Sentences with phrase «cooling effect of clouds»

High values of global cloud cover is associated with low global temperatures, demonstrating the cooling effect of clouds.

The cooling effect of clouds during the daytime depends very much on solar inclination as well as cloud optical thickness and cover.

He added that certain processes, such as how clouds will respond to changes in the atmosphere and the warming or cooling effect of clouds, are uncertain and different modeling groups make different assumptions about how to represent these processes.

In terms of the cooling effect of clouds, the immediacy of feeling that effect is due to the blocked incoming radiation from the sun, just as it would be if you stepped beneath a large shade tree.

The model calculations, which are based on data from the CLOUD experiment, reveal that the cooling effects of clouds are 27 percent less than in climate simulations without this effect as a result of additional particles caused by human activity: Instead of a radiative effect of -0.82 W / m2 the outcome is only -0.60 W / m2.

They assume «positive feedbacks» from GHGs that trap heat, but understate the reflective and thus cooling effects of clouds.

The cooling effect of a cloud shadow is familar to everyone.

Not exact matches

Scientists can measure how much energy greenhouse gases now add (roughly three watts per square meter), but what eludes precise definition is how much other factors — the response of clouds to warming, the cooling role of aerosols, the heat and gas absorbed by oceans, human transformation of the landscape, even the natural variability of solar strength — diminish or strengthen that effect.

Besides SSCE, scientists have also been investigating stratospheric sulfur injections — firing sun - reflecting aerosols into the air, similar to the cooling effect after a volcanic eruption — and cirrus cloud thinning, where you thin the top level of clouds, which have a warming effect on the planet.

In a recent study, for instance, well - respected climate models were shown to have completely opposing estimates for the overall effect of the clouds and smoke in the southeast Atlantic: Some found net warming, whereas others found cooling.

At any given time, clouds cover about 70 percent of the Earth's surface and together produce a net cooling effect on the planet.

Scientists know that the clouds can act as a sunshield, cooling parts of the globe and offsetting the global warming caused by the greenhouse effect (see «Not warming, but cooling», New Scientist, 9 July 1994).

Some also argued that the effects of aerosols and pollutants, which block sunlight and facilitate cloud formation, would enhance this cooling trend.

And, Stevens says, the study doesn't discuss the types of clouds that are thought to be the most crucial for future warming: low - lying clouds over the subtropical oceans, which have a strong cooling effect but may be dissipating as the world warms.

As the area of this cloud cover grows, it reflects more of the shortwave radiation; but as the clouds get taller, their greenhouse effect becomes more significant, counteracting about half of their total cooling effect.»

Hurricanes also cool reefs with their broad cloud cover and the effect seems to be strongest to the left of a given storm's track for reasons that remain a mystery.

Anthony Watts, president of weather data company Intelliweather Inc. and winner of the American Meteorological Society's Seal of Approval (see note, below), shows that clouds have an extremely large cooling effect on the world.

[Response: Note also that more low clouds would unambiguously mean a cooling effect, but more high clouds could lead to either a warming effect or a cooling effect, depending on the altitude of the clouds and the typical particle size in the GCR - induced clouds (if any).

The net effect of human - generated aerosols is more complicated and regionally variable — for example, in contrast to the local warming effect of the Asian Brown Cloud, global shipping produces large amounts of cooling reflective sulphate aerosols: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990820022710.htm

The cloud of dust had a cooling effect, and when it broke down, the climate system bounced back as if the eruption hadn't even taken place.

By the way, low clouds in darkness increase surface temperature, sort of like the inverse property of commonly understood Cosmic ray effect, not causing a cooling because there are more CR's, but rather a warming, which only low clouds in total darkness can do, so the probable CR temperature signal gets cancelled from one latitude dark vs bright region to the next.

It is my understanding that the uncertainties regarding climate sensitivity to a nominal 2XCO2 forcing is primarily a function of the uncertainties in (1) future atmospheric aerosol concentrations; both sulfate - type (cooling) and black carbon - type (warming), (2) feedbacks associated with aerosol effects on the properties of clouds (e.g. will cloud droplets become more reflective?)

I'm not sure offhand of the importance of this, but more rapid cooling from more rapid ascent would reduce the distances over which molecules can diffuse during the time periods involved, which would tend to isolate the effects of the particles from each other, so that more haze particles could go on to become cloud droplets, resulting in smaller and more numerous cloud droplets.

The bottom line is that uncertainties in the physics of aerosol effects (warming from black carbon, cooling from sulphates and nitrates, indirect effects on clouds, indirect effects on snow and ice albedo) and in the historical distributions, are really large (as acknowledged above).

What is the best guess of the experts regarding the balance of the cooling versus warming effects of increasing clouds / water vapor?

There will be Regionally / locally and temporal variations; increased temperature and backradiation tend to reduce the diurnal temperature cycle on land, though regional variations in cloud feedbacks and water vapor could cause some regions to have the opposite effect; changes in surface moisture and humidity also changes the amount of convective cooling that can occur for the same temperature distribution.

«While low clouds have a predominantly cooling effect due to their shading of sunlight, most cirrus clouds have a net warming effect on the Earth,» Spencer said.

CLOUD's genesis is in the mid-1990s, when space physicist Hendrik Svensmark hypothesized that cosmic rays as mediated by solar effects, play a very large role on the physics of climate, and could explain the warming and cooling trends.

Stuart L I am a stupid layman, but wonder about the effects of water vapour (clouds) when I lived in the UK cloud conditions would cause the temps to be milder (warmer) here in Philippines cloud causes cooler conditions, how can one calculate the overall effect on the earths surface?.

Climate models that include these aerosol - cloud interactions fail to include a number of buffering responses, such as rainfall scavenging of the aerosols and compensating dynamical effects (which would reduce the magnitude of the aci cooling effect).

Increased numbers of aerosols provide additional locations for droplet nucleation and, all else being equal, result in clouds with more and smaller droplets hence being more reflective to solar radiation (a cooling effect).

For example, the CLOUD experiments could provide insights into the rate of tropical cloud formations which effect tropical cooling and the heat transfer from the tropics to the higher latitCLOUD experiments could provide insights into the rate of tropical cloud formations which effect tropical cooling and the heat transfer from the tropics to the higher latitcloud formations which effect tropical cooling and the heat transfer from the tropics to the higher latitudes.

The net effect of clouds is cooling as is demonstrated by largely cloudless deserts having higher mean annual temperatures than moist climates at the same latitude.

Thus, while the net radiative effect of clouds is that of warming (cooling) across the tropics during La Niña (El Nino) events, the magnitude is quite small and varies greatly from one event to another..»

This led to a nasty scene, when he said I was unable to see what was obvious, ever - accelerating cooling which would lead to a runaway «Neptune Effect» because of mechanisms of positive feedback (his best examples were clouds which collect over the winter solstice — the «in - law» effect — persisting through to mid-February — the «Cupid» effect — and combining forces to wreck the climate for the entire first half of the Effect» because of mechanisms of positive feedback (his best examples were clouds which collect over the winter solstice — the «in - law» effect — persisting through to mid-February — the «Cupid» effect — and combining forces to wreck the climate for the entire first half of the effect — persisting through to mid-February — the «Cupid» effect — and combining forces to wreck the climate for the entire first half of the effect — and combining forces to wreck the climate for the entire first half of the year.)

Clouds have both a cooling effect and a warming effect, depending on the type of cloud.

(While the data did suggest strong positive water vapor feedback, which enhances warming, that was far exceeded by the cooling effect of negative feedback from cloud changes.)»

More clouds both drastically reduce energy input from the sun and simply slow release of what energy there is trapped in the lower troposphere, but the long term effect would be a fall in average temperature because of the significantly reduced input power but the atmosphere's ability to cool is aided by air current circulation whereby the warmer air rises above those low clouds and that infra - red is more easily re-emitted into space, whereby the low clouds now block that re-emission from hitting the ground again to any significant degree.

Warmer winters (if they have lots of clouds... in winter thick clouds actually warm since there is less daylight and there cooling effect is now reversed to warming by retaining the heat... reflecting more IR than carbon dioxide can do, depending upon the type of cloud).

The ratio in which they cooperate on the final effect — relatively narrow range of survivable temperatures — is another question; it is for sure, that the most abundant IR active gas likes to create clouds, which effectively cool the surface, then it rains down and again effectively cools the surface and sometimes gets frozen to snow, which reflects sunlight and again effectively cools the surface.

Trees are not only carbon - sinks, but they also perform two other climate - affecting tasks: they absorb light into their dark leaves — causing a warming effect — and they pull water out of the ground and into the air, creating low clouds that promote cooling.

The reduction in nighttime cooling that leads to this bias may indeed be the result of human interference in the climate system (i.e., local effects of increasing greenhouse gases or human effects on cloud cover), but through a causal mechanism different than that typically assumed.

There can be interruptions when low cloud causes lower T, there can be nearby vegetation that casts a shadow on the screen sometimes, other vegetation effects like when mowed surrounding grass changes the effective height above ground of the thermometer, there can be a burst of rain that cools the surroundings — and so on into the night.

I see they mention the solar radiation effect and also the effect of evaporative cooling on the sensor after emergance from cloud.

To see the cooling power of this effect you only have to compare earth surface temperatures (in a desert region with no cloud) with moon surface temperatures in the first 6 hours after sunrise.

on the other hand, CO2 intercepts small amount of sunlight high up, where cooling is much more efficient — as a result small amount LESS of the sunlight comes to the ground = same as the H2O cloud effect - > brings day / night's temp closer = less extreme.

Clouds are in fact such a strong cooling force that is has been estimated by several sources (Theodor Landscheidt, 1998) that having clouds cover 1 % more of the Earth's surface would cancel the heating effect of a doubling of CO2.

As the CO2 and CH4 (methane) level goes up, H2O vapour in the atmosphere falls which — because H2O is 30 times more important than CO2 as a «greenhouse gas» offsets the effect of CO2 on temperature, while cloud cover and albedo increases because warmed moist air rises to form clouds, further cooling the world.

However — a group of scientists of the US Department of Energy Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the University of Maryland and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem now say that aerosol pollution does not necessarily lead to (low - lying) stratus clouds one would appreciate for climatic cooling, but that it can also be a factor in the creation of thunderstorm clouds, clouds that have a complicated climate effect, but that are suspected of being net warmers.

Low - level clouds cause a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight, so if these types of clouds become less prevalent, it can cause the surface to warm.