Feedbacks- What Exactly Are They?

Feedbacks can be hurtful and push the climate more towards global warming, but they can also be helpful by cooling the planet and attempting to balance global warming out. Feedback occurs when a change in our climate causes another change in climate. There are two kinds of feedback, positive and negative. Negative means that the feedback is going against the trend in climate. This means that if the globe is warming, this feedback would cause the climate to cool. A positive feedback means that the feedback further pushes the current trend of the climate. If the climate was warming, this feedback would further push the climate towards warming. Feedbacks have the ability to dramatically effect the climate, which is what makes them so important. The more that scientists understand about feedbacks, the more that they are able to make future climate predictions. The ice albedo feedback refers to the light that is reflected on Earth's surface, which is a positive feedback. This means that surfaces that have a higher albedo like ice and snow will reflect more sunlight into space. The Arctic is an example where the snow is melting due to global warming. The land and ocean absorbs more energy, which in turn causes the globe to warm even further. As the globe continues to warm, more land is exposed which is causing global warming to get worse.

Source: here