There are two foundational errors in climate science. The first is in the theories and estimates of the role of cloud in changing the planet’s dynamic energy balance. Low level marine cloud forms over cool ocean water and dissipates over warm. The Pacific Ocean is where sea surface temperature varies most. Sea surface temperature changes dramatically across the Pacific Ocean as a result of a shifting balance between cold, turbulent, nutrient rich and acidic water rising in the eastern Pacific and the suppression of upwelling of sub-surface currents by a warm surface layer.
Observation from ships over 60 years show changes in cloud cover in the Pacific over periods clearly associated with the well known modes of Pacific Ocean multi-decadal variability. A change to less cloud in the shift to a warm El Niño dominated Pacific decadal pattern in the late 1970’s and a change to more cloud following the shift to a La Niña dominated cool mode since 1998. Satellite data quantifies changes in outgoing shortwave and longwave radiative flux associated with cloud changes between 1984 and the late 1990’s.
This is what NASA/GISS says about the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project data.
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