<p> It seems the sky above your head is falling gradually, as scientists have found the height of clouds has been shrinking gradually over the last 10 years.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The time frame is short, but if future observations show that clouds are truly getting lower, it could have an important effect on global climate change, researchers said.<br /><br />Clouds that are lower in the atmosphere would allow Earth to cool more efficiently, potentially offsetting some of the warming caused by greenhouse gases, they pointed out.<br /><br />“We don’t know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower,” study researcher Roger Davies, of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, was quoted as saying by LiveScience.<br /><br />“But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude.”<br /><br />Clouds are a wildcard in understanding Earth’s climate. Ephemeral as they are, they’re difficult to track over time, and factors such as height and location make a big difference in whether clouds will slow the effects of global warming or exacerbate them, the researchers said.<br /><br />No one fully understands how clouds will respond to a warming climate. But the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer on NASA’s Terra spacecraft has been watching Earth’s clouds for over a decade.<br /><br />Now, Davies and his colleagues have analysed the device’s first 10 years of cloud-top height measurements from March 2000 to February 2010.<br /><br />They found that global average cloud height decreased by around one per cent over the decade, a distance of 100 to 130 feet. Most of the reduction stemmed from fewer clouds forming at very high altitudes.<br /><br />The Terra satellite is set to continue collecting data through the rest of this decade, which will help determine whether or not the cloud lowering is a consistent trend, the researchers reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.<br /></p>
<p> It seems the sky above your head is falling gradually, as scientists have found the height of clouds has been shrinking gradually over the last 10 years.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The time frame is short, but if future observations show that clouds are truly getting lower, it could have an important effect on global climate change, researchers said.<br /><br />Clouds that are lower in the atmosphere would allow Earth to cool more efficiently, potentially offsetting some of the warming caused by greenhouse gases, they pointed out.<br /><br />“We don’t know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower,” study researcher Roger Davies, of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, was quoted as saying by LiveScience.<br /><br />“But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude.”<br /><br />Clouds are a wildcard in understanding Earth’s climate. Ephemeral as they are, they’re difficult to track over time, and factors such as height and location make a big difference in whether clouds will slow the effects of global warming or exacerbate them, the researchers said.<br /><br />No one fully understands how clouds will respond to a warming climate. But the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer on NASA’s Terra spacecraft has been watching Earth’s clouds for over a decade.<br /><br />Now, Davies and his colleagues have analysed the device’s first 10 years of cloud-top height measurements from March 2000 to February 2010.<br /><br />They found that global average cloud height decreased by around one per cent over the decade, a distance of 100 to 130 feet. Most of the reduction stemmed from fewer clouds forming at very high altitudes.<br /><br />The Terra satellite is set to continue collecting data through the rest of this decade, which will help determine whether or not the cloud lowering is a consistent trend, the researchers reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.<br /></p>
