White clouds over oceans can stop global warming and bring more rains to the land, according to a recent study.
"Clouds reflect sunlight and cool the planet. Clouds with bigger droplets tend to be darker and those with tiny droplets for the same amount of water are more white.
"If the droplet number in the clouds is increased, the reflectivity increases and it will increase rainfall on land and also slow down global warming," Prof Govindasamy Bala, the lead author of the study from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, told PTI today.
"Reducing the droplet size and thus increasing the reflectivity is the basic mechanism behind the proposal for whitening the marine clouds to counteract global warming," Bala said.
The new climate modelling study by the IISc in collaboration with the Carnegie Institution, Stanford University, and NASA-AMES, California suggested that altered atmospheric circulation under the scheme could create a monsoonal circulation and cause the continents to become wetter, not drier, on average.
The study is reported in the latest issue of the journal 'Climate Dynamics' titled 'Albedo enhancement of marine clouds to counteract global warming: impacts on the hydrological cycle.'