A new calculation on climate change has warned of a greater increase in temperature than expected in less than 100 years. The key to this new research recently published in the journal Nature lies in the role of clouds in global warming.
For decades the impact of increased atmospheric CO2 on global warming has been studied. However, there are still many unknowns and many factors to analyze. Until now, the climate sensitivity estimated by the different climate models ranged between 1.5ºC and 5ºC in the event of doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, “which prevents accurate projections of the future climate,” the researchers explain.
In the words of Steven Sherwood of the Climate Center of Excellence at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and lead author of the study, “Previously, estimates of global temperature sensitivity to a doubling of carbon dioxide ranged between 1.5 ° C and 5 ° C. ”However, as Sherwood points out,“ this new research speaks of global average temperatures rising between 3 ° C and 5 ° C ”if the atmospheric CO2 rate is doubled.
And it is that until now an essential atmospheric factor had not been taken into account: the clouds. According to the new study, as the planet warms, fewer clouds form that reflect sunlight due to the convection of water vapor, causing a greater increase in the mean temperature than current models predict. This increase of about 4 ° C, in statements made by Sherwood himself to The Guardian newspaper, ” would probably be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous .” According to the researchers, life in the tropics would be practically impossible and would guarantee the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and part of the Antarctic ice sheet.
