Role in The Climate System
-
Global cloud cover, averaged over the month of October, 2009. The outlines of the continents can often be traced through observations of clouds alone, with the sharpest outlines where very dry land is surrounded by ocean. NASA composite satellite image; larger image available here.
-
Satellite image based largely on observations from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on July 11, 2005 of Earth's cloud cover.
Clouds play multiple critical roles in the climate system. In particular, being bright objects in the visible part of the solar spectrum, they efficiently reflect light to space and thus contribute to the cooling of the planet. A small increase in cloud cover could, in principle, balance the heating resulting from greenhouse gases (though this may have other implications as well).
See climate change for a more detailed discussion of these issues.
Read more about this topic: Cloud Cover
Famous quotes containing the words role in, role, climate and/or system:
“Certainly parents play a crucial role in the lives of individuals who are intellectually gifted or creatively talented. But this role is not one of active instruction, of teaching children skills,... rather, it is support and encouragement parents give children and the intellectual climate that they create in the home which seem to be the critical factors.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“This [new] period of parenting is an intense one. Never will we know such responsibility, such productive and hard work, such potential for isolation in the caretaking role and such intimacy and close involvement in the growth and development of another human being.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion and Dennie Palmer (20th century)
“Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It was obviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose.... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)