Cloud Feedbacks in the Climate System: A Critical Review

Abstract This paper offers a critical review of the topic of cloud–climate feedbacks and exposes some of the underlying reasons for the inherent lack of understanding of these feedbacks and why progress might be expected on this important climate problem in the coming decade. Although many processes and related parameters come under the influence of clouds, it is argued that atmospheric processes fundamentally govern the cloud feedbacks via the relationship between the atmospheric circulations, cloudiness, and the radiative and latent heating of the atmosphere. It is also shown how perturbations to the atmospheric radiation budget that are induced by cloud changes in response to climate forcing dictate the…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy
• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• OO
  Office of Science
• BA
  Biological and Environmental Research