In 2017 we became interested in the CERES data, in particular the measured trend of increasing longwave radiation to space. Nobody seemed to register the significance of this, so in 2018 we downloaded the data and produced this graphic:

It showed very clearly that contrary to the greenhouse effect narrative that current warming is caused by increased absorption of long wave (LW) radiation to space by human CO2, that this radiation to space was actually increasing. It further showed that net radiation to space, a value calculated by subtracting the sum of SW and LW outgoing  from incoming solar radiation (hence the inverted axis), was controlled by a marked decrease in solar SW radiation being reflected back to space. In other words, it showed that our planet was warmed not by human CO2, but by a decrease in solar SW radiation reflected to space and therefore absorbed by the surface and atmosphere. We presented this argument continuously in social media and blogs, including to such luminaries as Gavin Schmidt, now director of NASA GISS. They could never refute the data, but chose to ignore it, especially since the Trunkmonkey Research Institute has little standing in those circles. In 2020, before the CERES data format was changed, we updated the graphic to show that the trends had continued.

Comes now a fully peer reviewed paper supporting our argument.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/10/1297

They comment: “the root cause for the positive TOA net flux and, hence, for a further accumulation of energy during the last two decades was a declining outgoing shortwave flux and not a retained LW flux.”

The authors have taken advantage surface fluxes, new to the CERES data, to directly measure the greenhouse effect. They do this by subtracting top of atmosphere upward LW flux from the surface upward LW flux in clear sky conditions. They find an attenuation of about 130W/m2 (33%) under clear skies from all the atmosphere except the liquid water and ice from clouds. Under cloudy skies, however, they find their correlations with CO2 and water vapor break down entirely, and now complicated by the absorption liquid water and ice in the clouds, a much reduced attenuation of 33W/m2 (12.6%). They comment:

“the rise of the greenhouse gas concentration from 2001 to 2020 had a measur‐
able effect on the LW flux in the “Clear Sky”, covering about 1/3rd of the Earth surface. In 
the cloudy part, about 2/3rd, this effect was much smaller, if significant at all.”