This investigation proposes an approach for using satellite radiation budget data to interpret and understand seasonal cloud-climate interactions in a manner that can serve as one means of testing and improving numerical climate models. By employing Earth Radiation Budget Experiment data it is demonstrated that, relative to the annual-mean climate, seasonal cloud variations produce radiative heating of the surface-atmosphere system in the summer hemisphere, together with cooling in the winter hemisphere. It is further illustrated that this is an integrated effect resulting from the combination of seasonal variations in cloud amount, cloud vertical distribution, and cloud optical depth. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1992