{"id":10580,"date":"2023-11-21T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=10580"},"modified":"2024-06-20T17:05:11","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T17:05:11","slug":"luminous-mother-of-pearl-clouds-explain-why-climate-models-miss-so-much-arctic-and-antarctic-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/luminous-mother-of-pearl-clouds-explain-why-climate-models-miss-so-much-arctic-and-antarctic-warming\/","title":{"rendered":"Luminous \u2018mother-of-pearl\u2019 clouds explain why climate models miss so much Arctic and Antarctic\u00a0warming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n \n
\n \n YanaBu, Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\nKatrin Meissner<\/a>, UNSW Sydney<\/a><\/em>; Deepashree Dutta<\/a>, University of Cambridge<\/a><\/em>, and Martin Jucker<\/a>, UNSW Sydney<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

Our planet has warmed by about 1.2\u00b0C since 1850<\/a>. But this warming is not uniform<\/a>. Warming at the poles, especially the Arctic, has been three to four times faster<\/a> than the rest of the globe. It\u2019s a phenomenon known as \u201cpolar amplification\u201d. <\/p>\n\n

Climate models simulate this effect, but when tested against the past 40 years of warming, these models fall short<\/a>. The situation is even worse when it comes to modelling past climates with very high levels of greenhouse gases. <\/p>\n\n

This is a problem because these are the same models used to project into the future and forecast how the climate will change. They are likely to underestimate what will happen later this century, including risks such as ice sheet melting or permafrost thawing. <\/p>\n\n

In our new research published today in Nature Geoscience<\/a> we used a high-resolution model of the atmosphere that includes the stratosphere. We found a special type of cloud appears over polar regions when greenhouse gas concentrations are very high. The role of this type of cloud has been overlooked so far. This is one of the reasons why our models are too cold at the poles. <\/p>\n\n

\n