This new paper shows what appears to be a link between Forbush descreases and terrestrial temperature change shortly afterwards. It is a short time scale demonstration of what Svensmark is positing happens on a longer climate appropriate time scale as the solar magnetic field changes with long periods. I’ve covered the topic of Forbush decreases before, and thus I’ll draw on that for a refresher.
A Forbush decrease is a rapid decrease in the observed galactic cosmic ray intensity following a coronal mass ejection (CME). It occurs due to the magnetic field of the plasma solar wind sweeping some of the galactic cosmic rays away from Earth.
Well we have that going on in a dramatic way right now [Feb 19th, 2011], it’s been going on since late yesterday. See the Oulu neutron monitor (a proxy for cosmic rays) graph:
You can monitor it live on the WUWT solar page here.
Nigel Calder reports of a new peer reviewed paper from the Institute of Physics in Belgrade, Serbia which demonstrates a link between such Forbush events and the increase in the diurnal temperature range averaged across 184 stations in Europe. It is quite compelling to read.
Europe: diurnal temperatures after Forbush decreases
A. Dragić, I. Aničin, R. Banjanac, V. Udovičić, D. Joković´, D. Maletić and J. Puzović, “Forbush decreases – clouds relation in the neutron monitor era”, Astrophysics and Space Sciences Transactions, 7, 315–318, 2011.
It was published on 31 August and the full text is available here http://www.astrophys-space-sci-trans.net/7/315/2011/astra-7-315-2011.pdf It’s typical of the pathetic state of science reporting that I still seem to have the story to myself ten days later.
The focus was on the “natural experiments” in which big puffs of gas from the Sun block some of the cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy towards the Earth. The resulting falls in cosmic ray influx, called Forbush decreases, last for a few days. The game is to look for observable reductions in cloudiness in the aftermath of these events. The results are most clearly favourable to the Svensmark hypothesis for the Forbush decreases with the largest percentage reductions in cosmic rays. Scientists keen to falsify the hypothesis have only to mix in some of the weaker events for the untidiness of the world’s weather to “hide the decline”.
The Serbs avoid that blunder by picking out the strongest Forbush decreases. And by using the simple, reliable and long-provided weather-station measurements of temperature by night and day, they avoid technical, interpretive and data-availability problems that surround more direct observations of clouds and their detailed properties. The temperatures come from 184 stations scattered all across Europe (actually, so I notice, from Greenland to Siberia). A compilation by the Mount Washington Observatory that spans four decades, from 1954 to 1995, supplies the catalogue of Forbush decreases.
The prime results are seen here in Dragić et al.‘s Figure 5. The graphs show the increase in the diurnal temperature range averaged across the continent in the days following the onset of cosmic ray decreases (day 0 on the horizontal scales). The upper panel is the result for 22 Forbush events in the range 7−10%, with a peak at roughly +0.35 oC in the diurnal temperature range. The lower panel is for 13 events greater than 10%. The peak goes to +0.6 oC and the influence lasts longer. It’s very satisfactory for the Svensmark hypothesis that the effect increases like this, with greater reductions in the cosmic rays. The results become hard (impossible?) to explain by any mechanism except an influence of cosmic rays on cloud formation.
To be candid, these results are much better than I’d have expected for observations from a densely populated continent with complex weather patterns, where air pollution and effects of vegetation confuse the picture of available cloud condensation nuclei. Svensmark’s team has emphasised the observable effects over the oceans. Now the approach taken by the Belgrade team opens the door to similar investigations in other continents. Let a march around the world’s land masses begin!
Physicist Luboš Motl also writes about the new paper:
What have they found? If they take all Forbush decreases, the effect is insignificant. However, if they compute the average of the largest Forbush decreases, they find a substantial increase of the day-night temperature difference by as much as a Fahrenheit degree around 3 days after the event [reference to Figure 5 above].
…
A higher day-night temperature difference indicates that the number of clouds is smaller – because clouds cool the days but heat up the nights a little bit, and thus reduce the temperature difference – which is in agreement with the cosmoclimatological expectation: the Forbush decreases makes the galactic cosmic rays disappear for some time (because of some massive, temporarily elevated activity of the Sun).
I think it’s both simple and clever to look at the day-night differences because the overall noise in the temperature is suppressed while the signal caused by the clouds is kept. Just to be sure, it’s obvious that clouds do reduce the day-time differences but that doesn’t mean that they preserve the day-night average. At typical places, they cool the days more than they heat up the nights.
For me, this paper begs replication and confirmation. The problem they have with the European data set is that it is noisy which required the averaging. Here in the USA though, there’s a dataset that may work even better, and that’s from the recently completed U.S. Climate Reference Network operated by the National Climatic Data Center. While that network is too new to be useful yet for long term climate studies, the care that was taken for station siting placement, accuracy of sensors, data resolution, and quality control make it a perfect candidate for use in replication of this effect.
These stations were designed with climate science in mind. Three independent measurements of temperature and precipitation are made at each station, insuring continuity of record and maintenance of well-calibrated and highly accurate observations. The stations are placed in pristine environments expected to be free of development for many decades. Stations are monitored and maintained to high standards, and are calibrated on an annual basis.
The data is of high quality, so any new study looking for this effect may not even need to do the DTR averaging done by Dragić et al. to see the effect if it is real.
The logged USCRN data is now available online here http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/observations.htm The February Forbush decrease event I highlighted at the beginning of this post might make a good starting point.
I see a paper on this in the near future, maybe even in Dessler record time.
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Dessler’s rapid publication is solely because he’s on the Team.
You, however, spread viscious ideas of cosmic rays letting CO2 off the hook.
No matter how much actual data you have,
you cannot be allowed to publish ideas the Team abhors.
So this is to do with night-time temperature changes as a result of cloud cover changes? That’s interesting, as I seem to recall that some (most?) of the annual average temperature increases of the last 50 years are more to do with increasing the minimum temps than increasing maximum ones. Am I right, and if so is it relevant here?
It will be necessary, to cement this theory, to detail the time it takes from galactic cosmic ray-induced cloud condensation nuclei (GCR-CCN) to grow into light-scattering diameters. Please keep in mind that as the CCN grow, they start shading/reflecting the higher frequency light first. This point seems to be universally overlooked. I can’t find a single paper dealing with it. First the (highly variable) EUV is shaded, then the (variable) UV, then (almost unvarying) visible, then (near-constant) infrared.
Puffy white clouds are only those we see with visible light which is part of reality. It is fairly easy to envisage transparent water vapour as a ‘cloud’ as far as IR is concerned. Now, add to your mental list of phenomena ‘scattering clouds’ that are visible only in UV light. Once this is accepted, you will be able to plot a shorter delay to the formation of UV-visible clouds, a medium delay visible clouds, and a longer delay to those droplets that interfere with long wave radiation.
The paper above deals with temperature as if the clouds are all visible at once. The analysis of the delay should be plotted with multiple frequency sets which interact with different diameter CCN.
Waiting for a response from The Team…
(I’m not really waiting, their actions have led me to consider them hopelessly incompetent and/or corrupt and not worth listening to.)
How’s that for a parenthetical sarc tag equivalent?
Now this appears to be solid science begging for attempts at replication! If it holds up…….we have our smoking gun..
So when will the editor be resigning?
Having recently had solar pv panels fitted on my house, I’ve been paying more attention than usual to the strength of sunlight reaching us. I found Crispin in Waterloo’s comments interesting as they sort of fit my own observations.
Dessler asserts that the only thing that affects cloud nucleation is temperature. Svensmark put fourth the theory that cosmic galactic rays (CGR) can produce cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) through a process known as gas to particle conversion. The CERN CLOUD experiment proved the CCN formation mechanism of Svensmark’s theory and now this new paper from the Institute of Physics puts fourth real world observation that changes in GCR’s affect temperature.
While the paper bypasses cloud observation for good reason, it is known that CCN’s produced from GCR’s can participate in cloud nucleation in two modes – direct and via coagulation. They can also scatter solar radiation via Rayleigh scattering at certain wavelengths. However the scattering effect is considered to be too small to affect temperature directly so there must be another, more powerful mechanism than Rayleigh scattering to account for this paper’s results.
If one connects the dots drawn by Svensmark, CERN, and the Serbs, the picture forming is clouds. If it can be proven directly, it will overturn Dessler’s unidirectional hypothesis, validate Svensmark’s theory, and add robustness to Spencer bidirectional hypothesis.
I sense we are just one paper away from making Dessler and the Team rather unhappy.
Geez guys! MEMORY, history, keep things CONNECTED – LOOK AT THIS –
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/svensmark-forebush.pdf
What we have here (SUN), is a serious Fay-lie-error to COMMUNICATE! (That’s a Cool Hand, Luke…what they said to Luke Skywalker, Star Wars II)
Max
PS: All light hearted!
“I see a paper on this in the near future, maybe even in Dessler record time”
For those who would like to replicate (or falsify) results of Dragić et al., here are some relevant (and independent) datasets in easy-to-download machine readable form:
Neutron monitor data for MCMURDO, NEWARK, SOUTH POLE & THULE
USCRN/USRCRN data (U.S. Climate Reference Network / U.S. Regional Climate Reference Network)
Both datasets have hourly resolution, simple text processing scripts are sufficient to parse them.
Peter Ward says:
September 11, 2011 at 9:18 am
So this is to do with night-time temperature changes as a result of cloud cover changes? That’s interesting, as I seem to recall that some (most?) of the annual average temperature increases of the last 50 years are more to do with increasing the minimum temps than increasing maximum ones. Am I right, and if so is it relevant here?
I think this is probably partly due to ‘rural stations’ getting a countryside UHI effect from modern irrigation practices. The increases humidity elevates night time minimum temperatures.
Very, very neat. Use long-established observations (weather stations, neutron fluxes) made by observers who had nothing to do with the Climate Wars; subtract highs from lows; correlate against the Forbush discontinuities; and Bob’s your Uncle.
Masterly. The subtractions neatly separate the weather from the climate; the data is long-published and anyone may repeat the correlations. The correlation looks good; now the debate will be the mechanism. Roll on the Cloud experiments Phases II, III, …
The paper by A. Dragić, et.al. strikes solid but preliminary support (too early to say ‘confirmation’, me thinks) for Svensmark’s hypothesis regarding Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) effects on terrestrial cloud formation, especially when combined with the CERN – CLOUD experimental results. They demonstrated a straight forward path to assess solar induced variations in atmospheric GCR intensity on our earthly Diurnal Temperature Range (DTR) – Brilliant! Another piece of the puzzle, that seems to ‘fit’!
One still has to posit the question “What else could it be?” The increase in DTR also directly correlates with large solar Coronal Mass Ejections. Is there a direct means of energy transfer from CMEs or some other secondary linkage that could be causing the positive pulse in DTRs?
This is exciting news and certain to be unsettling to the ‘settled science’ proponents! A few more pixels on the ever expanding map of human knowledge are being colored in…..
This is a very interesting paper and a very clever way indeed of trying to pin down the GCR/Cloud connection. It will be interesting to see if other global temperature data can be used for additional studies. One statistical study that could be easily done, and be directly related to solar cycles, would be to do a similar DTR analysis during the 1 year period around the top of solar cycle and compare it to the same locations during the 1 year period at the bottom. As GCR’s vary between these two periods by usually greater than the 7% threshold mentioned in this study, you should see a noticeable difference in the DTR deviation between periods.
But to a point Peter Ward asked:
“as I seem to recall that some (most?) of the annual average temperature increases of the last 50 years are more to do with increasing the minimum temps than increasing maximum ones. Am I right, and if so is it relevant here?”
Entirely a different issue. A global atmospheric water vapor levels have increased, plus the additional greenhouse gases, you’d expect more downwelling LW at night, when the minimum temperatures are usually recorded. More LW at night=higher night time (aka minimum) temperatures.
Where is Svensmark’s Scientific Nobel Prize?
Isn’t it interesting that the Non IPCC scientists are the ones that are finding supporting evidence for Svensmark?
A. Dragić, I. Aničin, R. Banjanac, V. Udovičić, D. Joković´, D. Maletić and J. Puzović, “Forbush decreases – clouds relation in the neutron monitor era”, Astrophysics and Space Sciences Transactions, 7, 315–318, 2011.
– – – – – – – – –
Dragić et al,
Your paper will be interesting to consider. Thank you.
It is good to see the study of the climate system diversify beyond 20+ years of IPCC CO2 myopia.
John
@ur momisugly Crispin in Waterloo, thanks for that contribution. I’m not a climate or physical science scientist, but your remarks strike me as pointing to an avenue for advancement.
The number of cases is still very small [22 and 13]. Of interest is that [upper panel of Figure 5] that there is a statistically significant response [3 sigma according to the error bar], three days before the FD. Perhaps we can use the temperature in Europe to forecast FDs…
Do they account for a change in the day’s weather conditions when looking at DTRs? That is, say, a front moving in or out during the day?
I prefer a slightly different explanation.
The arrival of the pulse of energy from the sun COOLS the atmosphere above 45km allowing the tropopause to rise, surface air pressure systems to shift slightly more poleward than they otherwise would have done thereby enlarging the subtropical high pressure cells and allowing more solar energy into the oceans.
At this juncture merely a short term pulse of extra energy which will have only a temporary efect due to the generally low level of solar activity.
It might slow down the background cooling effect of the quiet sun for a few days or weeks.
I should have mentioned that over the European area the subject of this particular paper the effect would be to shift the mid latitude jets poleward or equatorward and thus alter cloudiness over the areas where measurements were taken.
HankH says:
>Dessler asserts that the only thing that affects cloud nucleation is temperature.
Well that certainly is not what cloud researchers think. The temperature can be varied across a wide range including far below zero and no CCNs are produced, and it can be quite high and they form. What is needed (normally) is a particle! I mean, this has been known for ages. Even ice formation is known to need something upon which get started. Even heard of super-cooled water? The superheating of a cup of water in a microwave that blasts into steam all at once when it is disturbed is a well-known urban danger. Inside hurricances there is a dearth of particles because they are washed out and supersaturation is the order of the day.
Dessler and others should read a little more, that’s all.
CCN form on molecules and especially particles. Simple as that. The First Nations people in Canada and the USA used carefully timed grass fires to induce precipitation during droughts by studying the sky and determining when to send up the particles. That is what I mean by ‘known for ages’. Rain drops normally form one particles.
Temperature affects the formation but the whole point about GCR’s forming particles is that in conditions when CCN are not efficiently forming, GCR’s can induce formation of slightly smaller than normal CCN’s. They take longer to develop into droplets that interact with visible light (making clouds that can be photographed from a satellite). An noted above, they are first ‘visible’ in the UV, meaning Raleigh Scattering first takes place in the UV before the visible. Why? Because the longer the wavelength, the larger the particle has to be to lose transparency. For visible light is is about 0.1 microns in diameter.
>Svensmark put fourth the theory that cosmic galactic rays (CGR) can produce cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) through a process known as gas to particle conversion.
In fairness, it is condensation, not conversion. Condensation takes place on something. Absent that, it is a super-saturated gas, a condition that is very common in the atmosphere.
>While the paper bypasses cloud observation for good reason, it is known that CCN’s produced from GCR’s can participate in cloud nucleation in two modes – direct and via coagulation.
This needs nuancing: the droplets large enough to scatter light are all produced by coagulation. As they have a slight similar charge when produced, they tend to avoid each other in collisions for longer than CCN’s before they are condensed onto particles. This means they last longer in the nanoparticle state than regular CCN’s. There is a paper clearly explaining this which I read last year so it is a ‘known’.
>They can also scatter solar radiation via Rayleigh scattering at certain wavelengths.
Very importantly, and ignored I think, is that the reacting frequency drops with time as the particles grow (meaning the time after the Forbush Event). If the delay was plotted v.s. frequency (and particle size) this effect should be more detectable than the authors seem to think thus far. i.e. for events below a 7% change.
>However the scattering effect is considered to be too small to affect temperature directly
Says who?? That statement certainly needs better support, especially when the effect has been so clearly demonstrated without bothering to first separate the effect by light frequency. Even with all the frequencies above visible ignored, and without breaking the response time into say 4 or 5 frequency groups, the Svensmark Effect is clearly visible.
>If one connects the dots drawn by Svensmark, CERN, and the Serbs, the picture forming is clouds. If it can be proven directly, it will overturn Dessler’s unidirectional hypothesis, validate Svensmark’s theory, and add robustness to Spencer bidirectional hypothesis.
Agreed. The clouds are clearing.
“A higher day-night temperature difference indicates that the number of clouds is smaller – because clouds cool the days but heat up the nights a little bit, and thus reduce the temperature difference – which is in agreement with the cosmoclimatological expectation: the Forbush decreases makes the galactic cosmic rays disappear for some time (because of some massive, temporarily elevated activity of the Sun).”
That should be a simple matter to test. I’ll need to look at the stations they used. Some report variables related to cloudiness.
People should also note the physics that this relies on
” if cloudiness is high in the daytime,
more sunlight is reflected back to space and the daily tem-
perature maximum is lowered; in the nighttime, less infrared
radiation from the earth surface is emitted into outer space
and the daily temperature minimum is increased. ”
Yes, the same radiative physics which explains why cloudy nights are warmer ( back scatter)
also predicts that increased C02 warms the planet.
Which is why the GCR hypothesis is complementary to AGW, not orthognal
tallbloke:
“I think this is probably partly due to ‘rural stations’ getting a countryside UHI effect from modern irrigation practices. The increases humidity elevates night time minimum temperatures.”
Seriously. Have you looked at the stations in question and the amount of irrigation done in the area?