private citizens not responsible to anyone are in charge of issuing money. They do it with the certain knowledge that when things go wrong the taxpayer must bail them out, and they can never be punished.
The total debt and interest owing on it is less than the total of both fiat and debt money available in the world.
As I've mentioned all over this site, the first responses to climate change articles are usually written by paid climate change skeptics. They're hired by oil companies and other lobbyists. Their sole task is to make up monikers like 'soccerdad', to make it sound like they're an Average Joe. Then they write little 'seeds of doubt' on blogs such as this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAverage Joes are not climate scientists. Average Joes are overmedicated, alcoholic and drive Hummers. It is not possible to trust an Average Joe when they throw out red herrings like 'this issue is supposed to be settled once and for all', etc.
Soccerdad doesn't fool me.
I am wondering the 'scales' in this investigation. Physically, the clouds movement is turbulent. A turbulent flow, such as the atmospheric boundary layer developed on the earth surface, has a huge of eddies with scales ranging from microns to kilomters, so is the clouds movements. Modeling such a highly turbulent flow must be a touch challenge definitely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLeaderofsheep:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGovernment outspends industry by a massive, unbelievable amount. Only the government can afford this type of waste; $79 billion and counting.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/23/massive-climate-funding-exposed/
Exxon-Mobil's pockets are not even remotely deep enough to even think about this type of lunacy. Only your freindly neighborhood government can take you there.
Leaderofnothing,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for your valuable contribution to the discussion. I do take exception to the Hummer part - actually I drive a GMC Yukon XL (the really big one).
Now, let's see ...... I need to sow some "seeds of doubt" so I can get my paycheck from Exxon Mobil this week ......
Oh, yeah - global warming is a bunch of BS.
Wow, I have the best job in the world.
It seems a worthwhile area to investigate but I take offense at the title of this article which is clearly geared towards 'alarmist'. The biggest detractor to global warming has been grandeous statements before the facts have been properly gathered and/or explored. I don't like belief driven science (on either side, of this debate). I also wonder when The Skeptic is going to stop bludgeoning us with Darwin examples (all of which are great, but enough is enough) and move onto global warming.
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