Robert D. Cess

TL;DR: The aerosol forcing has likely offset global greenhouse warming to a substantial degree, however, differences in geographical and seasonal distributions of these forcings preclude any simple compensation.

TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of clouds on the earth's radiation balance is assessed in terms of longwave, shortwave, and net cloud forcing by using monthly averaged clear-sky and cloudy-sky flux data derived from the NASA Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE).

TL;DR: Collocated satellite and surface measurements of solar radiation at five geographically diverse locations showed significant solar absorption by clouds, resulting in about 25 watts per square meter more global-mean absorption by the cloudy atmosphere than predicted by theoretical models.

TL;DR: The role of clouds in modifying the earth's radiation balance is well recognized as a key uncertainty in predicting any potential future climate change as mentioned in this paper, which is true whether the climate change of interest is caused by changing emissions of greenhouse gases and sulfates, deforestation, ozone depletion, volcanic eruptions, or changes in the solar constant.

TL;DR: The authors compared the climate sensitivity of 19 atmospheric general circulation models and found a roughly threefold variation among the models; most of this variation was attributed to differences in the models' depictions of cloud feedback.