From the CO2Science archive: The authors write that “there is argument as to the extent to which there has been an increase over the past few decades in the frequency of the extremes of climatic parameters, such as temperature, storminess, precipitation, etc., an obvious point being that Global Warming might be responsible.” What was done: Erlykin et al. report results on those parameters with which they have had experience during the last few years: Global surface temperature, Cloud Cover and the MODIS Liquid Cloud Fraction.
Paper reviewed: Erlykin, A.D., Laken, B.A. and Wolfendale, A.W. 2011. Fluctuations in some climate parameters. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 73: 805-809.
What was learned:
The three researchers emphatically state that “in no case” have they found “indications that fluctuations of these parameters have increased with time.” More specifically, they say of the relative variability of global mean temperature that, “if anything, it illustrates an increased stability of the temperature since the 1930s,” which they say “is not at all understood.” With respect to cloud cover, they indicate that “cloud fluctuations have not varied much with time and are largely independent of latitude,” and they report that “there is no increase of liquid cloud fraction fluctuations with time.”
What it means:
Apparently, some weather and climatic parameters have not become more variable or extreme with the passage of time, even over the last few decades, when climate alarmists claim the earth warmed at a rate and to a level not experienced over the past millennium or more.
Very simply, the more sunlight strikes the ground, the warmer the weather is. Since government weather records began, the cloud cover was estimated in increments of 1/8 of the sky. Of course we have better methods since the satellite era. Nevertheless, it is not possible to use the previous 1/8 increments and determine if decreased cloud cover might be the cause of average surface temperature increases, since only 1% difference in cloud cover reflects enough sunlight back to outer space that it is the equivalent of that attributed to CO2 forcing since 1850.