Earth’s climate is heating up faster than expected, and a major culprit is the changing behavior of clouds over oceans.
As these clouds reflect less sunlight into space, more heat is trapped, accelerating climate change. New research highlights that this dimming effect is particularly strong over oceanic regions like those near California and Namibia and is also linked to melting ice near Antarctica. Additionally, efforts to reduce air pollution, especially in China, may have unintended climate effects, as cleaner air allows more sunlight to reach the surface.
Earth’s Energy Imbalance: More Heat, Less Escape
Earth is absorbing more sunlight and trapping more heat than it releases into space, causing our planet to warm up at an increasing rate.
New research shows that cloudy areas over oceans are reflecting less sunlight to space than before, adding to heating from rising greenhouse gas levels and causing climate change to accelerate.
The Global Dimming Effect and Melting Ice
The study, published on March 11 in Environmental Research Letters, found this dimming effect was occurring in several regions, including cloudy areas off the coasts of California and Namibia, but also at the fringes of Antarctica where recent significant melting of sea ice can also explain more absorption of sunlight by the oceans.
Professor Richard Allan, lead author of the study at the University of Reading, said: “Think of Earth as a mirror reflecting sunlight back to space. Over time, that mirror is getting dirtier, particularly over our oceans where clouds are changing. This means more solar energy is being absorbed rather than reflected, adding to the heating caused by greenhouse gas emissions. An important puzzle to solve is, are the clouds melting away as temperatures rise like a mirror steaming up?
“Or is declining air pollution that artificially brightened the mirror like a cleaning spray now wearing off? We need to find out which explanation is causing clouds to become less shiny to understand how much global warming will occur and how fast. The remarkable global dimming helps explain why we saw such unprecedented warming in 2023.”
Air Pollution Impacts: A Double-Edged Sword
The researchers examined the warming that occurred in 2022 to 2023 and discovered the ocean surface warmed even more rapidly than could be explained by the increased energy absorption alone. This led them to the conclusion that either the heat was concentrated in a shallower layer of ocean than normal, or extra heat stored in deeper ocean layers was returning to the surface. The second explanation aligns with the development of El Niño conditions in 2023, when warm water from ocean depths rose to the surface in the Pacific.
China’s Cleaner Air is Changing Global Climate
The study also found that eastern China is reflecting less sunlight than expected, likely due to successful efforts to reduce air pollution. This finding is significant because while reducing air pollution improves public health, cleaner air also allows more sunlight to pass through the atmosphere and clouds to reach Earth’s surface, adding to the warming from increases in heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The research suggests that these reductions in aerosol particles over China could be influencing climate patterns beyond its borders, potentially affecting cloudiness and temperature patterns over the north Pacific region through atmospheric wind patterns.
Reference: “Reconciling Earth’s growing energy imbalance with ocean warming” by Richard P Allan and Christopher J Merchant, 11 March 2025, Environmental Research Letters.
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/adb448
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9 Comments
So no matter what, we’re doomed. The only solution; only solution is to elect more left wing pols, quit using transportation and quit upward mobility. Is that it?
Yes, oddly enough.
However, rest assured that we humans are too stupid to allow that to happen.
Maybe we should resume burning leaves in the fall.
“…., at the fringes of Antarctica where recent significant melting of sea ice can also explain more absorption of sunlight by the oceans.”
First off, that “significant melting” is only happening in West Antarctica. It is common knowledge that there is little evidence for melting in East Antarctic, and a recent discovery of archival 1937 aerial photography — https://scitechdaily.com/challenging-modern-climate-narratives-forgotten-1937-aerial-photos-expose-antarctic-anomaly/ — confirms that not only is the melting asymmetrical, but there has been growth of the ice in some locations in East Antarctica. Therefore, an alternative hypothesis, that submarine vulcanism and high geothermal gradients on land under the ice probably at least contributes to the difference in melting rates between east and west, becomes plausible.
Second, the poorly supported paradigm of the ‘Albedo Effect’ is implicitly invoked, leading me to believe that the good professors of Reading are unfamiliar with Fresnel’s Equation for determining how the reflectivity of water changes with the angle of incidence of sunlight.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/12/why-albedo-is-the-wrong-measure-of-reflectivity-for-modeling-climate/
I would expect that the good professors are indeed conversant with the notion that the angle of incidence of sunlight is important in how the sun’s heat and light does whatever it does whenever it does it, but SciTech Daily summarises stuff for the lay person, and as it was the lay people who voted for Trump, the average lay IQ can’t think through complex issues concerning matters in the long-term, so the KISS paradigm must be applied to SciTech’s articles.
An interesting conjecture. However, unfortunately, your speculation is not supported by evidence. The complaints I lodged are about statements found in the original article, not just the SciTechDaily summary.
It isn’t just this article that talks about the ‘Albedo Effect.’ It is an established paradigm in climatology that is usually mentioned obliquely, rather than faced head on to defend it. It has the distinction of being one of the unstated assumptions, which is not proven, but is suggested to be responsible for phenomena that are poorly understood. I think that your further assumption that the professors are conversant with it is just wishful thinking. The CERES orbital sensor bins the measurements for the high-angle readings where the reflectivity changes most rapidly, and looks orthogonally to the inclined orbit instead of directly at the sun. As a consequence, we don’t have good measurements. Can you cite any climatology papers that discuss the distinction between diffuse reflectance from suspended organic and inorganic particles in sea water, and the angle-dependent specular reflectance of the material that covers 71% of Earth’s surface? For that matter, did you take the time to read my paper, or do you already know everything?
However, I do agree with you that “the average lay IQ can’t think through complex issues concerning matters in the long-term.” You demonstrated that with your characterization of the people who voted for Trump. Incidentally, I had lunch today with a computer science PhD who voted for Trump. It would appear that your convenient characterization of Trump supporters has no more validity than your assumptions about the competence of climatologists. After all, Michael Mann has a background similar to mine — geophysics and mathematics — but decided to call himself a climatologist probably because the bar to competence is lower.
“… or extra heat STORED in deeper ocean layers was returning to the surface.”
I think that speculation needs explanation. How does deep water, close to the freezing point, additionally warm water that is warmer (anywhere outside of the poles)? Inasmuch as the direction of heat flow by conduction is from a warmer body to a colder body, the expected result of mixing cold, abyssal water with surface water is to cool the surface water.
“Cleaner Air, Hotter Earth – The Unexpected Climate Connection”
Were it not for the hubris of some of the ‘all-knowing’ climatologists, they might have an anticipated the social corollary of Newton’s Third Law — “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” It isn’t like ‘Unintended Consequences’ are rare. They are ubiquitous and the failure to anticipate them reflects poorly on those responsible for anticipating them.
Don’t worry. Clean air is better for for one’s lungs. That’s an unintended consequence that I prefer.
As for the rest of your comment; no-one on this good Earth has the wisdom and fore-kowledge of God and one must anticipate that anticipations may well be faulty, but that they are the best we can achieve. Doesn’t look good for our collective future. Even Einstein, in his letter to Roosevelt, should have realised just how reckless our future politicians would become, but,….,,