Why do the high clouds allow the shortwave radiation to pass through, but reflect the longwave? Why do the low clouds do the opposite?
Well, this isn’t quite the right way to phrase this question. All clouds reflect shortwave radiation (sunlight) and “trap” the longwave (infrared) radiation. It is more a matter of the which of the two processes dominate for a particular cloud. Let’s talk about the reflection of sunlight first since it’s the easiest to understand. Earth receives essentially all of its energy by absorbing sunlight. The amount of energy absorbed is related to the brightness (or albedo) of the Earth: the brighter the surface, the more energy is reflected back to space, and the less energy is retained by the Earth. In general, clouds are brighter than the Earth’s surface. Therefore. when we add clouds, we increase the Earth’s albedo, and more energy is reflected back to space. Now let’s consider the 2 types of clouds that we are comparing. Cirrus clouds are high, ice clouds that tend to be relatively “thin”. We refer to them as thin because we can still see the sun and some blue sky through them. That tell
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