Sentences with phrase «ice albedo»
The phrase "ice albedo" refers to the ability of ice or snow to reflect sunlight. A high ice albedo means that most of the sunlight is reflected back into space, keeping the surroundings cooler. A low ice albedo means that more sunlight is absorbed, leading to melting and warming of the ice or snow. Full definition
However, once the sea - ice has melted the contribution from the sea - ice albedo feedback will go, changing the climate sensitivity to further forcing.
realclimate.org
The study also determined what factors had the greatest impact on the decline in sea ice albedo.
This is the result of polar amplification - warming at the tropics is less than warming at the poles due to various effects such as positive feedback from ice albedo changes.
The Amazon and other rainforests drying out The Siberian bogs (the size of germany, france and the UK combined) start to release methane in accelerating annual volumes Ice Albedo decreasing Ocean conveyor (thermohaline systems to some) weakening due to freshening of the seas
The vertical dashed lines marked «Left» and «Right» indicate the left and right boundaries of the hysteresis loop for the case with ice albedo equal to 55 %.
Typical temperature reconstructions for the late Pliocene however [see one at the top of this story - 3.3 - 3.0 Ma] already show an Earth in which a warmer climatic state is indeed [through for instance ice albedo feedbacks] relatively strong around the poles, and (on average) weaker around the equator, exactly the pattern that is monitored under the current climate warming.
The author claims the climate models are building up the affects of the processes like ice albedo from its pieces, ie rather than abstracting in to the gain formula, the models are adding up all the individual pieces, on a grid, over time.
We have more confidence in our present - day (interglacial) result since it is based on fits to direct observations rather than on more uncertain paleoreconstructions, and we find it unlikely that glacial sensitivities were much lower than 2.5 K, given ice albedo feedbacks (47, 48).
There are very short - term trends (e.g. the ENSO) having a short up - or - down effect on the global surface temperature, but which (when you think it through) are incapable of altering the long - term climate trends produced by real drivers of climate change (e.g. long - term solar activity changes / Milankovitch - cycle insolation / Northern Hemisphere ice albedo changes / continental drift positional effects / and of course Greenhouse gas alterations).
The current (and previous) warm periods have a far smaller sensitivity to increasing forcings (even if you accept one sensitivity for all types of forcing), but may include the huge ice albedo feedback, if forcings go down.
In order for the planet's climate to stabilise, if it loses ice albedo, then it will warm until there is an increase in albedo due to the formation of new clouds.
But the polar regions can trigger ice albedo feedbacks, amplifying their importance.