Climate change will make clouds disappear forever
If humans continue to release more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the clouds may disappear. The Earth will be hot, there will be no rain, and many disasters from climate change will come uncontrollably.
According to Nature Geoscience, clouds have long been one of the great uncertainties of the climate. Clouds are complex, small, and change rapidly. Current disaster prediction equipment easily captures the complexity and detail of most climate systems, but is not advanced enough to predict changes in clouds.
In meteorology, clouds are divided into several categories based on their shape and altitude. Stratocumulus clouds are large layers or rolls of cloud that are usually found below 2,000 meters. They are the “white blankets” you can see out of an airplane window.
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| Clouds cool by shading much of the Earth's surface from sunlight. |
These clouds cover 20% of low-latitude oceans and are especially common in subtropical regions. They cool the Earth by shielding much of its surface from sunlight.
Scientists have long suspected that some of the sudden temperature changes in the past may have been caused by changes in cloud cover.
To answer that doubt, meteorologists at the California Institute of Technology (USA) recently modeled a small patch of sky using a supercomputer. They discovered that if the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached about 1,200 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere, stratocumulus clouds would disappear. At present, the amount of CO2 has exceeded 410 ppm.
As industry grows, humans are adding more and more CO2 to the atmosphere. If this trend continues, the Earth could reach 1,200 ppm in 100 to 150 years. When the cloud layer disappears, the Earth’s average temperature will rise by at least another 8 degrees.
It's a worrying change and it won't just be melting ice or rising sea levels worldwide.
