Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres reflect essentially equal amounts of sunlight. How—and whether—this hemispheric albedo symmetry is maintained remains a mystery. We decompose Earth’s hemispheric albedo symmetry into components associated with the surface, clear-sky atmosphere, and different cloud types as defined by cloud effective pressure and optical thickness. Climatologically, greater reflection by the surface, aerosols, and high clouds in the Northern Hemisphere is balanced by greater low and mid-level cloudiness in the Southern Hemisphere. Both hemispheres have darkened at similar rates over the past two decades; whether the decrease in clear-sky asymmetry from declining aerosol is breaking all-sky symmetry due to more rapid Northern Hemisphere darkening remains uncertain. Regional trends and natural experiments including sea ice loss and volcanic eruptions provide strong evidence against the hypothesis that extratropical low clouds compensate changing clear-sky asymmetries on decadal timescales but some evidence that tropical high cloud shifts may do so.
