Clouds increase the global reflection of solar radiation from 15% to 30%, reducing the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the Earth by about 44 W/m2. This cooling is offset somewhat by the greenhouse effect of clouds which reduces the outgoing longwave radiation by about 31 W/m2. Thus the net cloud forcing of the radiation budget is a loss of about 13 W/m2. If the clouds were removed with all else remaining the same, the Earth would gain this last amount in net radiation and begin to warm up.