Effects on climate Cirrus clouds cover up to 25% of the Earth (up to 70% in the tropics at night) and have a net heating effect. When they are thin and translucent, the clouds efficiently absorb outgoing infrared radiation while only marginally reflecting the incoming sunlight. When cirrus clouds are thick, they reflect only around 9% of the incoming sunlight, but they prevent almost 50% of the outgoing infrared radiation from escaping, thus raising the temperature of the atmosphere beneath the clouds by an average of 10 °C (18 °F)—a process known as the greenhouse effect. Averaged worldwide, cloud formation results in a temperature loss of 5 °C (9 °F) at the earth's surface, mainly the result of stratocumulus clouds.
Effects on climate Cirrus clouds cover up to 25% of the Earth (up to 70% in the tropics at night) and have a net heating effect When they are thin and translucent the clouds efficiently absorb outgoing infrared radiation while only marginally reflecting the incoming sunlight When cirrus clouds are thick they reflect only around 9% of the incoming sunlight but they prevent almost 50% of the outgoing infrared radiation from escaping thus raising the temperature of the atmosphere beneath the clouds by an average of 10 °C (18 °F)—a process known as the greenhouse effect Averaged worldwide cloud formation results in a temperature loss of 5 °C (9 °F) at the earth's surface mainly the result of stratocumulus clouds