From the comments:
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David Wright says:
Oh, WOW!
What a killer punch, a perfect one-two with Spencer-Braswell. And just in time for inclusion in IPPC5. These two papers are going to seriously rattle a few cages in the Warmista camp, where the wagons are no doubt being circled right now. To mix in another metaphor, I doubt that all this evidence is going to cause any Team member to come out with their hands up just yet; but I’ll bet that one or two of them are starting to think about it.
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Bart Verheggen says:
Anthony,
Could you please point out where in this paper it is mentioned that “clouds have large negative-*feedback* cooling effect on Earth’s radiation budget”?
I may be wrong, but I think you’re confusing two issues:
- the net effect of clouds on climate
- the net feedback of clouds on a change in climate
The paper, as I read it with a first quick overview, addresses the first, whereas you interpret it as if it addresses the second.
They are two distinctly different issues. The second (clouds as feedback) is about how cloud cover and properties might change in response to a warming or cooling of the climate: Will the net cloud radiative effect become more or less negative.
The net radiative effect of clouds on climate has long been known to be negative (i.e. cooling). See e.g this quote from the paper: “The overall global net cloud radiative effect is one
of cooling as documented previously (Ramanathan et al., 1989).” That can be verified in any textbook on the subject and most introductions of papers on this topic.
See also http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/aerosols-clouds-and-climate/
REPLY: Thanks, I can see where you’re coming from, but I saw things differently. See the update I posted at the end of the article. – Anthony