Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warming
Richard A. Kerr
The first reliable analysis of cloud behavior over past decades suggests —but falls short of proving —that clouds are strongly amplifying global warming. If that's true, then almost all climate models have got it wrong. On page 460, climate researchers consider the two best, long-term records of cloud behavior over a rectangle of ocean that nearly spans the subtropics between Hawaii and Mexico. In a warming episode that started around 1976, ship-based data showed that cloud cover—especially low-altitude cloud layers—decreased in the study area as ocean temperatures rose and atmospheric pressure fell. One interpretation, the researchers say, is that the warming ocean was transferring heat to the overlying atmosphere, thinning out the low-lying clouds to let in more sunlight that further warmed the ocean. That's a positive or amplifying feedback. During a cooling event in the late 1990s, both data sets recorded just the opposite changes—exactly what would happen if the same amplifying process were operating in reverse.
Science 24 July 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5939, p. 376
The caution I have highlighted in red seems generally to have been be ignored. Note also that for the last 10 years there has been no warming for clouds to amplify (or not) so the question is probably moot anyway. There is considerable cloud expertise among climate skeptics so I expect that we will hear more about this in the next few days
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here
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