Cloudy climate change: How clouds affect Earth's temperature - Jasper Kirkby
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As the Earth’s surface temperature gradually rises, it has become vital for us to predict the rate of this increase with as much precision as possible. In order to do that, scientists need to understand more about aerosols and clouds. Jasper Kirkby details an experiment at CERN that aims to do just that.
Under equilibrium conditions, the incoming solar radiation on Earth is exactly balanced by the radiation emitted back out to space, and so Earth's average temperature stays constant. If you waved a magic wand and suddenly doubled the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, less radiation would be emitted back out to space. So there would be an excess of incoming radiation and the Earth would start to warm up. Would it continue to warm up forever? Or do you think it would warm up for some years and eventually stop and, if so, why would the warming stop?
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Meet The Creators
- Educator Jasper Kirkby
- Director Cedric Richer
- Sound Designer Igor Comes
- Narrator Jasper Kirkby
