The recent paper by Tselioudis et al., titled “Contraction of the World’s Storm-Cloud Zones the Primary Contributor to the 21st Century Increase in the Earth’s Sunlight Absorption”, is a fascinating—and deeply problematic—addition to the climate science canon. It offers yet another reminder that so-called “settled science” in climate modeling is anything but settled. In fact, it inadvertently illustrates how fragile the predictive power of climate models is, especially when fundamental atmospheric processes like cloud coverage are shown to be both more dynamic and less understood than previously claimed.

Not that any of this is news to WUWT readers. Dr. Roy Spencer has been noting almost identical observations for over a decade as noted here,

Now let’s look at the broader scientific community catching up to Dr. Spencer.

Abstract

Recent Earth energy budget observations show an increase in the sunlight absorbed by the Earth of 0.45 W/m² per decade, caused primarily by a decrease in cloud reflection. Here we decompose the solar radiative budget trends into general circulation and cloud controlling process components. Regimes representing the midlatitude and tropical storm zones are defined, and the trends in the areal coverage of those regimes which are potentially induced by circulation changes are separated from trends in the cloud radiative effect within each regime which are potentially induced by changes in local cloud controlling processes. The regime area change component, which manifests itself as a contraction of the midlatitude and tropical storm regimes, constitutes the largest contribution to the solar absorption trend, causing decreased sunlight reflection of 0.37 W/m² per decade. This result provides a crucial missing piece in the puzzle of the 21st century increase of the Earth’s solar absorption.

Key Points

• Satellite observations show that in the past 24 years the worlds storm cloud zones have been contracting at a rate of 1.5%–3% per decade
• This contraction allows more solar radiation to reach the Earth’s surface and constitutes the largest contribution to the observed 21st century trend of increased solar absorption

Plain Language Summary

Analysis of satellite observations shows that in the past 24 years the Earth’s storm cloud zones in the tropics and the middle latitudes have been contracting at a rate of 1.5%–3% per decade. This cloud contraction, along with cloud cover decreases at low latitudes, allows more solar radiation to reach the Earth’s surface. When the contribution of all cloud changes is calculated, the storm cloud contraction is found to be the main contributor to the observed increase of the Earth’s solar absorption during the 21st century.

To understand the full implications of this study, we need to parse its findings in plain terms. The paper concludes that the Earth has absorbed significantly more solar radiation over the past 24 years—0.45 W/m² per decade. The primary culprit? A reduction in cloud cover, specifically a contraction of the midlatitude and tropical storm-cloud zones. This change has resulted in less solar radiation being reflected back into space and more being absorbed by the Earth’s surface. Crucially, 0.37 W/m² of this uptick is attributed solely to this contraction in cloud coverage, a result of large-scale atmospheric circulation changes:

“This cloud contraction, along with cloud cover decreases at low latitudes, allows more solar radiation to reach the Earth’s surface. When the contribution of all cloud changes is calculated, the storm cloud contraction is found to be the main contributor to the observed increase of the Earth’s solar absorption during the 21st century.”

Let’s pause there. Climate science has long emphasized the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gases—especially CO2—in trapping outgoing longwave radiation, contributing to surface warming. Yet here we have empirical satellite observations showing that changes in shortwave radiation absorption, due to cloud dynamics, dominate recent trends in Earth’s energy imbalance. That revelation alone should be enough to shake the very foundations of climate policy, which has funneled trillions into carbon control with scant attention paid to cloud feedback mechanisms.

More damning still is the admission that these changes are likely tied to “general circulation shifts,” specifically poleward movements of storm tracks and contractions of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). These are phenomena long suspected in model projections but never given such a central, quantifiable role in the planetary energy budget. And here’s the kicker: these circulation shifts are said to have emerged gradually, to the tune of 1.3% to 3% per decade:

“In all three zones, the area coverage of the L‐TCC regime shows statistically significant decreases with extremes of 1.84 ± 0.38% to 3.20 ± 0.97% per decade… indicating a contraction of the midlatitude storm regions and a narrowing of the ITCZ region.”

These aren’t theoretical projections—they are based on hard satellite data from the MODIS and CERES instruments. Models, by contrast, have only roughly hinted at these changes, and often fail to reproduce them with consistency.

The paper outlines that most of the shortwave cloud radiative effect (SWCRE) change—the key measure of how much solar energy is reflected by clouds—comes not from changes in cloud properties themselves, but from the shrinking geographic area of major cloud regimes:

“In all zones, the dominant trend is the SW cloud radiative warming that is coming from the contraction of the S‐SWCRE regimes and the corresponding expansion of the W‐SWCRE regimes.”

That’s the kind of subtle, high-leverage feedback mechanism that models tend to get wrong or underrepresent entirely. And that’s a problem. Because if your model can’t accurately simulate cloud regime shifts—which appear to contribute more than 80% of the increase in solar absorption—then your forecasts for future warming are at best incomplete, and at worst, wildly misleading.

Tselioudis et al. even admit this shortcoming, noting:

“It is imperative to test the skills of climate models in simulating the observed storm‐cloud area contraction, and to use both modeling and observational analyses to understand the interactions between atmospheric dynamics shifts and storm cloud changes.”

That’s bureaucratese for “we didn’t see this coming, and we’re not sure our models can catch up.” It’s reminiscent of NASA’s Gavin Schmidt’s recent handwringing over 2023’s “unexplainable” heat spike, suggesting that “we could be in uncharted territory.” Now, we have the chart. And it doesn’t point toward CO2 alone—it points to dynamic, cloud-driven changes that no carbon tax will stop.

What this paper also inadvertently confirms is the unreliability of using long-term climate models to dictate aggressive, disruptive policies like Net Zero. The models are missing key physical processes—cloud behavior, aerosol effects, and large-scale atmospheric shifts. As the paper notes:

“The general circulation shift component constitutes the dominant term of the recent increase in absorbed solar radiation and provides a crucial missing piece in the puzzle of the 21st century radiative warming and the large heat anomaly of 2023.”

Yet these shifts are only just beginning to be understood, and their driving forces—whether natural variability, solar activity, ocean cycles, or some interaction thereof—remain far from nailed down.

Worse still, the authors openly speculate that low-latitude cloud reductions could be driven by aerosol changes—particularly the decline in ship emissions:

“This component shows a significant cloud radiative warming of 0.21 W/m²/decade that can be attributed to aerosol indirect effects on clouds including effects from the reduction of aerosol ship emissions.”

That’s right: the same well-meaning efforts to reduce pollution from ocean-going vessels may have accelerated warming by allowing more sunlight to hit the surface. Climate mitigation whack-a-mole strikes again.

In sum, Tselioudis et al.’s paper is a quietly revolutionary work—not because it introduces a new alarmist narrative, but because it destabilizes the prevailing one. It shows that:

• Cloud feedbacks, especially those driven by circulation shifts, have enormous and previously underestimated impacts on Earth’s radiative balance.
• These changes are driven by complex, poorly understood dynamics that current climate models struggle to replicate.
• Policy decisions predicated on “settled science” have been made in the absence of understanding a major component of the Earth’s energy system.

If climate science were a functioning scientific discipline rather than a priesthood, this paper would trigger a major course correction. It would cast doubt on the simplistic link between CO2 and warming, redirecting focus toward cloud physics, ocean-atmosphere interactions, and circulation dynamics. It would foster humility in the face of atmospheric complexity—not arrogance born from model outputs.

But don’t expect that anytime soon. Instead, expect the usual suspects to spin this as evidence of “even worse than we thought” warming, conveniently omitting the part where their models didn’t predict it and their policies had nothing to do with it.

In the meantime, this paper should serve as ammunition for any skeptic pointing out the absurdity of building trillion-dollar policies on the backs of incomplete and overconfident simulations. The cloud regimes are shifting. The models aren’t keeping up. And neither is the narrative.

From THE DAILY CALLER

Steve Milloy
Contributor

President Trump is trying to save money by terminating leases on facilities used by federal agencies. One of these is EPA’s Human Studies Facility located at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. “Scientists are trying to save it,” reports Nature magazine. But being a waste of money is the least interesting aspect of the infamous lab.

In 2011, through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), I exposed the lab’s illegal experimentation on humans with air pollutants that EPA considers to be deadly. The lab’s central feature is an actual gas chamber into which EPA pumped exhaust from a diesel truck idling outside in a parking lot. You can see a photo of the twisted arrangement here.

After filtering out the carbon monoxide, EPA concentrated the exhaust’s fine particulate matter (soot, called “PM2.5” by EPA) to unrealistically high levels and pumped it into the chamber in which human guinea pigs inhaled it for periods of two hours. The purpose of the experiments was to observe the effects, if any, of inhaling PM2.5. For these experiments, EPA had recruited: asthmatics; people with heart disease and diabetes; and elderly persons up to 80 years of age. EPA paid its human guinea pigs as much as a couple thousand dollars for their participation in the experiments. (RELATED: ‘How Is That Zero Evidence?’: Trump EPA Chief Dresses Down Legacy Media During Fiery Press Conference)

All this may seem harmless enough. But was it? EPA had previously concluded that PM2.5 was, essentially, the most toxic substance known to man. Any inhalation could cause death within hours, the agency had determined.  It had also stated that the people most at risk from inhaling PM2.5 were: asthmatics; people with heart disease and diabetes; and the elderly. Those at risk from PM2.5 were the very sort of people upon whom it had been experimenting.

But EPA had not disclosed any of this to, and so did not obtain legally required “informed consent” from its human guinea pigs. Instead of informing its human guinea pigs in writing that the agency believed the experiments could kill them, as was required by federal regulations, state law and the Nuremberg Code on human experimentation, the agency’s consent forms only disclosed that some temporary coughing or wheezing may result from the experiments.

Upon learning of the horrific experiments, a group to which I belonged sued the agency in federal court to stop them. The documents filed by EPA in response to our lawsuit revealed some shocking facts and admissions.

In an affidavit filed with the court, an EPA employee stated that he verbally warned the human guinea pigs: “There is a possibility you may die from this [experiment].” Although such important information would have had to be disclosed, and consent obtained in writing (versus merely verbally), it has simply been illegal since the discovery of the Nazi concentration camp research to risk human lives in non-therapeutic medical experiments. Conducting experiments for the purpose of issuing regulations clearly falls outside of that exception.

In the Department of Justice memorandum filed on behalf of the agency, EPA made the shocking admissionthat, in fact, the science (i.e., epidemiology studies) that it relied on to conclude that PM2.5 was deadly, wasn’t actually sufficient scientifically for making its PM2.5 claims. In fact, the reason the EPA was conducting the human experiments, it admitted, was to develop biological evidence or plausibility to back up the lethality of PM2.5 it told the public the epidemiology studies indicated. This meant that EPA was trying to harm (kill?) the patients to back up its mere hypothesis about the lethality of PM2.5.

Fortunately for EPA, it could also admit that no one had been harmed by PM2.5 in its experiments, which failed to elicit a cough or a wheeze among the hundreds of allegedly “vulnerable” human guinea pigs it tried to harm.

The court eventually dismissed our lawsuit for lack of standing, not on the merits. It ruled that only the human guinea pigs could bring such a lawsuit, a bizarre outcome since EPA had lied to them about what it was doing in the first place. But EPA’s conduct had been exposed to the world and the agency was shamed into halting the illegal experiments. The agency tried to rehabilitate itself with subsequent white wash investigations by its own Inspector General and the National Academy of Sciences. But neither effort was successful.

Fast forward to today and there have been real world consequences to EPA’s illegal experiments and the Trump EPA must address them to implement its deregulatory agenda.

PM2.5 has been the most powerful regulatory weapon of the Clinton, Obama and Biden EPAs. The Obama-Biden and, later, the Biden-Harris war-on-coal air quality rules for greenhouse gases and mercury emissions all actually depend on the validity of its PM2.5 claims. Just this week, the Trump EPA announced it was going to roll back those two rules.

When first issued by the Obama and Biden EPAs, the regulations couldn’t survive a standard cost-benefit analysis with respect to greenhouse gas or mercury emissions. To make the rules politically defensible cost-benefit-wise, the agency claimed that by reducing coal plant greenhouse gas and mercury emissions, the new rules would also reduce emissions of PM2.5.  Given that EPA had claimed that PM2.5 killed about 570,000 Americans per year and the agency valued each death $10 million, there has been no regulatory cost that could balance, much less overcome, the claimed benefits of the rules.

But EPA’s PM2.5 claims were all lies. We now know that because of the illegal human experiments and our lawsuit. Closing the infamous lab is great start. But the EPA should apply the results of the human experiments controversy to shut down the EPA’s many PM2.5-based regulatory abuses.

Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.