Iris hypothesis
≈ 3 min read
Names in other languages
No names in other languages are held for this entry yet.
Article bodies are English and are not machine-translated. A name in another language is not a translation of the article.
The iris hypothesis was a hypothesis proposed by Richard Lindzen and colleagues in 2001 that suggested increased sea surface temperature in the tropics would result in reduced cirrus clouds and thus more infrared radiation leakage from Earth's atmosphere. His study of observed changes in cloud coverage and modeled effects on infrared radiation released to space as a result seemed to support the hypothesis. This suggested infrared radiation leakage was hypothesized to be a negative feedback in which an initial warming would result in an overall cooling of the surface. The idea of the iris effect of cirrus clouds in trapping outgoing radiation was reasonable, but it ignored the larger compensating effect on the blocking of incoming sun's rays, and effects of changes in altitude of clouds. Moreover, a number of errors were found in the papers. For this reason, the iris effect no longer plays a role in the current scientific consensus on climate change.
The iris hypothesis was a hypothesis proposed by Richard Lindzen and colleagues in 2001 that suggested increased sea surface temperature in the tropics would result in reduced cirrus clouds and thus more infrared radiation leakage from Earth's atmosphere. His study of observed changes in cloud coverage and modeled effects on infrared radiation released to space as a result seemed to support the hypothesis. This suggested infrared radiation leakage was hypothesized to be a negative feedback in which an initial warming would result in an overall cooling of the surface. The idea of the iris effect of cirrus clouds in trapping outgoing radiation was reasonable, but it ignored the larger compensating effect on the blocking of incoming sun's rays, and effects of changes in altitude of clouds. Moreover, a number of errors were found in the papers. For this reason, the iris effect no longer plays a role in the current scientific consensus on climate change.
See also
Climate change Fixed anvil temperature hypothesis Global dimming
References
External links
NASA summary of Global Warming and Iris Hypothesis (June 2002)
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1328099962 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.