Summary

• Low-lying marine clouds remain the key process under discussion because they strongly affect how much sunlight the oceans reflect back to space.
• Recent observations and analyses suggest reduced low-cloud cover over subtropical oceans may be increasing solar absorption and contributing to faster warming.
• Cloud feedbacks are still one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate projections, especially where cloud brightness and circulation changes interact.
• Aerosol changes, including cleaner shipping fuel emissions, are a plausible contributor to declining cloud reflectivity in some regions.
• The broader feedback framework also includes water vapour, ice-albedo loss, and carbon-cycle weakening, all of which can amplify greenhouse warming.
• The signal is fairly coherent but scientifically open-ended: the same mechanisms that cool or warm the planet are being examined both as observed trends and as model sensitivities.