But we're not talking about space. We're talking about the earth's atmosphere.
The proportion of reflected light is called the "albedo", which ranges from a theoretical maximum of 1 (a perfect mirror, or a theoretical white surface with no absorption) to 0 (a theoretical "black body").
White clouds reflect a lot of the incoming sunlight (have a larger albedo). Light that strikes the ground from a clear sky causes more ground heating, which causes more air heating, which causes the atmosphere to expand.
ATW, the Earth's albedo can range from about 0.9 (fresh snow on the ground) to about 0.06 (open ocean). White clouds can approach about 0.8.
Edit: the height of the tropopause (the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere) varies from about 9 km (over the poles) to 17 km (over the equator) due largely to the greater temperature in equatorial regions. So that layer of the atmosphere, at least, is nearly twice as thick in warm regions than it is in cold regions. See:
Comments
But we're not talking about space. We're talking about the earth's atmosphere.
The proportion of reflected light is called the "albedo", which ranges from a theoretical maximum of 1 (a perfect mirror, or a theoretical white surface with no absorption) to 0 (a theoretical "black body").
White clouds reflect a lot of the incoming sunlight (have a larger albedo). Light that strikes the ground from a clear sky causes more ground heating, which causes more air heating, which causes the atmosphere to expand.
ATW, the Earth's albedo can range from about 0.9 (fresh snow on the ground) to about 0.06 (open ocean). White clouds can approach about 0.8.
Edit: the height of the tropopause (the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere) varies from about 9 km (over the poles) to 17 km (over the equator) due largely to the greater temperature in equatorial regions. So that layer of the atmosphere, at least, is nearly twice as thick in warm regions than it is in cold regions. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropopause