Why Are Clouds the Hardest Part of the Climate Puzzle?

Frank Kuhn · portrait · 1:21

Resources

Video ID

frank-kuhn

Video

https://demo.lt.org/videos/portrait/frank-kuhn/video.mp4

Poster

https://demo.lt.org/videos/portrait/frank-kuhn/poster.jpg

Document

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    "title": "Why Are Clouds the Hardest Part of the Climate Puzzle?",
    "author": "Frank Kuhn",
    "description": "Frank Kuhn takes on the piece of the climate system that still resists prediction: clouds. This short shows how the tiny particles a cloud forms around decide its brightness and lifetime, why low marine clouds hold the key to climate sensitivity, and how aircraft observations and high-resolution simulation are finally narrowing an uncertainty that has stood for decades.",
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        "name": "Findings",
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      "inANutshell": {
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        "keyTakeaway": "Cloud-aerosol interactions remain the largest single uncertainty in how strongly the climate responds to carbon dioxide.",
        "summary": "Clouds cool the planet by reflecting sunlight, and small changes in their brightness rival the forcing from greenhouse gases. Their properties hinge on aerosol particles thousands of times smaller than a raindrop. Combining airborne measurements with simulations that resolve cloud processes is closing in on how strongly aerosols brighten clouds, and with it on climate sensitivity itself."
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        "items": [
          {
            "label": "Cloud condensation nuclei",
            "description": "The aerosol particles on which droplets form; their number sets a cloud's brightness.",
            "start": 0
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          {
            "label": "Cloud feedback",
            "description": "How cloud cover and thickness respond to warming, amplifying or damping it.",
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            "label": "Climate sensitivity",
            "description": "The warming that follows a doubling of carbon dioxide, still spanning a wide range because of clouds.",
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        "sections": [
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            "title": "Cloud physics",
            "description": "The microphysical life of droplets and ice, from nucleation to precipitation."
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            "title": "Atmospheric observation",
            "description": "Measuring the atmosphere directly, from aircraft campaigns to remote sensing."
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            "title": "Constraining aerosol-cloud brightening from airborne observations",
            "authors": ["Frank Kuhn"],
            "journal": "Nature Geoscience",
            "abstract": "Airborne campaigns and process modelling narrow the aerosol-cloud interaction term of the planetary energy budget.",
            "url": "https://doi.org/10.5555/lt-demo.frank-kuhn"
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