As the climate has warmed, certain clouds have drifted higher into the atmosphere
Just a clarification:
As the air gets warmer, it can hold more water vapour, meaning less condensation and therefore less cloud formation. It’s not so much that particular clouds are literally moving higher; it’s that the zone where clouds form in the atmosphere is shifting higher due to warmer air.
This same phenomenon of the higher air temperature reducing condensation was something that contributed to the severe drought and subsequent flood in Valencia.
Clouds form around aerosols — tiny airborne particles like desert dust and sea salt carried on the wind, or pollution from human activity like burning fossil fuels. Aerosols not only help clouds take shape, but can make them more reflective. Recent research has suggested that clean air policies — particularly a global shift to low-sulfur shipping fuel in 2020 — reduced cloud cover and brightness, inadvertently pushing up warming.
Climate models have underestimated the cooling effect of aerosol pollution, so the warming from increased carbon dioxide levels is actually much greater than scientists thought.