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Shrinking Sky! Cloud Tops Dropping Closer to Earth, NASA Satellite Finds The sky is falling… sort of. Over the last 10 years, the height of clouds has been shrinking, according to new research. The time frame is short, but if future observations show that clouds are truly getting lower, it could have an important effect on global climate change. Clouds that are lower in the atmosphere would allow Earth to cool more efficiently, potentially offsetting some of the warming caused by greenhouse gases. "We don't know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower," study researcher Roger Davies of the University of Auckland in New Zealand said in a statement. "But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude." [10 Best Crank Radios: They Work in Any Weather!] Clouds are a wildcard in understanding Earth's climate. Ephemeral as they are, they're difficult to track over time, and factors such as height and location make a big difference in whether clouds will slow the effects of global warming or exacerbate them. And no one fully understands how clouds will respond to a warming climate. [Album: Reading the Clouds] For a decade, however, the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer on NASA's Terra spacecraft has been watching Earth's clouds. Now, Davies and his colleagues have analyzed the device's first 10 years of cloud-top height measurements from March 2000 to February 2010. They found that global average cloud height decreased by around 1 percent over the decade, a distance of 100 to 130 feet (30 to 40 meters). Most of the reduction stemmed from fewer clouds forming at very high altitudes. The researchers reported their results in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The Terra satellite is set to continue collecting data through the rest of this decade, which will help determine whether or not the cloud lowering is a consistent trend. You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
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Nebo nam pada na glavu Snimke NASA-inog satelita pokazuju da su oblaci sve niže i bliže tlu, a to bi moglo ublažiti posljedice globalnog zagrijavanja Zahvaljujući snimkama satelita Terra NASA-ini znanstvenici otkrili su da se oblaci formiraju sve bliže tlu, odnosno, smanjuje im se visina, a to bi moglo imati važan učinak na globalnu promjenu vremena, piše Live Science. Oblaci koji se formiraju niže u atmosferi pomogli bi da se Zemlja efikasnije hladi što bi u konačnici moglo neutralizirati neke aspekte globalnog zagrijavanja uzrokovanog stakleničkim plinovima. "Ne znamo točno zašto su oblaci sve niže, no to mora imati veze s promjenom obrazaca cirkulacije koja dovodi do formiranja oblaka na visokoj nadmorskoj visini", smatra Roger Davies sa novozelandskog Sveučilišta Auckland. Oblaci igraju ogromnu ulogu u klimatskim promjenama, a kako su prolazni tako ih je vrlo teško pratiti. No, zahvaljujući satelitu Terra, koji iz orbite snima oblake od ožujka 2000. godine, znanstvenici su uočili da se visina oblaka u proteklom desetljeću smanjila za 1 posto, odnosno za 40 metara. Rezultati analize snimki oblaka objavljeni su u časopisu Geophysical Research Letters.