14:15
Clouds play a key role in the climate system. Driven by radiation, clouds power the hydrological cycle and global atmospheric dynamics. In addition, clouds fundamentally affect the global radiation balance by reflecting solar radiation back to space and trapping longwave radiation. The response of clouds to global warming remains poorly understood and is strongly regime dependent. In addition, anthropogenic aerosols influence clouds, altering cloud microphysics, dynamics and radiative properties. In this presentation I will review progress and limitations of our current understanding of the role of clouds in climate change and discuss the state of the art of the representation of clouds and aerosol-cloud interactions in global climate models, from (slightly) better constrained stratiform clouds to new frontiers: the investigation of anthropogenic effects on convective clouds.