The Clouds control the Climate.
Erik Bye
October 4, 2025
This is a description of the lecture given by Professor Emeritus John Clauser, at the Nordic climate meeting at Gardermoen, Norway,August 30-31, 2025. The title of the lecture was:
“Climate change is a hoax.Acloud thermostat stablizes the Earth’s climate, not the greenhouse gases. There is no climate crisis!”
Professor John Clauser was a Nobel Laurate in Physics in 2022.
This description was given in Norwegian by Ole Henrik Ellestad and Olav M. Kvalheim, and presented in the net Newspaper Document, with the title:
“The Clouds are the problem child of the climate models.”
I translated the text.
Introduction
The climate realists recently held a climate conference. The main attraction was a lecture by the 2022 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, John Clauser, on the planet's energy balance and clouds as part of the "global thermostat". Document (a Norwegian net Newspaper) was the only media representative at the conference and has published several articles and a very well-conducted interview with Clauser.
In addition, Nettavisen (another Norwegian net Newspaper) published a particularly good interview with Clauser on September 14, but with a tail of comments from CICERO's Bjørn H. Samset, who in familiar style dismisses the criticism from Clauser. Nettavisen did not want further to debate about Samset's claims.
Samset's arguments against Clauser are few and general, and they end with the strange claim that "the ball" is now in Clauser's court. It is not. The climate calculations and measurements are primarily based on "cloudless skies" (which Clauser also mentions and is criticized for) before clouds are brought in with a
Clauser on Clouds 1
Erik Bye
very simplified methodology. This is far from the solution even according to the IPCC's leading calculation experts (Bjorn Stevens, Tim Palmer).
Ice, water and water vapor as the global temperature regulator.
Climate is mainly determined by solar radiation and variations in water, ice and water vapor. Clouds are an important component with a fast response time. It gets cooler when clouds shade the Sun. The first measurements were made in the early 19th century (John Leslie, 1813). Variable solar energy affects the evaporation of water and inhibits the rise in temperature in the water. Oceans make up about 71% of the global surface and are dominant in the southern hemisphere.
The ocean, with the addition of rivers, wetlands and ice/snow-covered areas on land, is the global temperature regulator and "thermostat". Increasing surface temperature increases evaporation significantly (Clausius-Clapeyron, 1850), so much that the surface temperature rarely exceeds 30 ºC according to the 4,000 Argo buoys floating around the oceans. The average sea surface temperature has only increased by about 0.25 ºC in the last 20 years, in the upper 1900 meters by only 0.05 ºC, and is not measurable for the ocean as a whole. The water vapor brings large amounts of heat upwards into the atmosphere. They are released by condensation into water droplets and ice crystals, which return as precipitation to the Earth's surface - the hydrological cycle of 11 days with 510,000 km3 of water.
Evaporation as a temperature-stabilizing factor characterizes coastal climates with less variation between winter and summer compared to inland areas. This is also a main reason why our globe, the Blue Planet, has remained within temperature variations of 12 ºC for 550 million years with the influence of the solar system and the rest of the universe. The “tipping point” for various influences is unrealistic even with 15–20 times higher CO2 amounts in the atmosphere than today.
The second regulator is that in cold times, heat is released when water crystallizes into ice and snow, and the heat exchange from the surface to the atmosphere is attenuated. With warming, the temperature rise is reduced when much solar energy is used for melting.
Clouds as a thermostat
Daily observations show that after a cloudless morning, the cloud cover gradually increases in the afternoon and can become dark, with thunder and heavy rainfall. In tropical ocean areas this is even more widespread, and the violent evaporation and "deep convection" (described in 1958) bring the clouds all the way up to the lower stratosphere (18 km). In the Tropics, this involves energy amounts of over 100 W/m2, 50 times greater than the IPCC's postulated CO2 effect.
Satellite measurements of the radiation of reflected sunlight and emitted long-wave infrared radiation clearly show the effects of clouds. They reflect a lot of sunlight, over the central Pacific Ocean up to 700 W/m2, and infrared radiation is reduced to less than the half. This is due to the dominant reflective effect of the clouds on sunlight and strong absorption of outgoing infrared radiation. Emitted radiation comes from the top of the clouds. Due to the drop in temperature with height, the effect is much less. The underside of the clouds sends infrared radiation down towards the Earth's surface.
Relationship between cloud cover and temperature
With a global average cloud cover of around 67%, the effect of observed variations of 3% is significantly larger than the contribution from variations in greenhouse gases. The figure below shows reduced global cloud cover at the top (Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring), while the temperature (UAH satellite) is rising in the lower troposphere (Climate4you).
Measurements of reflected light to the moon also show increased cloud cover on Earth. This provides a far better correlation than between temperature and CO2.
Eigil Kaas, Professor of Climate Physics at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, summarizes in the Danish Weekendavisen:
“When the imbalance in the Earth's energy account has doubled in the last 10–15 years, while the amount of greenhouse gases has only increased slightly, greenhouse gases cannot have a major impact. It must be changes in the low-lying clouds that play a decisive role.”
Gavin Schmidt (NASAGISS), to whom Samset refers, has stated in other contexts that the warming of recent years is far greater than the increase in CO2 can explain.
Clauser's contribution
Clauser's merit is to have reviewed key articles on temperature measurements, other data sources, radiation, energy exchange, clouds, and their significance. The IPCC is far below scientific standards in Physics. Publications that the IPCC omits provide much better agreement when land and ocean areas are treated separately for clear skies and with clouds. Clauser is aware that his contribution is only a step on the road to better understanding, but an important step.
He is clear that there can be no consensus on the excellence of calculation models when they do not handle the effect of clouds on temperature development. Until then, the "ball" is in Samset and the IPCC's hands.
Ole Henrik Ellestad, former research director and professor. Olav M. Kvalheim is Professor Emeritus (UiB).
Clauser on Clouds 4
Erik Bye