Some thoughts about the albedo effect of cloud cover. This is a followup from my letter of two days ago, which covered a review of an interesting new study. Let’s hope this new information is for real. Meanwhile, I have often wondered whether the negative radiation effect of cloudtop surfaces, which helps to cool the planet, had any kind of influence on the warming power of the greenhouse radiation effect emanating from cloud bodies. I have about concluded that there is no connection aside from their mutual dependence on cloud formation. Cloud formation by itself seems to have completely separate causation, and whatever is involved is often not clearly apparent. There are times and places when heavy concentrations of water vapor are identified in the upper atmosphere that readily condense into clouds and other times and places when they don’t, even when all other conditions appear quite similar.
This reality is something that cannot be overlooked by anyone who seeks to verify the most basic conclusion behind Carl’s theory of the greenhouse effect of precipitable water (PW). The evidence behind this conclusion is largely based on the idea that all temperature anomalies must have a complete physical explanation. When all of the known explanation factors—apart from the uncertain greenhouse effect of the main PW components—have been added up and seen to be leaving a gap that must somehow be filled, how well does PW fare as the agency filling this gap? We can assume the PW in place has always been accurately measured. I have found, and often described, how it filled in the missing numbers with great consistency, regardless of its cloud or no-cloud composition, by using a logarithmic interpretation of its greenhouse powers.
The underlying problem for this line of reasoning is that whenever clouds are actually present so is the potential for an albedo effect that would typically cool temperatures down to some extent and thus widen whatever gap needs to be filled by the warming of PW’s greenhouse effect. We just don’t know how much it will widen. Random observations made from various measurements or comparisons suggest that the cooling effect of cloudtops in some situations could be a relatively large number, as much as 5 to 10C, and at other times practically non-existent. That level of uncertainty is hard to deal with, so how does one continue?
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One conclusion to draw from this discussion is that every effort to evaluate the greenhouse warming effect of PW must be sure to take into account a good estimate of any cooling offset provided by cloud cover, if clouds are known to be present. The Weather Maps are very helpful in that regard. Extensive practice in making usable comparisons will still be required.
Carl