The role of clouds in global climate change

From a physical perspective, the projected anthropogenic climate change is insufficiently quantified. The largest uncertainty is due to the response of clouds to the anthropogenic perturbation of the composition of the atmosphere. The presentation will discuss the hypotheses how clouds respond to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increases and atmospheric particle (aerosol) concentration increases. It presents approaches to assess the resulting effects on the energy budget of the Earth system from observations and numerical modelling.