Climate Change
There are many ways to look at it. If you go with a micro view, there are millions of feedbacks. If you look at it from a macro view, there is the climate system.
How these feedbacks are feeding back is the bleeding edge of climate change.
One of the simplest of feedbacks, the Albedo effect, isn’t so simple. How much ice there is to reflect the energy is simple physics. But, how the clouds form over the tropics because of the Albedo effect is part of this bleeding edge. We don’t know if there are going to be more clouds over the tropics or viewer. The lower clouds are the ones of concern. If they disappear, then ocean heating will be accelerated.
In the big picture, clouds around the world are the biggest unknown. It is probable we will reach and level off around +4C over a couple centuries. Likely 2-3C this century and +4 the next.
But this is still unknown.
Clouds can reflect or absorb heat. It’s going to take a while until we know which is going to prevail. And, that is just one piece of the puzzle. Everything is so nonlinear it’s difficult. But, it’s clear what we have to do — reduce CO2.
Short term: the rain is getting so violent. It may get hotter over the next 50 years? More importantly what’s the rain going to do to YOU over the next 5 years?