There are a couple of emerging theories on clouds, and how they form, and in time these theories may blow away the current so-called consensus on anthropogenic global warming from carbon dioxide as a key driver of climate.
One of these theories concerns cosmic rays.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the words “cosmic rays” with some enthusiasm at a Sunday lunch and everyone looked a me with a degree of apprehension and no one asked me to “explain further”. I could see the minds of the 10 or so others at the table ticking over. They were probably thinking, “What on earth is she talking about?”.
Well, I was about to attend a lecture by Dr Eigil Friis-Christensen, the director of the Danish National Space Centre.
This centre has published research suggesting that satellite observations of cloud cover and laboratory observations of aerosol formation indicate climate is signifcantly affected by the cosmic ray flux, modulated by the solar magnetic field.
Slide from presentation by Eigil Friis-Christensen, Mittagong, April 5, 2008
Current United Nation’s IPCC climate models do not incorporate the influence of cosmic rays and therefore according to Dr Friis-Christensen can not hope to predict future climate.
The week before Dr Friis-Christensen gave his lecture at Mittagong, a paper was published suggesting the potential influence of cosmic rays was over-rated. Bloggers Lubos Motl and Nir Shaviv discuss the problems with the Sloan & Wolfendale paper which was given significant exposure by the BBC.
More to come on cosmic rays in part 2 of this post.
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see also my blog post:
Graeme Pearman Claims Antarctica is Warming (Global Warming and The Cosmos, Part 1)
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002905.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
There are some interesting points raised at the Thunderbolts site, principally written for a lay-audience, about the clouds and electric plasma.
Some links are listed below.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/071217electricclouds.htm
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050104weather.htm
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/040917electric-weather.htm
and as hurricanes are of interest at this moment:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060420hurricanes.htm
And finally some interesting observations over Africa:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/071119electricweather.htm
While the impression might be gained that cosmic rays are some new factor affecting weather, electric plasma science has understood this for some 100 years starting with Kristiaan Birkelands work on the polar auroras.
The details Jennifer will present here plus the mature science that is electric plasma will finally demonstrate that the earth’s weather is fundamentally the physical behaviour of the earth’s surface as an electrically charged sphere suspended in the electric plasma of space.
These cosmic ray studies are the first stepping stone of the most profound shift in the scientific paradigm since Newton’s days.
Particle physicists developed cloud chambers to observe the behavior of high-energy interactions in the first third of the last century. Pity climate ‘science’ is so insolently insulated re: insolation.
Or maybe not…
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2008/2008040226520.html
Got any studies showing any correlation between clouds and cosmic rays?
Mr T, “Got any studies showing any correlation between clouds and cosmic rays?”
From the link:”The new research shows that change in cloud cover over the Earth does not correlate to changes in cosmic ray intensity”
First problem is they tried to correlate with low energy neutrons as detected in neutron monitors. They have insufficient energy to ionise air particles in order to form condensation nuclei. With those one should not be expecting correlation to begin with unless they be shown to be a proxy for high energy particles which they are not. The NASA press release strikes me as disingenuous as I think it unlikely that they did not know this.
You can find Nir Shaviv’s more detailed response to that paper here:
http://www.sciencebits.com/SloanAndWolfendale
You might also look at this:
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/77543w3q4mq86417/fulltext.pdf
Thanks Jan,
Yeah I posted before I noticed Jennifer was actually disputing what I posted… I should learn to read first.
Mr T, “I should learn to read first.”
I wish I could say I have never made a similar mistake. If the truth be know I expect we all have some history.
What I would like to see with all this research is data on clouds. There should be (if the theory is correct) a reduction in low level clouds leading up to late last year (just looking at trends so it could end earlier or later) then perhaps a large increase in cloudiness.
There should be data on cloudiness available.
If they gave out medals for glossing over an article then posting on it… I’d be a champion something or other.
Mr T, you might find something here. Please share if you do I haven ‘t time.
http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/PRODOCS/isccp/table_isccp.html
Do cosmic rays exist? How do we know what type of radiation interferes with water vapor?
From Rutherford to recent cosmic ray research there was a short but exciting period of new experiments. Rutherford a chemist reckoned “In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Rutherford
We can detect cosmic energy at home but let’s not get carried away with the extent of its impact on our climate. Many people have not yet built or played with a cloud chamber so their discovery probably remains the subject of acute personal excitement.
We can blame certain blogs for that hey. What say they have a go at the practice first hand?
http://robfatland.net/MainSequence/CosmicRays.html
Jan: This Science Daily track back on NASA cloud research has been up on my screen for days. IMO it adds to the case for AGW.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050104072650.htm
No one is claiming all of global warming can be explained by cosmic rays, no one is claiming all low level cloud formation is due to cosmic rays, no one is claiming clouds will form due to cosmic rays where conditions aren’t favourable. The cosmic ray hypothesis is attacked by continual publication of straw-man arguments. Straw-man neutron monitors rather than ionisation chmabers, cosmic ray energies less than 10GeV etc.
Louis
Thanks for introducing me to the Thunderbolt blog.
It’s nice to see conclusions about the jets of Enceledus, which I thought were mine alone, confirmed in detail.
Gavin, your opinion is in your wallet. Just like your head is up your —.
What I see is another scientific consensus which doesn’t hold water, couched in an article which painfully tortures the study in order that it might still support what is rapidly becoming the only shred of AGW theory remaining. IE: the daft argument that we must proceed with co2 regulation because it couldn’t hurt keeping the atmosphere tidy, just for cleanliness’ sake.
How many times did that supposedly scientific article use the phrase “polluted clouds”?
Polluted with what?
It’s BS. If they are talking about silicone shards, sulfer, ammonia, or soot, it is incumbent upon the scientists to state this outright, instead of tossing out fudge language with ambiguous meaning.
Do Cosmic Rays Exist?
Gavin, I think you might find this site useful
http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/TheUniverse.html
Just in case you miss the point, the universe comprises 99% matter in the plasma state, and cosmic rays are simply charged particles in motion, AKA electricty. Space conducts electricity, there is definitely charge separation in space.
Science has made some progress from the cloud chamber in the area of electric plasma physics, as detailed on the web resource linked in this post.
Gavin: This Science Daily track back on NASA cloud research has been up on my screen for days. IMO it adds to the case for AGW.
Looks more like a press release to me rather than data.
Louis: Why go past NASA?
http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_cr.html#em
When there is so much info available directly from NASA on research, why do we need blog guides?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2008/2008040226520.html
Jan: This thread tracks back to another book (2006). I had market friends doing publisher’s remnants too untill they also ran out of readers.
Gavin
The Plasma Universe link is not a blog guide. Obviously its content has overwhelmed your cognitive abilties.
Mr. T: Got any studies showing any correlation between clouds and cosmic rays?
quite a few. here’s some I have quick access to:
Shaviv, N. J., ( 2005). “On Climate Response to Changes in the Cosmic Ray Flux and Radiative Budget”, JGR-Space, vol. 110, A08105.’
Dergachev, V.A., Dmitriev, P.B., Raspopov, O.M. and Jungner, H. 2006. Cosmic ray flux variations, modulated by the solar and earth’s magnetic fields, and climate changes. 1. Time interval from the present to 10-12 ka ago (the Holocene Epoch). Geomagnetizm i Aeronomiya 46: 123-134.
Perry, C.A., Evidence for a physical linkage between galactic cosmic rays …, J. Adv. Space Res. (2007), doi:10.1016/j.asr.2007.02.079
Lockwood, M., and R. Stamper, 1999: Long-term drift of the coronal source magnetic flux and the total solar irradiance. Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 2461-2464.
I know there’s more.
wagner, thanks for the references. I must get around to reading some of them, perhaps after my next trip to the library. Regarding the Lockwood/Stamper paper, is the Lockwood here the same Mike Lockwood who co-wrote the following recent paper?
Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface
air temperature, by MIKE LOCKWOOD AND CLAUS FROEHLICH
Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 2007 (doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880 Published online)
The abstract is as follows:
“There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth’s pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth’s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures.”
Thanks Jan and Wagner, am a bit busy right now to read all these.
Wagner what I really wanted was an analysis of cloud cover on the Earth and whether the actual cloud level can be shown to be correlated with CRs.
Mr T:
“NOAA Aircraft to Probe Arctic Pollution
April 7, 2008
NOAA scientists are now flying through springtime Arctic pollution to find out why the region is warming — and summertime sea ice is melting — faster than predicted. Some 35 NOAA researchers are gathering with government and university colleagues in Fairbanks, Alaska, to conduct the study through April 23.
“The Arctic is changing before our eyes,” said A.R. Ravishankara, director of the chemistry division at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. “Capturing in detail the processes behind this large and surprisingly rapid transformation is a unique opportunity for understanding climate changes occurring elsewhere.”
Observations from instruments on the ground, balloons, and satellites show the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe. Summer sea-ice extent has decreased by nearly 40 percent compared to the 1979–2000 average, and the ice is thinning.
Industry, transportation, and biomass burning in North America, Europe, and Asia are emitting trace gases and tiny airborne particles that are polluting the polar region, forming an “Arctic Haze” every winter and spring. Scientists suspect these pollutants are speeding up the polar melt.
Called ARCPAC (Aerosol, Radiation, and Cloud Processes affecting Arctic Climate), the project is a NOAA contribution to International Polar Year 2008” –
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080407_arctichaze.html
“Wagner what I really wanted was an analysis of cloud cover on the Earth and whether the actual cloud level can be shown to be correlated with CRs.”
http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate#MSJGR
see figure 3