Global Temperatures and Reduced Cloud Cover
By Paul Homewood
h/t AC Osborn
A very telling pair of graphs from Ole Humlum’s Climate4You:
We can debate the reasons for less cloud cover, but generally speaking less cloud/more sunshine leads to higher temperatures. (Certain high level clouds may have the reverse effect, but this is small).
Even the Met Office admitted this a few years ago, in a study they have since buried.
In particular, it is the sun that predominantly heats the oceans. The equilibrium effect on the seas from a slightly warmer atmosphere are so small as to be unmeasurable.
In alarmist world, of course, CO2 is the only driver of global temperatures, so don’t expect them to mention that cloud cover has been a major factor behind global warming in recent decades.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Back in 2013 the BBC had a series called ‘Cloud Lab’ where they used a dirigible to cross the Atlantic studying weather and ocean patterns. I distinctly remember them commenting as they reached Florida(?) that sea temperatures had risen as a result of lower pollution levels leading to less cloud cover! I must find and watch that series again to double-check but anyone else remember it?
I recall watching that, featuring Helen Czerski, one of the BBC goto on-message pet scientists, here is a DT article about it, it may be covered in her book, but I don’t have it to hand right now:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10985180/Operation-Cloud-Lab-Secrets-of-the-Skies-BBC-Two-review-a-snooze.html
it’s a pity the graphs end when they do because low Sulphur fuels were banned in 2020. The sulfur dioxide emitted over the oceans is believed to cool the planet and seed clouds. Even Carbon Brief was worried about this regulation’s affect on climate. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/
The most recent temperature figures from UAH have been much higher. Is there some reason for not including them? Not including them gives the impression that selective figures are being used to hide something.
Description:
This global temperature record from 1979 shows a modest and unalarming 0.14° Celsius rise per decade (0.25⁰ Fahrenheit rise per decade) that is not accelerating.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/uah-version-6/
These two graphs show data from NASA GISTEMP, which is most often cited global temperature anomaly graph from the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) for the entire globe, but done two ways. The top graph shows the magnified temperature anomaly, and the bottom graph shows the actual temperature as measured on the scale of normal human weather experience, typically 0° to 120° Fahrenheit.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/global-surface-temperature-comparison/
Climate changes innit?
Are any of the figures coming out of NASA trustworthy these days? Tony Heller has shown how much the record has been adjusted to provide the stubbornly absence desired trend. I believe the Met office and the Australian BOM have done the same.
The last few months have shown an up-tick.
What caused this must be something other than lack of clouds. Let’s guess El Niño, now rapidly fading or gone, and the rise stalled. Expect cooler temps coming back.
And how did that El Nino extra heat get in to the Oceans to come back out ?
To AC O:
We are talking sunlight. That’s energy. It enters water – think Pacific Ocean. The water is slowly moved westward and piles up in what is called the Pacific Warm Pool. The moving force is the Trade Winds. After a year or two, or three, the winds cease. The piled-up warm water slooshes eastward towards South America, spreads out, and proceeds to heat the atmosphere above it. Investigate: El Niño–Southern Oscillation
Less cloud = more solar generated warmth – well, well, who would have thunked that?!
Not a surprise to proper scientists.
More confirmation from real scientists using real scientific data.
https://notrickszone.com/2024/04/29/post-1980s-increases-in-shortwave-radiation-explains-europes-warming-trends-far-better-than-co2/
Another scenario, far worse than diminishing cloud cover and its gentle warming of earth, is Zharkovas prediction that our Sun is falling into a GSM slumber, with associated global cooling likely from 2020 into the 2050’s, starting seriously in 2030, heralding in food shortages, de-greening, earthquakes, volcanic activity etc
Possibly the most accurate (although not precise) prediction of the trajectory of global temperature (so far) is that made by the Russian Astrophysicist, Habibullo Abdussamatov in his 2008 paper…
‘The Sun Defines The Climate’:
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Abdussamatov/the_sun_defines_the_climate_2009_commented.pdf
The trouble with that paper is that it was published in 2009 and shows SC25 signicantly quieter than SC24, that is already not true.
I have not analyzed his maths in detail, frankly I can’t be bothered, but I think he makes the same mistake that Zharkova made, inferring detailed knowledge of multi-century long cycles from a few decades snapshot.
True Harry, but I’m sure we can agree that recent solar cycles show a diminishing activity since SC22
I have believed for several years that by 2030 the cooling trend will be undeniable, and they know it. Hence the desperation to get all the regressive, restrictive and impoverishing green crap and population control measures in place now, before the revolting peasants start revolting.
This is no surprise to proper scientists.
So the Sun is the main driver of Global Climate Change/Crisis/Emergency, so all we need to do is too blot out the sun…………so a couple of large sheets stretched between some uprights placed just beyond the moon should suffice, oh the Climate Cult is going to love this- No More Sun, Blot Out The Sun, Sun Killing the Planet……………….or maybe a pair of large RayBans?
Yes, the only reason why coal-fired generation causes global warming. The less you have emitting SO2 , the warmer it gets.
The graph above is also linked to the Global Brightening graph I posted last week.
The explanation for this Global Brightening, is that CO2 scrubbers on power stations have reduced SO2 emissions (which has been described as a SW insolation mirror).
Ralph
Described as such with no evidence.
Plenty of evidence out there, if you bother to look.
Try also ETH Zurich, but some of this is paywalled.
https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/usys/iac/iac-dam/documents/people-iac/wild/WildBAMS_2012.pdf
That’s changes in low cloud cover following the AMO.
In addition to satellite observations of cloud cover, there is an extensive database of surface station records measuring both SW and LW radiation fluxes. This research identifies periods of global “brightening and dimming”, referring more or less sunlight absorbed at the surface.
The Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) is hosted by ETH Zurich. My synopsis of this research is
https://rclutz.com/2017/07/17/natures-sunscreen/
A key graph is this one: Observed tendencies in solar radiation
One of the more interesting papers of last year was Chavez et al.’s study of Neptune’s cloud cover…
‘Evolution of Neptune at near-infrared wavelengths from 1994 through 2022’ [November 2023]:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103523002440
‘Neptune’s Disappearing Clouds Linked to the Solar Cycle’ [August 2023]:
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/neptunes-disappearing-clouds-linked-to-the-solar-cycle/
The chemistry of Neptune’s atmosphere is different to that of the Earth’s so cloud cover appears to vary counter-cyclically to that hypothesised for variations in the Earth’s cloud cover and consequent albedo.
Coming soon…the Eddy Grand Solar Minimum.
The big problem with all things climate over the next few years is Hunga Ha’apei. It dumped 150m tonnes of water into the stratosphere increasing the water content by 10% to 30% depending who you read.
It seems to be agreed that water in the stratosphere, being ice, is a greenhouse gas. Most scientist outside the hardline ‘CO2 only’ school agree this increase will have a warming effect – of unknown magnitude, and we don’t know how long it will take that water to leech out again. I have seen estimates of 2 to 7 years.
Summary: There is a big effect in play that we don’t understand and can’t parameterize in any meaningful way.
While I strongly agree that the cloud-cover graph presented does not show a consistent downtrend over this period. Rather it appears to be trending up over the last decade or two, which contradicts the author’s conclusion.
Correction to my previous comment which omitted a key phrase. Should have read as follows:
While I strongly agree that the reduction in atmospheric SO2 has contributed mightily to global warming since the mid- 1970s, the cloud-cover graph presented does not show a consistent downtrend over this period. Rather it appears to be trending up over the last decade or two, which contradicts the author’s conclusion.
OK, but how much SO2 is China emitting with their coal power station per week? Oh, they give us a figure, but now tell us how much they are emitting.
https://so2.gsfc.nasa.gov/measures.html
says it has been going up worldwide in recent years
Daytime and night-time cloud cover are sometimes said to have opposite effects. This is where the whole discussion can become a bit…cloudy?
Hello Paul,
Thank you for posting these two most interesting graphs. They tell essentially the same story as that propounded by Roy W. Spencer in his book “The Great Global Warming Blunder” (Encounter Books, paperback 2012). At page 123 he writes, “… it would take very small changes in global cloud cover to explain all the temperature variability in the last 2,000 years … The IPCC’s assumption that such small natural variations in global cloudiness do not occur is, in my view, arbitrary and scientifically irresponsible.”
Or as he puts it at page 106, “clouds” are simply “nature’s sunshade”.
Regards, John C.
I have often tried to introduce this heresy into the climate change debate.
it holds true for Europe as well..
But the belief in AGW is very strong in every scientific establishment.
I do not think the correlation shown by the graph is a good one. What it shows to me is that there is a possible effect but as is typical in a complex system, other factors are also involved.
So the case needs further investigation before jumping to conclusions.
What appears to be completely missed is the change in average global wind speed. A weakening of global wind speed as is typical for an el Nino and also what happened in the North Atlantic during the last summer leading to warmer surface waters has a combination of effects.
The satellite measurements we are using presumably only show the actual surface temperature, so lack of mixing of the upper ocean is lessened and the ocean as a whole appears warmer than usual. Secondly is the decrease in evaporation, which again cools the surface of the ocean.
If anyone has any links, it would be interesting to see the trend added to the graph in the article.
Clouds are needed to provide rain. Has the hydrologic cycle slowed or speeded up? More sun on the oceans ought to produce more evaporation that ought to produce more frequent or more robust rain. One of Nature’s “rules” is that you can’t do just one thing.
Reduced cloud cover would make nights colder, especially in winter, there is no evidence for that.
Why do clouds disappear during a solar eclipse? – 5 April 2024
It might sound odd, but in certain weather situations clouds can disappear from the skies during a solar eclipse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/c3gm327xe42o
(Scroll down to ‘Disappearing clouds’)
The type of cloud present ahead of the eclipse is crucial. Cumulus clouds, those fluffy fair weather clouds, are the ones likely to be affected the most.
Weirdly (as far as the UK is concerned) the Met Office time series indicates a consistent rising annual trend in sunshine hours.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series
The unusual thing is that the increase is nearly all in winter with negligible increases in summer. Logic would suggest clearer skies would lead to colder winter nights but the temperature series is not showing that.
An alternative view would be that the Met Office data is not up to much – I tend to the latter view.
Check out this article: “Temperature”, by Dr. Ned Nikolov, and the 2 last graphs updated to 2024 with the explantion:
“The following figures show the latest CERES satellite data for absorbed shortwave (SW) radiation, the global cloud cover and the corresponding temperature change from 2000 to 2024. Note that decreasing cloud cover corresponds to a lower albedo which causes more solar radiation to be absorbed which raises the earth’s temperature. Green house gases play no role in the warming of the planet. It is warmed because more solar radiation is absorbed because of decreasing cloud cover. ”
Cloud cover shold be reported monthly, like temperature.
As we are told that a warming atmosphere holds more water ( hence more severe storms), it would be perverse to not conclude there would be more condensation at altitude – cloud. As cloud is decreasing, there is something wrong with the GW hypothesis or with measurement.
The warming atmosphere holds more water til storm time, then, somehow, it loses that ability.
Check out this article: “Temperature” by Dr. Ned Nikolov. The last 2 graphs show:
“The following figures show the latest CERES satellite data for absorbed shortwave (SW) radiation, the global cloud cover and the corresponding temperature change from 2000 to 2024. Note that decreasing cloud cover corresponds to a lower albedo which causes more solar radiation to be absorbed which raises the earth’s temperature. Green house gases play no role in the warming of the planet. It is warmed because more solar radiation is absorbed because of decreasing cloud cover. “
Global cloud cover percent and solar irradiation reaching the earth surface should be reported monthly like global temperature. There is an obvious connection.
Good work. Thanks
I’m not sure the correlation there is that high, in particular if you remove El Nino effects. Then of course there’s which way round cause and effect is.
El Nino seems to be going away.
Less cloud cover may well be due to the removal of natural forest which evaporates huge amounts of water into the air which then rises to form cloud and hence rain. It also actively cools the forest layer, something that is massively reduced as forest is turned into farmland.
Experiment 1. To reduce cloud cover: take a large saltwater body in its natural state. On it spill light oil (olive oil was used by Benjamin Franklin in his 1770 demonstration and see Lord Raleigh’s measurement of the thickness of a single molecule in his 19th C experiment) at a rate of 5ml per hectare. Observe the oil spread to a single-molecule-thick layer and note the suppression of wave formation at wind speeds less than Force 4. Measure and the lack of salt aerosol formation. Measure the fall in relative humidity. Measure the reduction in clod cover.
Calculate how much warming is caused by lower albedo, reduction in cloud cover, reduction in evaporation.
Experiment 2. To reduce cloud cover: take a large saltwater body in its natural state. Feed it with silica rich outflows from farming on thinner soils with added nitrogen, potash and phosphate chemicals. Measure the blooms of oleaginous phytoplankton over a one year cycle and quantify the smoothing effects (cf Experiment 1). Take a holiday with a sea temperature thermometer on the shores of the Sea of Marmora/Marmara. observe the sea snot and realise the power of Emiliana huxleyi. Contemplate the evolution of oleaginous phytoplankton and its correlation with the PETM.
JF
The chart and article are deceptive
The reduction of the percentage of cloudiness suggests warmer days and new TMAX records. But so does the reduction of SO2 emissions since 1980. There is no way to differentiate between the two causes of more sunlight reaching Earth’s surface.
The percentage of cloudiness is a proxy for the amount of solar energy blocked by clouds which actually depends on the types of clouds, height of clouds and timing of clouds, In adition, clouds are also part of the greenhouse effect. Needed data are not available
2/3 of temperature records since 1975 are TMIN records near dawn. Such records are most likely caused by increased greenhouse gases, not more solar energy reaching earth’s surface. Increased UHI also affects nights.
Most of the warming since 1975 has happened when there is no sunlight.
Funny that the main GHG onEarth, by a mile happens to H2O, mostly in the form of “clouds”. But you are suggesting that a GHG of one hundredth of that of H2O is the actual contol.
So since 1995 the has AMO warmed, driving a decline in low cloud cover, and the AMO warmed in response to weaker solar wind states from 1995, via negative North Atlantic Oscillation regimes 1995-1999 and 2005-2012.
Rising CO2 forcing is expected to increases positive NAO states, which can only drive a colder AMO.
https://archive.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html