Earth Equity News

Global Warming Could be Exacerbated by Dissipation of Cloud Cover. By Bryan Walsh, Time, July 24, 2009. "One of the biggest questions in climate sensitivity has been the role of low-level cloud cover. Low-altitude clouds reflect some of the sun's radiation back into the atmosphere, cooling the earth. It's not yet known whether global warming will dissipate clouds, which would effectively speed up the process of climate change, or increase cloud cover, which would slow it down... But a new study published in the July 24 issue of Science is clearing the haze. A group of researchers from the University of Miami and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography studied cloud data of the northeast Pacific Ocean -- both from satellites and from the human eye -- over the past 50 years and combined that with climate models. They found that low-level clouds tend to dissipate as the ocean warms -- which means a warmer world could well have less cloud cover. 'That would create positive feedback, a reinforcing cycle that continues to warm the climate,' says Amy Clement, a climate scientist at the University of Miami and the lead author of the Science study."