Activity: Talk or presentation › Talk or presentation at a conference
Description
Clouds in the sky exhibit a variety of forms and patterns. Their complexity not only puzzles the casual observer but also poses a significant challenge for climate science: clouds cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back to space, but it is uncertain how strong this cooling turns out under climate change. Cooling could increase as particulate air pollution makes clouds more reflective. This is strikingly illustrated by the bright tracks that ship exhaust can create in overlying clouds. We will discuss why such ship tracks do not tell the whole story of particulate-cloud-climate cooling.