The title might have shocked you a bit; what can we do anyway, if clouds’ shapes are changing?… When we know that the shift in clouds’ shapes is due to global warming, we can then think of ways to end the cause to the problem. This is very important, especially that clouds help regulate Earth’s temperature, and are a key component of the climate system.
The Guardian reported that “the reaction of clouds to a warming atmosphere has been one of the major sources of uncertainty in estimating exactly how much the world will heat up from the accumulation of greenhouse gases, as some changes would enhance warming, while others would counteract it”.
It mentioned that a study, published in the journal Nature, overcomes problems with the satellite record and shows that observations support projections from climate models. But the work is only a first step in understanding the relationship between climate change and clouds, with many uncertainties still to untangle.
Joel Norris of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and his colleagues had previously figured out a way to remove those artifacts in the satellite data to reveal actual trends since the early 1980s. They focused on looking for those patterns that showed up in different climate models and that our physical understanding of the atmosphere supports.
To investigate whether these changes in cloud patterns could be chalked up to the natural variation of the climate system, Norris and his team compared climate models that included external influences like rising greenhouse gases and volcanic eruptions with those that did not. The former showed the same trends as the observations, while the latter didn’t.
“The pattern of cloud change we see is the pattern associated with global warming,” Norris said, adding that he plans to tackle this question in future work, as well estimating exactly how much clouds have changed.
Bjorn Stevens, of the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, and lead author of the chapter on clouds and aerosols in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, said that “the study also doesn’t deal with some of the cloud changes that are expected to be most important, namely those to low clouds in the subtropics”.
So, how can we stop global warming?… Here are some ways:
Plant Trees
Reduce Waste
- Bring reusable bags and containers when shopping, traveling, or packing lunches or leftovers.
- Choose products that are returnable, reusable, or refillable over single-use items.
- Avoid individually wrapped items, snack packs, and single-serve containers.
Conserve Water
- Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth.
- Turn off the tap while washing your hands.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
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