Negative cloud feedback In 2007, Spencer and others published a paper in
Geophysical Research Letters regarding negative
cloud feedback in the tropics that potentially supports
Richard Lindzen's
Iris hypothesis, which proposes that as the tropical atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decrease, allowing infrared heat to escape from the atmosphere to outer space. Spencer stated, "To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent. [...] Right now, all climate models predict that clouds will amplify warming. I'm betting that if the climate models' 'clouds' were made to behave the way we see these clouds behave in nature, it would substantially reduce the amount of climate change the models predict for the coming decades."
Cloud formation and temperature change In 2008, Spencer and William Braswell published a paper in the
Journal of Climate which suggests that natural variations in how clouds form could actually be causing temperature changes, rather than the other way around, and could also lead to overestimates of how sensitive the Earth's climate is to greenhouse gas emissions. Spencer stated, "Our paper is an important step toward validating a gut instinct that many meteorologists like myself have had over the years, [...] that the climate system is dominated by stabilizing processes, rather than destabilizing processes – that is, negative feedback rather than positive feedback."
Energy lost to space as compared to climate models In 2011, Spencer and Braswell published a paper in
Remote Sensing concluding that more energy is radiated back to space and released earlier than previously thought. Spencer stated, "The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show. There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans." The paper was criticized by climate scientists.
Kerry Emanuel of MIT, said this work was cautious and limited mostly to pointing out problems with forecasting heat feedback, and that the interpretations of the study by non-scientists have "no basis in reality." stating, "From a purely formal point of view, there were no errors with the review process. [...] the problem I see with the paper by Spencer and Braswell is not that it declared a minority view ...but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents. This latter point was missed in the review process, explaining why I perceive this paper to be fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal." Wagner added he, "would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate skeptics have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions in public statements". He stated, among other things: ==Views==