What impact do clouds have on the energy balance at the surface of the earth?
Earth Radiation Balance and Impact of Clouds The Earth’s climate system constantly adjusts so as to maintain a balance between the solar energy reaching Earth, and the energy escaping from Earth. For the Earth’s system, the important components of the radiation budget are the planet surface, the atmosphere and clouds. Clouds can warm up the Earth and the atmosphere by absorbing terrestrial radiation (or longwave radiation) which escapes to space and emitting a portion of this absorbed energy both towards the surface and to space. Clouds can also have a negative effect on the Earth’s climate, causing a cooling of the Earth. This results from the scattering back to space of shortwave rays from the Sun. This leads to a decrease of absorbed solar radiation by the surface of the Earth, since the cloud shield the Earth from incoming solar radiation, leading to a cooling of the Earth. Whether clouds cool or warm the Earth’s climate depends on their temperature (or height in the atmosphere), t
