All Climate Events

Thursday, May 23, 2019. 2:00PM. Cloud Feedbacks: What we knew then, what we’ve learned since, and what keeps us up at night. Mark Zelinka, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Sponsored by NOAA GFDL. More information here.

Predictions of global warming in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration vary widely across global climate models. Most of this range is attributable to model diversity in the strength of cloud feedbacks, the change in the planet’s energy budget due to clouds per degree of global warming. Models whose clouds become less effective at cooling as the planet warms tend to warm more in the future, and vice versa. In this talk, Zelinka will provide an overview of the dominant cloud feedbacks in the climate system. For each feedback, Zelinka will discuss the state of knowledge at the time of the 5th IPCC Assessment Report roughly 6 years ago. Zelinka will then discuss key areas of progress made since that time. Finally, Zelinka will highlight areas of active research at the frontiers of knowledge in this challenging field.