This TED Talk features climate scientist Kate Marvel, recorded live at TED 2017.

I am a climate scientist and I hate weather.

I have spent too much time in California and I strongly feel that weather should be optional.

So I don't want to experience clouds, let alone see. And I strongly feel that weather should be optional.

So I don't want to experience clouds, let alone study them.

But clouds seem to follow me wherever I go.

The thing is, clouds are a real challenge for climate science.

We don't know how they're going to react as the planet heats up. And hidden in that uncertainty might be hope.

Maybe, just maybe, clouds could slow down global warming

and buy us a little bit more time to get our act together, which would be very convenient right now.

I mean, Eve and I could put up with a few more cloudy days

if clouds save the planet.

Now, we are sure about some things.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas,

we're emitting a lot of it, and the planet's heating up.

Case closed. But I still go to work every day. It turns out that there is a lot that we don't

understand about climate change. In particular, we haven't answered what seems to be a very fundamental question.

We know it's going to get hot, but we don't know exactly how hot it's going to get.

Now, this is a really easy question to answer,

if one of you would like to give me a time machine.

But I'm going to be honest with you.

If I had a time machine, I would not be hanging out at this particular point in history.

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