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Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

science.org

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Re: Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

#41

Post by belinder »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #14
jmclnx wrote: post #9

Interesting, the area I live in is expected to get more rain as climate change gets worse. So I would think we would have more cloud cover. But the article is about "reflective clouds". As I look out my window, I see dark clouds right now as opposed to white fluffy clouds. Will need to note the colors as time goes on for my fully non-scientific surveys :)

Clouds are all the same color. The darkness we see is the shadows from other clouds.

No, darkness comes from density. The denser the cloud (the more water it contains), the less light can come through, thus it looks darker.

Re: Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

#42

Post by matthewdgreen »

shimmeringleaf wrote: post #34

Oh dear, that does not sound very promising. Seems like the simulation results mentioned in this article might not be so outlandish, and rather a relevant potential worst-case scenario projection: https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-loss-could-add-8-degree...

We are going to need geoengineering solutions to manage solar radiation, and we are going to need to deploy them relatively soon. I don’t know if this will undo the cloud effects, but there’s no more time for screwing around.

Re: Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

#43

Post by epohs »

jijijijij wrote: post #33
goodluckchuck wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clouds are all the same color. The darkness we see is the shadows from other clouds.

How come you sometimes see very dark, lonely clouds in blue skies?

Likely because they are tall and tilted in a direction facing the sun, so that the moisture blocks more of the light than it would if the sun was hitting it at a more oblique angle.

Re: Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

#45

Post by amazingamazing »

kacesensitive wrote: post #11

Earth gets over 170,000 terawatts of solar energy every day—10,000 times more than humanity uses. Losing just a fraction of our cloud cover means a massive, invisible throttle is coming off the climate system. If this trend holds, we’re not just warming—we’re stepping on the gas.

These types of comments are pointless. We are destroying the world. Ok. What’s the solution? All involve pain, but no one wants to talk about that. Tech isn’t going to solve it. For one, the kind of person on this site is contributing literally 10000x more to the issue than the worlds bottom, so we can start there.

People love tech solutions, because then they don’t have to stop consuming and live modestly.

Re: Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

#46

Post by [deleted] »

simpaticoder wrote: post #39
dbacar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

terawatt is not an energy unit.

I like the use of watts/day instead of joules here because we have some intuition about watts. Earth must dissapate 170 exawatts per day of sunshine, in addition to letting off some amount of heat from the molten core. (Life has evolved on the edge of a knife, at the narrow balance point between enormous energies that cancel out just so . I often think that at the beach, looking out across the ocean, marveling that t…

[deleted]

Re: Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

#47

Post by Rexxar »

jijijijij wrote: post #33
goodluckchuck wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clouds are all the same color. The darkness we see is the shadows from other clouds.

How come you sometimes see very dark, lonely clouds in blue skies?

Your relative position to the sun and the cloud.

Re: Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

#48

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #28
dbacar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

terawatt is not an energy unit.

R̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶e̶x̶t̶…̶ - A̶ ̶w̶a̶t̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶f̶i̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶1̶ ̶j̶o̶u̶l̶e̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ ̶ A̶ ̶w̶a̶t̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶1̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶e̶q̶u̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶1̶ ̶j̶o̶u̶l̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶n̶e̶r̶g̶y̶ - A̶ ̶T̶e̶r̶a̶w̶a̶t̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶a̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶n̶e̶r̶g̶y̶.̶ [edit: The earth receives 14.9 ZettaWatts of solar…

No they don't, you need to divide, not multiply just like you would with every other unit. 1l of rain every day is 1l/day, not 1l * day . Which means Watt per day is J/s^2

Re: Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

#50

Post by hollerith »

simpaticoder wrote: post #39
dbacar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

terawatt is not an energy unit.

I like the use of watts/day instead of joules here because we have some intuition about watts. Earth must dissapate 170 exawatts per day of sunshine, in addition to letting off some amount of heat from the molten core. (Life has evolved on the edge of a knife, at the narrow balance point between enormous energies that cancel out just so . I often think that at the beach, looking out across the ocean, marveling that t…

>watts/day instead of joules

You mean watt days (watts * days).

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