yes, climate change is a recurring theme on this planet.
that doesn't take away the fact HUMANITY and IT'S LEADERS ESPECIALLY are DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the current climate change, that this climate change will be catastrophic to ALL LIFE on Earth,
etc.
jeez.
You'll need to feed that line of crapola to someone else. If you are worried about losing some beachfront property simply sell it or don't buy it in the first place.
crapola?
beach front properties?
dude i'm worried about not being able to drink tap water, or heat waves that could end up killing in the tens of thousands upwards,
all arising from Trump's so called harmless environmental policy "restructuring" (gutting).
Let's step back now and analyze what happens when temperatures increase. More water evaporates forming more clouds. The clouds reflect the sun's heat back into space and the temperatures cool. The clouds drop rain and snow which further cools the earth.
The balance is restored.
ISCCP: Cloud Climatology
CLOUD CLIMATOLOGY: NET EFFECT ON ENERGY AND WATER BALANCES
At the heart of the difficulty of understanding how clouds affect climatic change is that clouds both cool and heat the planet, even as their own properties are determined by the cooling and heating (current link). The cooling effect is literally visible: the minute water or ice particles in clouds reflect between 30 and 60 percent of the sunlight that strikes them, giving them their bright, white appearance. (Deep bodies of water, such as lakes and oceans, absorb more sunlight than they scatter and so appear very dark. If all of the cloud water in the atmosphere were placed on the surface, the layer depth would only be 0.05 mm on average. If all the water vapor in the atmosphere were reduced to a liquid water layer on the surface, the depth would be about 2 cm on average.) A cloudless Earth would absorb nearly 20 percent more heat from the sun than the present Earth does. To be in radiation balance Earth would have to be warmer by about 12°C (22°F). Thus, clouds can cool the surface by reflecting sunlight back into space, much as they chill a summer's day at the beach.
The cooling effect of clouds is partly offset, however, by a blanketing effect: cooler clouds reduce the amount of heat that radiates into space by absorbing the heat radiating from the surface and re-radiating some of it back down. The process traps heat like a blanket and slows the rate at which the surface can cool by radiation. The blanketing effect warms Earth's surface by some 7°C (13°F). Thus, clouds can heat the surface by inhibiting radiative heat loss, much as they warm a winter's night.
The net effect of clouds on the climate today is to cool the surface by about 5°C (9°F). One can calculate that a higher surface temperature would result from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the consequent slowing of heat radiation from the surface, provided nothing else changes. But what happens to the radiation balance if, as part of the climatic response, the clouds themselves change?
If the radiative cooling effect of clouds increases more than the heating effect does, the clouds would reduce the magnitude of the eventual warming. The same result could come about if both effects decrease, but the cooling decreases less than the heating does. On the other hand, if the cooling increases less (or decreases more) than the heating, the cloud changes would boost the magnitude of eventual warming. It is also possible for the two effects to go in opposite directions, which would give rise to outcomes similar to the ones already mentioned, but much stronger. In any event, what matters is the difference between the cooling and the heating effects of clouds. For a more detailed and technical discussion, see
- Rossow, W.B., and A.A. Lacis, 1990: Global, seasonal cloud variations from satellite radiance measurements. Part II: Cloud properties and radiative effects. J. Climate, 3, 1204-1253.
- Rossow, W.B., and Y.-C. Zhang, 1995: Calculation of surface and top of atmosp here radiative fluxes from physical quantities based on ISCCP datasets, 2. Validation and first results. J. Geophys. Res., 100, 1167-1197.
and the references therein.
Clouds are also part of another important internal heat exchange process involving water phase changes. Most of Earth's "free" water is in the oceans (even more water is contained in the rocky crust of Earth), equivalent to a layer covering the whole surface about 2.5 km deep. Another 50 m of water is currently stored in the major ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. The atmosphere only contains about 2.5 cm of water and clouds contain only 0.05 mm. When water evaporates from the ocean and land surface, it cools the surface because it takes energy to change liquid/solid water into vapor. The atmospheric circulation transports water vapor from place to place. When the atmospheric motions include upward motions, the air cools and clouds form by condensing water vapor back to liquid/solid form. If the clouds produce no precipitation, then the energy released by the condensation of the cloud water is recaptured by the water vapor when the cloud water evaporates. However, if the clouds produce rain/snow, the energy released by the condensation heats the atmosphere. Because of the atmospheric transport of water vapor, the precipitation does not locally balance the evaporation, so the water vapor transport is equivalent to energy transport. The average evaporation and precipitation rates mean that all the water in the atmosphere is exchanged about once every 10 days. There is also a net transport of about 10% of the total water vapor evaporated from the oceans to the land, most of which is then returned to the oceans by rivers. Thus, the water cycle links the two parts of the radiation balance: the surface is heated by sunlight and cooled by water evaporation, but the atmosphere is heated by precipitation and cooled by terrestrial radiation to space. This water cycle is even more important to us because the small amount of water that is contained lakes and rivers or retained in underground water is our only supply of fresh water for drinking, agriculture and many other industrial and recreational uses.
CLOUD CLIMATOLOGY: GREENHOUSE EFFECT AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Within the next half-century or so an accumulation of airborne pollutants -- notably carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxides (NOx), and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — will very likely cause noticeable changes in climate ( noticeable changes may have already occurred but there is debate about that). Because these so-called greenhouse gases retard the flow of heat radiation from the surface into space, the whole Earth will warm . This is called the greenhouse effect . This warming is partly reduced by other pollutants that form tiny aerosol particles which reflect some sunlight back to space. The global warming will in turn lead to a variety of other changes throughout Earth's climate system: changes in heat and water transport, wind and ocean currents, precipitation patterns and clouds. Given such a profound potential for an adjustment of the basic climatic elements and the possible consequences for human society, an improved understanding of the radiation and water balance and their dependence on cloud processes is one of several crucial goals of current research.
The threat of climatic change is not primarily in the change itself but in its rapidity. The geological record is replete with climatic changes similar in magnitude to the one now contemplated, but past changes were slow enough to allow most species to adapt. What is unprecedented about the current greenhouse warming is that significant change could come to pass in only a few generations, creating human and economic dislocations. For example, since most people live fairly near oceans, a rapid
rise in sea level caused by the melting of glaciers could force most people to move inland. If
severe storms, such as
hurricanes, became more frequent, they would interfere with airborne and waterbourne transportation of goods from market to consumer. A change in the
average temperature and its seasonal variations could alter patterns of energy use and demand. A
change in rainfall or snowfall could change our
water supply and may alter the success of
agriculture . The possible political and economic consequences of such disruptions are suggested by the global concern over maintaining an uninterrupted oil supply from the Middle East or avoiding catastrophic floods and droughts that have affected food supply recently in parts of Africa and Asia.
Yet in spite of the need to forecast climatic changes accurately, current understanding of how the climate works is not detailed enough for climatologists to predict exactly when, where, or to what extent changes will take place, only to say that there will be a certain amount of warming and that other things will likely change. The global climate is such a complex system that no one knows how even a small increase in temperature will alter other aspects of climate or how such alterations will influence the rate of warming. Moreover, changes in any of these climatic features may also affect the
distribution and properties of clouds, but the understanding of clouds is so rudimentary that no one knows whether
climate feedbacks involving clouds will dampen or amplify a warming trend. The possibility that clouds might accelerate global warming brings a special urgency to the ancient problem of understanding the climatic importance of clouds.
Effects of Global Warming
{more at link}
