Trapping Cirrus Clouds

A study done by the University of Alabama in Huntville disputes the widely, but not completely accepted theory that man-made global warming will accelerate itself by creating more heat-trapping cirrus clouds.

According to Dr. Roy Spencer, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease in the coverage area of these cirrus clouds. During month-to-month fluctuations of the tropical climate system they noticed that as the atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decreased. This is opposite of what the leading climate models forecast, which is as the atmosphere warms there should be an increase in these heat-trapping cirrus clouds. A more detailed explanation of their findings is in this news release from the University.

Spencer expects these finds to be controversial. "I know some climate modelers will say that these results are interesting but that they probably don't apply to long-term global warming, but this represents a fundamental natural cooling process in the atmosphere. Let's see if climate models can get this part right before we rely on their long term projections."