Solar Radiation Management, Cloud Albedo Enhancement

Cloud albedo enhancement is one of several possible methods of solar radiation management by which the rate of increase in world temperatures could be reduced or even reversed. It depends on a well-known phenomenon in atmospheric physics known as the Twomey effect. Twomey argued that the reflectivity of clouds is a function of the size distribution of the drops in the cloud top. In clean mid-ocean air masses, there is a shortage of the condensation nuclei necessary for initial drop formation in addition to high relative humidity. This means that the liquid water in a cloud has to be in relatively large drops. If extra nuclei could be artificially introduced, the same amount of liquid water would be shared among a larger number of smaller drops which would have a larger surface area to reflect a larger fraction of the incoming solar energy back out to space.