Climate change and milenium developments
About climate change we have heard a lot of bad things that Could happen to the Earth if we dont take Fast measures, is what this article is about, Stephens, aprofessor at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, is principal investigator of NASA's CloudSat mission, launched in 2006 to improve our understanding of the role clouds play in our complicated climatesystem. But maybe you are asking to yourself, why clouds have an important role in climate change?
Stephens says that as Earth's global temperature continues to rise, water vapor -- the mostabundant greenhouse gas on Earth, which traps heat much as carbon dioxide does -- will continue to build, with uncertain results.
Stephens said. "We just don't know what this will mean for how clouds mightchange, and for Earth's temperature and climate. Although a small change of clouds--for example, more low clouds--in the right direction would mitigate the effects of increased carbon dioxide, a smallchange of clouds in a different direction--for example, more high clouds--would amplify the warming caused by increasing carbon dioxide."
Calculating the balance between the cooling or warmingeffect of clouds and the warming effect of greenhouse gases is a complex problem for researchers, given their current understanding of clouds on Earth.
And it's just one of many questions Stephens andfellow scientists are working to address with observations from CloudSat, an experimental satellite built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. (kold.com)
CloudSat Could be...
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