Diagnostic studies based largely on the analyses of satellite observations such as those described above shed important new light on the role of radiation in climate. This research forms the cornerstone of climate model verification through exploration of basic relationships between key radiative properties of the Earth--Atmosphere Climate system (such as the so-called `greenhouse effect' and cloud radiative forcing) and key climate parameters such as sea-surface temperature [ Stephens and Greenwald, 1991a and b, Bony and Duvel, 1994; Stephens et al., 1993; Webb et al., 1993, Raval et al., 1994; Hallberg and Inamdar, 1994; Inamdar and Ramanathan, 1994]. As an example, this research has provided a refined understanding of greenhouse processes and forced an appreciation of the relative roles of moisture and temperature in influencing the emission of longwave radiation from the atmosphere [ Webb et al., 1993]. This research is also applied to studies of climate feedback to test ideas concerning understood feedbacks [e.g. Rind et al., 1992] and as fuel to hypothesize the existence of new feedbacks [e.g. Ramanthan and Collins, 1991; Fowler and Randall, 1995]. In particular, the wide-spread availability of both ERBE data and these new satellite cloud data products allow us to explore the global role of clouds on radiation and its possible role to climate and feedback. Relevant studies of this type include Senior and Mitchell, [1993]; Kiehl, [1994]; Jones et al. [1994], Lin and Rossow, [1994], Han et al., [1994], Tselioudis et al., [1992], Waliser et al., [1993, 1994]; Ramaswamy and Chen, [1993], and Prabhakara et al., [1993].