It won’t be evenly split between day and night, and I would think it strange if the clouds stayed dominant in only one daytime phase. The most difficult part of this analysis would be coming up with the global average data to compare with the global average temperature, imho.

Unfortunately, Steve doesn’t allow discussion along these lines, so you’ll have to find another venue to get into the political aspects of IPCC and AGW in general. (Not that there aren’t plenty of such sites out there).

Whether the result of this tension represents a corruption of the intended process, I don’t know. It just seems inevitable to me that the advice sections, regardless of a particular bias-or the lack thereof, are always going to come down on one side or another. Otherwise, nobody gets paid. The dice are always loaded.

Perhaps the only possible solution is to do away with the advice section; have the IPCC produce an objective, thoroughly scientific report, with room for all sides to contribute, and then submit the whole thing to entirely independent mediation.

On another level, a serious and perhaps insurmountable difficulty is that the whole IPCC process purports to give up an individual nation state’s rights to control its own destiny in a crucially important area. It would be difficult to think of another area in which so much apparent prestige is granted to the UN. Fundamental disputes are inevitable.

In general the leadership that has forced international agreements on emissions controls has come from professions that have no such standards. The obvious reluctance of governments to adopt another Kyoto-like set of emissions constraints based on the justification presented in the IPCC reports is a sign that the IPCC’s arbitrary standards and practices are just not good enough.

The abuses of climate science by NGO opportunists and some government agencies also makes the case for both “engineering” and ethical standards.
When legitimate attempts to analyze and control the Earth’s atmosphere become confused with fundraisers’ profiteering we are all being gored.

So Team, what’s the next step?