2023 Marks the Hottest Year Recorded in Human History. The alarming rates of ice melting and rising sea temperatures have compelled scientists to struggle to understand the underlying causes of global warming.
Long-established factors such as fossil fuel combustion and extreme weather phenomena like El Niño still do not fully explain the planet’s rapid warming.
However, in a publication in the journal Science on December 5, a missing piece of this puzzle has been identified. A team of scientists pointed out that dark-colored, low-lying clouds over the ocean may have contributed to accelerating global warming.
Low and dark-colored clouds are believed to be one of the key factors affecting the rapid global warming. (Photo: Reuters).
According to Helge Goessling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, the decreasing frequency of bright clouds means that the Earth absorbs more sunlight.
This phenomenon is referred to as “albedo,” which describes the ability of surfaces to reflect solar heat back into space.
According to CNN, the Earth’s albedo has significantly decreased since the 1970s, partly due to the melting of bright sea ice, which exposes darker land and water, thereby absorbing more sunlight and warming the Earth’s surface.
Low clouds are also believed to impact the reflection of sunlight. By analyzing data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), scientists found that the decline in low cloud frequency was linked to a reduction in the Earth’s albedo in 2023, contributing to record heat levels.
Some regions, such as the North Atlantic, have experienced significant reductions in albedo, according to the research team.
Nevertheless, scientists have yet to determine the exact cause of this condition.
“The relationship between low clouds and dark clouds with global warming is indeed a complex puzzle,” Goessling stated.
Mark Zalinka, an atmospheric scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, compared these clouds to the “sunscreen layer of the Earth.” He also told CNN that even small changes in cloud formations could “cause significant alterations to the Earth’s albedo.”
