Here’s a surprise. The growth of trees in Britain appears to correlate to cosmic ray intensity. University of Edinburgh researchers have found that trees are growing faster when high levels of cosmic radiation arrive from space. This may also correlate to the Interplanetary Magnetic Field which tends to modulate Galactic Cosmic Rays. The discover lends credence to Svensmark’s work on GCR to cloud cover correlation by demonstrating yet another tangible effect.
The researchers made the discovery studying how growth rings of spruce trees changed over the past half a century.
Here’s the kicker: the variation in cosmic rays affected the tree growth more than changes in temperature or precipitation.
ABSTRACT (link)
- Here, we investigated the interannual variation in the growth rings formed by Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) trees in northern Britain (55°N, 3°W) over the period 1961–2005 in an attempt to disentangle the influence of atmospheric variables acting at different times of year.
- Annual growth rings, measured along the north radius of freshly cut (frozen) tree discs and climatological data recorded at an adjacent site were used in the study. Correlations were based on Pearson product–moment correlation coefficients between the annual growth anomaly and these climatic and atmospheric factors.
- Rather weak correlations between these variables and growth were found. However, there was a consistent and statistically significant relationship between growth of the trees and the flux density of galactic cosmic radiation. Moreover, there was an underlying periodicity in growth, with four minima since 1961, resembling the period cycle of galactic cosmic radiation.
- We discuss the hypotheses that might explain this correlation: the tendency of galactic cosmic radiation to produce cloud condensation nuclei, which in turn increases the diffuse component of solar radiation, and thus increases the photosynthesis of the forest canopy.
The BBC also covers this in an article, here is an excerpt:
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
The growth of British trees appears to follow a cosmic pattern, with trees growing faster when high levels of cosmic radiation arrive from space.
Researchers made the discovery studying how growth rings of spruce trees have varied over the past half a century.
As yet, they cannot explain the pattern, but variation in cosmic rays impacted tree growth more than changes in temperature or precipitation.
The study is published in the scientific journal New Phytologist.
“We were originally interested in a different topic, the climatological factors influencing forest growth,” says Ms Sigrid Dengel a postgraduate researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Science at the University of Edinburgh.
“The relation of the rings to the solar cycle was much stronger than to any climatological factors “Sigrid Dengel University of Edinburgh
To do this, Ms Dengel and University of Edinburgh colleagues Mr Dominik Aeby and Professor John Grace obtained slices of spruce tree trunks.
These had been freshly-felled from the Forest of Ae in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, by Forest Research, the research branch of the UK’s Forestry Commission.
The trees had been planted in 1953 and felled in 2006.
The researchers froze the trunk slices, to prevent the wood shrinking, then scanned them on to a computer and used software to count the number and width of the growth rings.
As the trees aged, they showed a usual decline in growth.
However, during a number of years, the trees’ growth also particularly slowed. These years correlated with periods when a relatively low level of cosmic rays reached the Earth’s surface.
When the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the Earth’s surface was higher, the rate of tree growth was faster.
Read the entire BBC report here
Cloud formation, anyone?
Hmm.
Just the hint of a Climate Change negative at the end of the BBC piece.
An interesting concept. If others find similar patterns from elsewhere it may stimulate some new thinking. I wonder what other explanation might be put forward …
I recall another paper that found base flows in very large river basins also responded to GCR, possibly due to changes in raingfall and evapotranspiration. Other studies have also found solar infuences on rainfall. Others found solar influences on ENSO, and ENSO drives the PDO etc…
Seems wherever we look the sun influences the biosphere and the climate, with some even suggesting influences on volcanic and seismic activity.
Of course if your from RC, then the sun only effects the earth through changing TSI – yeah right!
Another example of expanding uncertainty – the more we learn about the climate the less we know!
But, but, but it’s almost as if CO2 isn’t as overwhelmingly important as we’ve been led to believe.
What I found interesting about this piece is that
a) the study was undertaken and the scientists actually looked beyond their indoctrinal noses to test for the correlation that must not be named.
b) the BBC published this story.
Maybe the Beeb is carefully repositioning itself as a news agency, and it was just reporting the news previoyusly. Now there is new news and it is also reporting it.
Sliding custards!
stumpy (17:09:58) :
Perhaps the Solar dam will burst and drown the AGWERs.
Gosh, I love mixing metaphores 🙂
You guys have it all backwards.
Its obvious that tree growth actually influences Cosmic rays.
Its at least as obvious as Tiljander varves and CO2 in the Vostok ice cores.
May I throw in another piece of the puzzle?
“The assumption in all of these studies was that tree leaf temperatures were equal to ambient temperatures,” lead researcher Brent Helliker said. “It turns out that they are not.”
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/11/tree-leaf-temperature.html
Odd. I thought they’d grow more when the cosmic rays are lower. The UK is a climate anomaly. Maybe the wet compensates for the cold.
That’s what I thought.
Very interesting, although I’m slightly confused. Are they saying that it is not the extra rain that would result from extra cloud formation caused by GCRs, but the actual GCRs themselves?
Either way, if confirmed, this has got to be yet another nail in the Hockey Stick’s coffin. Much more of this and we’ll need a second lid for it.
Think I found a link between your previous article ‘Global Warming may spur increased growth in Pacific NW Forests ‘ …”According to Greg Latta, an OSU faculty research assistant and principal investigator on the study, most of the climate scenarios that were used showed increases in temperatures – from one to eight degrees – but precipitation projections were all over the map, sometimes up and sometimes down. At lower elevations, tree growth is constrained when moisture is limited and drought stress is an issue.”
Perhaps these cosmic rays could explain a pattern to those precipitation projections
meemoe_uk, I thought the same thing as soon as I read it. Wouldn’t Svensmark’s work suggest cooler temps during periods of high cosmic rays which should result it slower growth? Can anyone shed light on it.
G
Bruce: your
May I throw in another piece of the puzzle?
Interesting. Based on this study you linked, and the Swiss study mentioned in that, and the fact that both found the temperature anomaly was throughout the forest canopy; we could extrapolate, that widespread deforestation, especially in the tropics, could significantly impact global temperatures.
hmmmmm…..
Has anyone said, “It’s the sun, stupid.”, yet???
hmmm….. I am skeptical of anything to do with tree rings after the hockey stick fiasco…. but …
That being said, if there was some truth to this , how would one interpret the RAW tree ring records that were used in the hockey stick & other paleo-climate reconstructions. Any support / correlation there for this hypothesis?
Maybe the particles get rid of pests like I hope the coming cold will do.
DOI of the cosmic ray tree ring study is 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.03026.x
We are winning, not that I ever really wanted to play this game, but whatever.
This is interesting but counterintuitive. According to the Svensmark theory (I’m not convinced either way on it), the Little Ice Age presumably was cold because the sun was inactive (almost no sunspots for 70 years), and this inactivity allowed more cosmic rays and thus more clouds and a cooler earth. Yet tree ring records show reduced growth during this cold period (unless you are Michael Mann and colleagues).
The evidence provided in today’s article suggests that when the sun is cooler (at least within the context of recent 11 year cycles), trees grow more, not less, as in the LIA.
Perhaps the difference is that if we had 70 years of very low solar activity, perhaps trees might grow well at the beginning of the cycle, when things were still relatively warm, but if a cooler sun really meant a genuinely cooler world with less heat and shorter growing seasons, then even with the kind of connection demonstrated in this article, you would still get less growth with less cosmic rays.
Not sure how to put the LIA and today’s growth possibilities in context….
Wow. If we can see the influence of GCRs in tree rings, where else have they left their mark?
To stumpy (17:09:58):
Here is a link to an article in the New Scientist linking sunspot activity and flows in the Parana river in South America:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026814.100
Speaking of correlations, this study would seem to correlate rather well with Dr. Tim Patterson’s work with mud cores in NW Canadian fjords:
http://tinyurl.com/35x68k
/Mr Lynn
Annual growth rings, measured along the north radius of freshly cut (frozen) tree discs and climatological data recorded at an adjacent site were used in the study.
I find climate data from an adjacent site much more persuasive than Mann, et al’s comparisons with climate data from distant sites processed through a climate model.
A very interesting result. Of note,
The BBC report has only a weak attempt to blame AGW, in the form of aerosols and not GHGs.
The discovery was by accident. They didn’t set out to look for a cosmic ray connection, ie it wasn’t in their funding request or terms.
It is brave of them to publish these results and I hope it doesn’t harm their future funding. However, with reference to my next point, I fear they have committed career suicide.
Correlations were based on Pearson product–moment correlation coefficients between the annual growth anomaly and these climatic and atmospheric factors.
# Rather weak correlations between these variables and growth were found.
This single result, if confirmed/replicated, invalidates all the work of the Mann school of dendroclimatology and of course the Hockey Stick.
A possible explanation for the extra growth during high comic rays is that if Svensmark is right you would get more cloud cover which would mean warmer nights, most plants do most of their growing at night.
I have measured Hop plants growing up to a foot in one night when it was warm and thundery.