Reinforcement of Climate Hiatus by Decadal Modulation of Daily Cloud Cycle

Based on observations and climate model results, it has been suggested that the recent slowdown of global warming trends (climate hiatus), which took place in the early 2000s, might be due to enhanced ocean heat uptake. Here we suggest an alternative hypothesis which, at least in part, would relate such slowdown to unaccounted energy reflected or reemitted by clouds. We show that the daily cloud cycle is strongly linked to pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and that its decadal variations during the climate hiatus have an overall cooling effect. Such an effect may have partially, and temporarily, counteracted the greenhouse warming trends.