Satellite Data Shows How Clouds Actually Worsen Global Heating

According to a new technique of analyzing satellite data of Earth's cloud cover, clouds are highly likely to exacerbate global warming.

They discovered that clouds will accelerate global warming by reflecting less solar energy and boosting the greenhouse effect, with a 97.5 percent likelihood. These findings also imply that doubling CO2 emissions will result in a 3.2°C increase in global warming. This study has the highest level of confidence of any study to date, and it is based on data from worldwide observations rather than data from specific locations or cloud kinds.

Stepping Up Climate Research

"Over the last few years, there's been a growing amount of evidence that clouds probably have an amplifying effect on global warming," said co-author Dr. Peer Nowack of the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences and Climatic Research Unit and Imperial College's Grantham Institute and Data Science Institute. However, utilizing just the highest quality satellite data as our preferred line of evidence, we estimated a worldwide number for this feedback effect for the first time.

"Our study takes a significant step toward reducing the most significant source of uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates. As a result, our research points to a new direction in which machine learning approaches might aid in constraining the significant remaining uncertainties in climate science," the team claimed.

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