Cloud Feedbacks on Climate: A Challenging Scientific Problem
Abstract
One reason it has been difficult to develop suitable social and economic policies to address global climate change is that projected global warming during the coming century has a large uncertainty range. The primary physical cause of this large uncertainty range is lack of understanding of the magnitude and even sign of cloud feedbacks on the climate system. If Earth's cloudiness responded to global warming by reflecting more solar radiation back to space or allowing more terrestrial radiation to be emitted to space, this would mitigate the warming produced by increased anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Contrastingly, a cloud response that reduced solar reflection or terrestrial emission would exacerbate anthropogenic greenhouse warming. It is likely that a mixture of responses will occur depending on cloud type and meteorological regime, and at present, we do not know what the net effect will be. This presentation will explain why cloud feedbacks have been a challenging scientific problem from the perspective of theory, modeling, and observations. Recent research results on observed multidecadal cloud-atmosphere-ocean variability over the Pacific Ocean will also be shown, along with suggestions for future research.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- FNAL (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States))
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 987794
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359
- Resource Type:
- Multimedia
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Fermilab Colloquia, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batvia, Illinois (United States), presented on May 12, 2010
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; CLIMATE CHANGE; POLICY; WARMING
Citation Formats
Norris, Joe. Cloud Feedbacks on Climate: A Challenging Scientific Problem. United States: N. p., 2010.
Web.
Norris, Joe. Cloud Feedbacks on Climate: A Challenging Scientific Problem. United States.
Norris, Joe. Wed .
"Cloud Feedbacks on Climate: A Challenging Scientific Problem". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/987794.
@article{osti_987794,
title = {Cloud Feedbacks on Climate: A Challenging Scientific Problem},
author = {Norris, Joe},
abstractNote = {One reason it has been difficult to develop suitable social and economic policies to address global climate change is that projected global warming during the coming century has a large uncertainty range. The primary physical cause of this large uncertainty range is lack of understanding of the magnitude and even sign of cloud feedbacks on the climate system. If Earth's cloudiness responded to global warming by reflecting more solar radiation back to space or allowing more terrestrial radiation to be emitted to space, this would mitigate the warming produced by increased anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Contrastingly, a cloud response that reduced solar reflection or terrestrial emission would exacerbate anthropogenic greenhouse warming. It is likely that a mixture of responses will occur depending on cloud type and meteorological regime, and at present, we do not know what the net effect will be. This presentation will explain why cloud feedbacks have been a challenging scientific problem from the perspective of theory, modeling, and observations. Recent research results on observed multidecadal cloud-atmosphere-ocean variability over the Pacific Ocean will also be shown, along with suggestions for future research.},
doi = {},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed May 12 00:00:00 EDT 2010},
month = {Wed May 12 00:00:00 EDT 2010}
}