Rising temperatures are fueled, in part, by declining cloud cover — which could be a potential climate feedback loop.
Earth’s overall energy imbalance — the amount of heat the planet is taking in minus the amount of heat it is releasing — also continues to rise,
worrying scientists. The energy imbalance drives global warming. If it rises, scientists expect global temperatures to follow.
Two new studies offer a potential explanation: fewer clouds. And the decline in cloud cover, researchers say, could signal the start of a feedback loop that leads to more warming.
Researchers are beginning to pinpoint how clouds are changing as the world warms. In Goessling’s
study, published in December in the journal Science, researchers analyzed how clouds have changed over the past decade. They found that low-altitude cloud cover has fallen dramatically — which has also reduced the reflectivity of the planet. The year 2023 — which was 1.48 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average — had the lowest albedo since 1940.
In short, the Earth is getting darker.
Other scientists have also found declining cloud cover. In a
preprint study presented at a science conference in December, a group of researchers at NASA found that some of the Earth’s cloudiest zones have been shrinking over the past two decades. Three areas of clouds — one that stretches around the Earth’s equator, and one around the stormy midlatitude zones in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres — have narrowed since 2000, decreasing the reflectivity of the Earth and warming the planet.