Airborne campaign solves parts of the riddle of clouds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG

In a major field campaign in 2020, Dr. Raphaela Vogel who is now at Universitt Hamburg?s Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) and an international team from theLaboratoire de Mtorologie Dynamiquein Paris and theMax Planck Institute for Meteorologyin Hamburg analyzed observational data they and others collected in fields of cumulus clouds near the Atlantic island of Barbados. Their analysis revealed that these clouds? contribution to climate warming has to be reassessed.

?Trade-wind clouds influence the climate system around the globe, but the data demonstrate behavior differently than previously assumed. Consequently, an extreme rise in Earth?s temperatures is less likely than previously thought,? says Vogel, an atmospheric scientist…