This offers renewed hope for Svensmark’s theory of cosmic ray modulation of earth’s cloud cover. Here is an interesting correlation published just yesterday in GRL.
Cosmic rays detected deep underground reveal secrets of the upper atmosphere
Watch the video animation here (MPEG video will play in your media player)
Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and led by scientists from the UK’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this remarkable study shows how the number of high-energy cosmic-rays reaching a detector deep underground, closely matches temperature measurements in the upper atmosphere (known as the stratosphere). For the first time, scientists have shown how this relationship can be used to identify weather events that occur very suddenly in the stratosphere during the Northern Hemisphere winter. These events can have a significant effect on the severity of winters we experience, and also on the amount of ozone over the poles – being able to identify them and understand their frequency is crucial for informing our current climate and weather-forecasting models to improve predictions.
Working in collaboration with a major U.S.-led particle physics experiment called MINOS (managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), the scientists analysed a four-year record of cosmic-ray data detected in a disused iron-mine in the U.S. state of Minnesota. What they observed was a strikingly close relationship between the cosmic-rays and stratospheric temperature – this they could understand: the cosmic-rays, known as muons are produced following the decay of other cosmic rays, known as mesons. Increasing the temperature of the atmosphere expands the atmosphere so that fewer mesons are destroyed on impact with air, leaving more to decay naturally to muons. Consequently, if temperature increases so does the number of muons detected.
What did surprise the scientists, however, were the intermittent and sudden increases observed in the levels of muons during the winter months. These jumps in the data occurred over just a few days. On investigation, they found these changes coincided with very sudden increases in the temperature of the stratosphere (by up to 40 oC in places!). Looking more closely at supporting meteorological data, they realised they were observing a major weather event, known as a Sudden Stratospheric Warming. On average, these occur every other year and are notoriously unpredictable. This study has shown, for the first time, that cosmic-ray data can be used effectively to identify these events.
Lead scientist for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Dr Scott Osprey said: “Up until now we have relied on weather balloons and satellite data to provide information about these major weather events. Now we can potentially use records of cosmic-ray data dating back 50 years to give us a pretty accurate idea of what was happening to the temperature in the stratosphere over this time. Looking forward, data being collected by other large underground detectors around the world, can also be used to study this phenomenon.”
Dr Giles Barr, co-author of the study from the University of Oxford added: “It’s fun sitting half a mile underground doing particle physics. It’s even better to know that from down there, we can also monitor a part of the atmosphere that is otherwise quite tricky to measure”.
Interestingly, the muon cosmic-ray dataset used in this study was collected as a by-product of the MINOS experiment, which is designed to investigate properties of neutrinos, but which also measures muons originating high up in the atmosphere, as background noise in the detector. Having access to these data has led to the production of a valuable dataset of benefit to climate researchers.
Professor Jenny Thomas, deputy spokesperson for MINOS from University College London said “The question we set out to answer at MINOS is to do with the basic properties of fundamental particles called neutrinos which is a crucial ingredient in our current model of the Universe, but as is often the way, by keeping an open mind about the data collected, the science team has been able to find another, unanticipated benefit that aids our understanding of weather and climate phenomena.”
Dr Osprey commented: “This study is a great example of what can be done through international partnerships and cross-disciplinary research. One can only guess what other secrets are waiting to be revealed.”
h/t to Ron de Haan
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Lubos, it’s all pretty standard stuff on muons – see wikipedia for the basics.
Muons are produced in the upper atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with nuclei in air molecules, and then travel down to earth. Most of them never arrive as they mostly decay on the way down (mean proper lifetime about 2 microseconds – the fact that any are seen at all is due to relativistic time dilation), and the number detected on earth is a very sensitive measure of the height at which they were produced.
If the stratosphere heats then the density drops, so the probability of a cosmic ray hitting a nucleus drops, so on average the cosmic rays have to travel further down before producing a muon. Thus the muons have less far to travel and a greater survival probability. Nothing more than that.
Foinavon
On your point 1, In that report by S&F-C the solar cycle was represented by cosmic ray counts in Figure1and in Figure 2 there was a correlation between mean tropo temps and galactic cosmic rays. In any event they said there was a correlation, Lockwood et al said there wasn’t and now there is independent correlation verification. Regardless of any other arguments Svensmark is thusly vindicated on that point. On your point 2, Figure 2 was detrended so it’s not surprising you see no trend. You can see a trend in Figure 1.
Lockwood was, I believe, more explicit in previous papers that he believed there was a possibility of a sun-climate link – in line with many other researchers in the same field. S&F-C are very aware of Lockwood’s previous work and his leanings re-sun-climate so it’s likely you who misunderstands him, not them. Many believed or believe any plausible link must have stopped around ’85. S&F-C simply point out otherwise by using different temperature data.
For your other argument I wouldn’t venture where I’m not qualified but I’m certain that Svensmark would clarify those points if you asked him.
Oops, I see from one of the quotes above that it’s a little more complex than I first said, but the essentials remain.
Part of the problem is that people are confusing muons with csomic rays: if you put a muon detector above the atmosphere you would see nothing because they are produced in the atmosphere.
REPLY: True but muons are a proxy for mesons, which ARE above the atmosphere, which was my point all along. It is the mesons we are interested in. – Anthony
“there is zero causality in the other direction.”
One way to help the cause is to avoid hyperbole oneself. I gather you mean this study makes no such argument for Stratospheric heating by some cause related to solar or galactic CRF.
EricR (08:38:12) :
Yes there’s a lot that’s interesting in science. As far as theories (hypothesis might be a better term for some of the ideas you describe) go, the very least that one can expect from them is that they are compatible with the scientific evidence. I don’t think anyone has that much of a problem with Svensmark’s hypothesis about the CRF. It’s just that there’s precious little evidence for it in the real world. After all the very marked warming of the last 30-odd years has occurred during a period in which the trend in the CRF is, if anything, a cooling one. If we’re interested in the very marked contemporary warming we obviously look elsewhere. Does that mean that there isn’t an influence of the CRF on the Earth’s weather? There’s a bit of marginal evidence for a small contribution. Does the CRF impact on the Earth’s energy budget to the extent that it can significantly influence climate? There isn’t really any evidence in support of that notion, and the theoretical basis is not strong.
It’s really all about the evidence. If something is wrong one may as well point it out. I’m not familiar with “Grey” or what his theory/hypothesis might be. Does Wilde have “theories” in the scientific sense?
really? The blogosphere seems to be chock-a-block with efforts to “disprove” CO2-induced climate change! I haven’t seen anything of any substance along those lines in the scientific literature, but it’s devillishly difficult to “disprove” something for which there is pretty rock-solid theoretical and empirical evidence. Does the greenhouse effect exist or doesn’t it? Is CO2 a greenhouse gas or not?
Notice that grants are not awarded to “disprove” anything, and if you think about it you might see that a research programme funded by a grant with the aim of disproving a theory, doesn’t make a lot of sense. One might devise a research programme to assess/test aspects of a theory. But one could only set out to “disprove” a theory if there was good evidence that the theory was wrong, and in this case the theory would likely whither away of its own accord anyway. Grant awarding bodies (and scientists) are much more interested in science that addresses positive outcomes (finding out something new and useful). It’s generally only crackpots that aim actively to “disprove” theories, and most theories that do become disproven become so in a rather passive manner, being left by the wayside as productive approaches provide support for alternative interpretations…
So grants are awarded to explore areas of uncertainty in important areas of science, and require that the proposer has a coherent programme of study/experimentation/observation that bears on the particular question(s) addressed, and that these questions are considered worth addressing and tractable, and that the resources available to the potential awardee are sufficient, the programme is achievable within the time allocated and the awardee has demonstrated a solid competence in the research area (unless s/he is a young ‘un in which case s/he is likely to be helped develop a research programme from scratch)….and so on…
Dear foinavon,
the very existence of the influence of the cosmic rays on the atmosphere is indisputable – the only question mark is the magnitude of this influence. Sorry, I don’t really want to chat with people who are not getting this point because I don’t think that they have elementary knowledge about the relevant phenomena here.
But I will happily repeat what is the basic mechanism behind cosmoclimatology. Cosmic rays create condensation centers for low-lying clouds – a statement already demonstrated in Danish labs and under investigation at CERN right now. More cosmic rays means more low-lying clouds. These clouds reflect solar radiation, cool the surface, but that also increases the amount of radiation reflected back to/through the stratosphere which therefore warms up.
Again, this effect is surely there, the question is how much it is. There are many experimental papers that show this effect at the extremely long time scales – hundreds of millions of years when the Solar System bubbled through the spiral arms of the Milky Way and the temperature correspondingly fluctuated at least by +2 and -2 deg C.
Thanks for the quote from the paper.
But I still fail to understand both the sign and non-vanishing of this effect (your favorite one). The warmer atmosphere is expanded but the total amount of air molecules is what controls the cross section so it is unchanged by the temperature, isn’t it? Moreover, if I imagined that the warmer stratosphere is thicker, most of the processes would occur higher in the stratosphere which means that all the pions and muons would have more time to decay and we would observe fewer muons under the ground, wouldn’t we?
The direction of the causation that Anthony announced – the Svensmark-like influence of the cosmic rays on the atmosphere – is surely the more properly explained one so far, at least on this thread – but I guess that not only on this thread. Everyone who claims otherwise must be living in a different galaxy.
Best wishes
Luboš
RE: Stratospheric heating. Here at WUWT a posting months back revealed the stunning rise in noctilucent clouds near the Mesosphere ostensibly requiring increased H2O following heating.
The historical graph of this phenomenon(provided by Malfi?) was strikingly correlated with solar minima.
Lubos Motl wrote:
Analogously, if the cosmic rays help the creation of low-lying clouds, these clouds help to reflect the solar radiation from the troposphere and the surface, which means that more of this heat returns to the stratosphere and a part of it heats it up. According to cosmoclimatology, more mesons means a warmer stratosphere. It works in the right direction.
Based solely on the above article, there is no mention of cloud formation, only the correlation with higher stratospheric temperatures. If mesons caused SSW events, wouldn’t SSWs track the solar cycle? However, the article notes that “On average, these occur every other year and are notoriously unpredictable.”
Meanwhile, could you please tell us your story why the higher stratospheric temperature leads to an increased muon flux under the ground?
From the article:
I trust that the above doesn’t require further explication? As I understand it, a warmer atmosphere results in more space between atmospheric molecules, so more mesons “survive” to reach the ground as muons. Apparently, the higher muon count lags behind higher temperatures.
JamesG (09:13:19) :
Yes that’s right James. The problem is that the cosmic ray flux (CRF) cycles in pretty much exact (anti-)phase with the solar parameters like solar irradiance/sunspot numbers and so on. Therefore if one observes a cyclic variation in a parameter (tropospheric temperature, say) that varies in sync with the solar cycle, one can’t ascribe this to any specific solar contribution unless the latter is somehow specifically identified. This can’t be done with the CRF in Svensmark and Friis-Christensen’s analysis. So even ‘though they’re measuring the CRF directly, any effect they observe can’t be ascribed specifically to the CRF. In fact it’s far more likely to be due to the solar irradiance.
You can see what i mean by observing the solar cycle with it’s CRF contributions and sunspot cycle (a proxy for solar irradiance), individually plotted together:
e.g.:
http://ulysses.sr.unh.edu/NeutronMonitor/Misc/neutron2.html
does that make sense? If not I’ll have another go…
The warmer atmosphere is expanded but the total amount of air molecules is what controls the cross section so it is unchanged by the temperature, isn’t it?
Lubos believes that the entire stratosphere either warms up or cools down. A quick review of the movie embebbed in this post would teach you otherwise. Where do the particles go? Ever heard of “winds” and how they are formed? “Winds” are about an outstanding advanced and recent theory that states that when an atmospheric region gets warmer, it spreads the air horizontally (but also vertically) towards the coldest regions, and form this queer thing called “wind”. A recent find about what happens then is that the warmer regions have a less dense atmosphere and cold regions have a denser atmosphere.
But I understand your lack of knowledge of this complicated theory. It’s very very recent indeed.
Everyone who claims otherwise must be living in a different galaxy.
We call ours the “Milky Way”. What do you call yours?
Lubos Motl (09:28:40) :
Not really Lubos. One can’t demonstrate the formation of low-lying clouds in laboratories, Danish or otherwise! One might be able to demonstrate nucleation of microscopic “aerosol” particles under controlled conditions in a lab, which is what Svensmark has done I believe. Whether this has relevance for low cloud formation in the real world remains to be determined.
That’s interesting. Can you cite one or two of those papers? Whether or not that’s the case (I suspect the correlation is not terribly good, but perhaps you can show otherwise), the fact that there is an effect on the (hundreds of?) millions of years time scale as the Solar System cycles through the spiral arms of the Galaxy is probably not very relevant to the effects of the CRF on the Earth’s energy budget on the decadal-centenial-millenial-multi-millenial year timescales that are of rather more direct relevance to us!
That’s odd. I’ve given you the quotation from the paper we’re discussing (Osprey et al 2009; Geophys. res. Lett. in press) that addresses your point twice already. Here it is for a third time:
There are two mechanisms by which the condition of the atmosphere affects the muon rate. Firstly, an increase in temperature causes the atmosphere to expand so muons are produced higher up and therefore have a larger probability to decay before being detected. Secondly, the mesons may interact (and thereby be lost) as well as decay. As the temperature increases, the probability of interaction becomes smaller because the local atmospheric density decreases, so more mesons decay, causing an increase in the muon rate. In deep underground detectors where muons with a high surface energy are measured, the second effect dominates and this causes a positive correlation between temperature and muon rate
Lubos Motl (07:56:00) :
On the other hand, you are misled if you think that the opposite causation is not justified by scientific mechanisms. For a wide variety of forcings, the trends in the stratosphere and the troposphere are reverted – they have opposite signs.
For example, the greenhouse warming heats up the troposphere but it cools down the stratosphere: the Earth’s heat is trapped in the troposphere, near the surface, which means that a smaller amount of it can heat the stratosphere.
The increased ghg concentration in the stratosphere causes increased radiational cooling of the stratosphere (e.g. Iacono & Clough)
Analogously, if the cosmic rays help the creation of low-lying clouds, these clouds help to reflect the solar radiation from the troposphere and the surface, which means that more of this heat returns to the stratosphere and a part of it heats it up.
The component of the solar radiation which heats the stratosphere is the UV which is absorbed by O2 and O3, by the time the cloud tops are reached it has been attenuated and therefore can not be scattered back to the stratosphere in the way you suggest.
According to cosmoclimatology, more mesons means a warmer stratosphere. It works in the right direction.
I think that more research is needed to see which effect is more important as an explanation of the observed link. Meanwhile, could you please tell us your story why the higher stratospheric temperature leads to an increased muon flux under the ground? Sometimes I want to hear others before myself, and at this moment, I actually understand the cosmoclimatological causation more than I understand the opposite relationship. 😉
Really? The increased temperature of the upper atmosphere means that the creation of muons as a result of collisions is shifted closer to the earth’s surface and therefore more muons (lifetime ~2.2μs) reach the surface where they can be detected.
“a warmer atmosphere results in more space between atmospheric molecules”
These interactions are probabalistic, where a weakon, weakforce boson is exchanged. Line-of-sight, optical depth heuristics are an out-of-date simplification.
As the depth of the layer where interaction takes place deepens the probability of interaction probably oscillates in magnitude just as light behaves passing thru different thicknesses of glass (“QED”,Feynman,Priceton,1985).
To All :
There was an SSW two Januarys ago; I believe this was an incredibly warm January too. I was tipped off to it by an HPC forecaster, T.Kimberlain, who mentioned it in his forecast discussion along with casual speculation of what it might mean in the not to distant future.
Around the same time, Elliot Abrahms at Accuweather, was showing in his blog 10, 20 & 50 mb charts for P & T and was also making casual speculations as to the future atmospheric patterns for the remainder of the winter.
Within a couple of weeks of the event, the 10 & 20 mb pressure pattern had completely reversed, and Elliot was continuing to speculate whether or not the reversal would impact the troposphere and the 500 mb pattern.
Maybe it did or maybe it didn’t, but by early-mid Feb, teleconnections had flipped and a blocking pattern developed. The east became cold, and two blockbuster Nor’Easters buried the interior Northeast.
Interesting stuff…………. Maybe there are some weatherbuffs here with enough time to peruse the records from then and provide an actual analysis ?
JamesG (09:13:19) :
I didn’t answer your second point:
I don’t think that’s really the case. The point is that there is always a sun-climate link. Sometimes the solar contribution enhances the Earth’s energy budget and the Earth tends to a higher equilibrium temperature…sometimes the solar contribution is a cooling one….sometimes the solar contribution is minimal/steady and the Earth more or less progresses through time at an equilibrium temperature set by the solar output and the greenhouse gas forcing, with variations due to stochastic (and maybe cyclic) contributions internal (e.g. ocean currents) or external (volcanic eruptions/ extraterrestrial impacts) to the climate system.
Lockwood and Frolich have pointed out (and did so in their paper) that the recent (millenial/multi-millenial scale) climate history of the Earth has a strong solar signature. However it so happens that the sun hasn’t done anything very much in the last 50 years (pretty steady with a slight cooling contribution for the last 20 years), and the very marked warming of the last 30-odd years has occured while the solar contribution has been flat/cooling a tad. That doesn’t mean that the sun-climate connection has disappeared! It’s just not made much of a contribution (a slight cooling one if anything) to recent and contemporary warming.
Notice that Svensmark and Friis-Christensen come up with exactly the same conclusion. The solar signature is only identifiable in the tropospheric temperature record once all the warming has been removed by linear detrending. And (as S-FC show) the trend in the solar contribution is close to flat (a slight cooling trend. That’s pretty much in line with Lockwood and Frolich…
now the bbc is editing bits of obamas speech to make it appear he said something he didn’t
check out
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=147
my complaint will be filed with them soon.
Haven’t read the articel yet, or any of the above posts; but anthony, is it possible to download that video clip, and save it in my Climate library. That is very illuminating.
George
apologies if I am keeping this debate off topic, but wanted to clarify…
tallbloke:
SSW activity is definitely dependant on up-ward propagating Rossby waves and does indeed appear to be enhanced when the QBO is easterly (or negative), but here is the problem – SSWs can occur when the QBO is positive and, similarly, QBO negative and a rising Rossby wave does not guarantee that an SSW occurs.
As several of you allude, the atmosphere shows chaotic behaviour on many levels and therefore works in a non-linear way (very small perturbations now can lead to massive changes in the future) so SSW activity MAY depend solely on subtle non-linear interactions between QBO phase and Rossby waves, but we are far from understanding the exact mechanism and the idea of a “triggering” mechanism – such as a pulse of in-bound cosmic rays is probably worth exploring further
I will leave that to the relevant experts.
Foinavon
Avoiding the correlation issues which I don’t really disagree with, if I understand you correctly you say that Svensmarks basic theory is demonstrated to be valid but whether the overall effect is important is disputable. Yet this is what Lubos has already said too. And as Luis said, only experiment will really tell us. The curious thing is that you are rather more confident of the “rock-solid” case for CO2 based on “empirical” data. In fact though there is a case for saying the same thing about CO2; there should be an effect but how much of an effect is disputable. Lindzen puts this case best. In the IPCC scenarios there is even a distinct possibility of just a 1 degree effect per doubling of CO2 and only then because possible negative feedbacks have been ignored. Do we ever get the postulated 3 degrees which comes from postulated positive feedbacks. Not in the empirical data we don’t! This 3 degrees comes only from certain biased interpretations of data – every bit as biased as Svensmarks interpretations – and which often seem to be confusing cause with effect. Worse the models which had the 3 degrees sensitivity built-in as input are then used as “evidence” when they naturally output that same 3 degrees sensitivity. The empirical temperature data don’t by themselves make any case at all. It is the adamant nature of the climate modelers that the effect must be there even if it is not yet observable that seems to be the dominant theme in climate science as far as i can see. Are you sure you aren’t letting your natural skepticism be swayed by the arguments from authority?
foinavon,
It’s interesting that you responded to EricR‘s earlier post — but you ignored his later post, which is much more on point regarding global warming in general, and the belief that the effects of atmospheric CO2 will be catastrophic.
Eric’s link provides a thorough deconstruction of the fraudulent science behind the AGW crowd’s runaway global warming hypothesis: click
Those who formerly flogged the AGW-CO2-climate catastrophe hypothesis have now moved on to other peripheral issues, rather than defending runaway global warming’s central hypothesis: that rising CO2 is the central cause. So just for a moment, can we re-visit the main issue, which props up the entire AGW scam? Thank you:
Please justify, if you are able, spending literally trillions of tax dollars to reduce an atmospheric trace gas to below 1990 levels. Because that’s what the AGW issue is really based on.
It is a sad fact that the funneling of vast amounts of public money into global warming studies starves other deserving programs of funds. If you can not make a convincing case that spending $Trillions is warranted, then, if you wish to remain credible, you must go on record that the AGW hypothesis does not justify spending these enormous sums on a minor to non-existent problem; nor is there any urgency regarding atmospheric CO2.
No hedging, now. Will increasing CO2 levels lead to runaway global warming and climate catastrophe? Or not?
Luis Dias
when an atmospheric region gets warmer, it spreads the air horizontally (but also vertically) towards the coldest regions, and form this queer thing called “wind”.
That is one of the most creative and outlandish explanations for wind I have ever read. Surely, sir, you jest!
I think you will find that winds behave somewhat differently than that.
des332
…I have contacted Newsnight recently w.r.t. their AGW only reports and interviews…no reply.
Sorry, posted at the wrong article.
Ron de Haan (10:11:22) :
Anthony, not as spectacular as this article but in my opinion a possible second piece of the climate/weather puzzle:
“Climate records stretching back 5000 years seem to show a strong link between rainfall in the tropics and changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, according to new research”.
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=296
Foinavon
You failed to note that S&F-C said that if the correlation is clear in some temperature datasets then it calls into question the surface measurements that L&F used. These surface measurements are possibly – in the opinion of many – adjusted rather too much. Besides the potential siting problems highlighted on this site there are the TOBS adjustments which add 0.6 degrees of warming trend all by themselves. The bottom line being that when the adjustments are larger than the underlying signal the data should be questioned.
Now we can probably trust satellite data for the last 30 years but what about before that? Where might we fully trust the surface data? I’d say in three places: Arctic, Antarctic and USA. The latter because it has been “roughly” independently verified thanks to Anthony’s fine work in identifying good rural stations. Now Willie Soon has compared the Arctic temperature data with the solar signature and found an exceptionally good correlation. You can also find good correlation with the USA. That is, in both cases the 30’s or 40’s were just as warm as today. Furthermore, if there was still a strong solar connection today then we’d expect to see cooling taking place as the sun has waned – exactly in line with our current experiences, the pdo shift and with instrument data for land and sea.
Now i don’t want to get into arguments about TSI and magnitudes of effect because clearly indirect effects are observable. Are they important – I’m prepared to give it another 10 years to wait and sea since I see no looming crisis and any “tipping point” argument is an argument unbacked by any science anywhere.
I’m a bit bamboozled along with Anna v.
The report as shown above (not the paper) reads like a Japanese transistor radio manual; like Katie Couric trying to explain relativity to Albert Einstein.
I don’t have the whole Standard Model of Particle Physics in my head; and they keep tinkering with it to stop me from remembering; but when I went to school, (pre standard model) a Muon WAS a Meson; specifically it was a mu Meson, which distinguished it from the pi Meson. Now of course we have the tau meson as well; and each meson is associated with one family of subatomic particles in the Standard Model.
So as Anna says; it’s gobbledegook, although the underlying message if you can find it, sounds pretty interesting; and as Anthony points out; we can’t tell how this ties Svensmark’s thesis into clouds; but I would sure like to get clear in my mind (and Anna’s too) just what is really the story here.
I did find out how to save a copy of the video clip, which is very interesting. Lots of other things, I would like to see in similar video clips, such as continuous coverage of cloud formation and dispersal.
Nice hunting trophy though Anthony.
Are you actively working in Particle Physics, Anna; or just schooled in it?
George