People may soon forget what clouds are. The fact is that as the planet warms, the map of the Earth's coverage with clouds changes. Scientists from the University of California (San Diego) wrote about this in their article, after studying satellite data on the structure of clouds collected over two decades.
Starting in the 80s of the last century, clouds gradually began to move towards the poles. Moreover, they rise higher in the atmosphere.
The authors of the study remind that clouds are an important regulator of the Earth's climate. The fact is that clouds prevent our planet from heating up unnecessarily, reflecting solar radiation back into space, and also protect from the cold, preventing heat from leaving the Earth's surface.
At the same time, the study of clouds is not such a simple process, which practically defies scientific analysis.
That is why scientists are still at a loss to answer the question of how global warming can affect clouds and vice versa. Even modern satellites cannot always help scientists study long-term trends in the planet's cloud layer.