Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Global warming

Clouds cooled the Earth

  • News & Views
  • Published:

From Nature Geoscience

View current issue Submit your manuscript

The slow instrumental-record warming is consistent with lower-end climate sensitivity. Simulations and observations now show that changing sea surface temperature patterns could have affected cloudiness and thereby dampened the warming.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Figure 1: Schematic of the proposed mechanism for increasing low-level cloudiness with observed non-uniform sea surface temperature pattern.

References

  1. Fasullo, J. T. & Trenberth, K. E. Science 338, 792–794 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Sherwood, S. C. et al. Nature 505, 37–42 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Otto, A. et al. Nat. Geosci. 6, 415–416 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Lewis, N. & Curry, J. A. Clim. Dyn. 45, 1009–1023 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Zhou, C., Zelinka, M. D. & Klein, S. A. Nat. Geosci. 9, 871–874 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Gregory, J. M. & Andrews, T. Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 3911–3920 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Klein, S. A. & Hartmann, D. L. J. Clim. 6, 1587–1606 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Norris, J. R. et al. Nature 536, 72–75 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Marvel, K. et al. J. Clim. 28, 4820–4840 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Senior, C. A. & Mitchell, J. F. B. Geophys. Res. Lett. 27, 2685–2688 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Su, H. et al. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 119, 5787–5805 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Kennedy J. J., Rayner, N. A., Smith, R. O., Saunby, M. & Parker, D. E. J. Geophys. Res. 116, D14103 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thorsten Mauritsen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mauritsen, T. Clouds cooled the Earth. Nature Geosci 9, 865–867 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2838

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2838

  • Springer Nature Limited

This article is cited by

Navigation