For much of his career, George Tselioudis, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has analyzed decades of satellite observations to understand where clouds occur, whether their distribution has changed, and how changes might affect Earth’s energy budget and climate.
For much of his career, George Tselioudis, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has analyzed decades of satellite observations to understand where clouds occur, whether their distribution has changed, and how changes might affect Earth’s energy budget and climate. The implications of two of his recent studies, he says, are worrying.
Clouds are common on Earth, but they are ephemeral and challenging to study. Remote sensing has helped scientists tremendously by enabling consistent, global tracking of the elusive features, even over inaccessible areas like the poles and open ocean.
The first study, published in August 2024, showed that Earth’s cloudiest zones over the oceans have shifted and contracted over the past 35 years, allowing more of the Sun’s energy to reach and warm the ocean instead of being reflected back to space by storm clouds. “The pattern is clear. Where storm clouds form has changed,” Tselioudis said. The implications for the climate, he added, are significant: “This has added a large amount of warming to the system.”
Read more at NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using data provided by the MODIS Atmosphere Science Team, the ISCCP H-Series from Tselioudis et al (2024), and the DSCOVR EPIC team.
