[TChris]

Here's another refutation : Jumping To Conclusions: Frogs, Global Warming and Nature

Excellent article. The Global Warming^TM true believers just don't like being held to acutal scientific standards.

[cogitator]

Excellent article. The Global WarmingTM true believers just don't like being held to acutal scientific standards.

I think you're over-reaching. As I said, I'd like to see the author's response to a fair criticism, and the article seems like a fair criticism. The biggest question, in my mind, is whether the coarse resolution cloud cover data cited would be able to detect trends of increasing cloud cover in a micro-climate like the Monte Verde cloud forest. This is a critical point. The temperature data for that location indicate a favorability toward increased cloud cover.

Just for grins, I've provided a map showing the study area (it's the "MonteVerde Reserve" northwest of San Jose. Compare that to the "study area" box shown on the cloud cover map in the World Climate Report article. (I may see if I can repost that here).

[cogitator]

Regarding my previous reply, the study area for this paper was not restricted to the Monte Verde cloud forest reserve. However, the question still is unanswered, because the cloud and rain forest areas of Central and South America are a small area in the box from the World Climate Report figure:

So I would be interested in ways that the increasing cloud cover hypothesis put forward in the Nature article could be verified. If you're interested, I already found an article indicating that high-resolution estimates of cloud cover for a particular region differ significantly from low-resolution ISCCP data.