What Factors Influence Cloud-driven Cooling and Heating of Earth?
Abstract
As the planet warms, it becomes more urgent to understand the mechanisms that drive the Earth's temperature. The Earth regulates its temperature by reflecting and emitting heat back into space. Clouds can cool the Earth by blocking the sun's heat or warm the earth by blocking heat from escaping to space. While clouds are known to impact the climate, there is still a need to understand historic and future cloud changes and how different cloud types and properties affect Earth's warming or cooling. Cloud types are determined by the thickness of the cloud and how high the cloud forms in the atmosphere. This study investigates how much each cloud type warms or cools Earth, here measured by the cloud radiative effect (CRE) of each cloud type. Using satellite datasets that report the incoming and outgoing heat energy by cloud type, the connection between CRE, cloud cover and cloud type, and how pollutants affect this relationship is explored. While all clouds reflect sunlight and block heat energy, they do so in unequal amounts. Stratocumulus clouds have a large net cooling effect, Cumulonimbus have a smaller net cooling effect, and Cirrus clouds contribute a net warming effect. To understand the net effect of cloud-driven climate change, future work must also consider the relative abundance of cloud types and pollutants.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2022
- Bibcode:
- 2022AGUFM.A55Q1343I