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
Maybe it’s just me but … you guys are having way to much fun talking AT each other and everyone else. Yak, yak, yak!
Yikes! I have always been a sea witch and looked a bit askance at the sun worshipers.
But being a historian by training, I have always been a sucker for correlation, particularly complex correlation.
Yet I have been hanging onto the Feng Shue that water defeats fire. Well, I guess I’ll have to sit by and watch this one play out.
For those interested in an overview of present day particle physics I would recommend the teaching resources of CERN, lectures provided for high school teachers.
http://education.web.cern.ch/education/Chapter2/Teaching/PP.html
Neil O’Rourke (13:11:18) :
Anna V:
I’m struggling to understand the partical physics involved in your explanation (the last time I had anything to do with partical decay was high school 24 years ago).
So, if the underground detectors are incapable of seeing mesons resulting from cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere, what the heck are they seeing that gives a 100% correlation?
It all has to do with the definition of “seeing”. Ultimately, we are all working with “proxies”. You are reading and comprehending this post by proxy, a transfer of my thoughts to your thoughts.
So I suspect, because I have not seen the paper, that the MINOS set up is “seeing” cosmic muons by use of simulation runs with Monte Carlo and fits to the underground data, which are specific hits in a detector.
This detector is designed to measure muons and electrons coming from interactions of neutrino-muon and neutrino-electron with the atoms in the mass of the detector, i.e. suddenly a charged track appears with the origin within the detector. They want tracks that are consistent with the hypothesis of coming from neutrinos from Fermilab, but they will also get tracks from cosmic neutrinos penetrating the ground, as background that has to be excluded, and this is done with the program. They ARE counting cosmic muons by a complicated proxy.
Penetrating neutrinos will also make muons by hitting atoms in the ground but for these to survive to the detector the interaction has to be within a radiation length or two, and I see no point in MINOS measuring them, unless they have the advantage of being much more numerous. In this case also a monte carlo data fit will be necessary, because the logic is the same.
p.s. please readers of this keep in mind the simplification of not going through all the +/- neutrino antineutrino and labels in these discussions. You can find the complexity in the link above.
In 2005, I found a direct correlation between interstellar cosmic rays and the oscillations of temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. I could corroborate that the ICR warms the Earth’s atmosphere. The measurements of the intensity of the ICR were obtained by the Voyagers I and II in the Shock Bow of the Solar System. Calculating an average speed of 213 Km/s and the distance from the Shock Bow to our planet, the ICR nucleons and subatomic particles would delay about 14 months on reaching the Earth. Considering that the supersonic nucleons which have overcome upstream the Solar Wind could carry Energy up to 70 MeV or higher, their effect on the Stratosphere’s temperature is persistent and intense. The article from the Journal of Geophysical Research explains the mechanism which I couldn’t explain in its moment.
My report was published here: http://biocab.org/Cosmic_Rays_Graph.html
I detest to promulgate my own articles, but I think now it could be relevant.
Never thought I would be witnessing a cosmic ray weather forecast, but there has to be SOMETHING that causes Deep Solar Minima to drive Earth’s temps down other than simple TSI which has been beat worse than a bad dog at Scrooges place these days.
Falls in there with Archibald’s lecture.
But I was only aware of low-lying cloud formation.
Show’s there’s plenty of science ahead for those who keep observing.
Chris V. (21:00:54) :
from the abstract in your link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v360/n6404/abs/360573a0.html
. Here we retrieve the sensitivity of two palaeoclimates, one colder and one warmer than present, by independently reconstructing both the equilibrium surface tem-perature change and the radiative forcing. Our results yield DeltaT 2x = 2.3 plusminus0.9 °C.
Radiative forcing? in paleoclimate? and what happened to those 800 to 2000 year delays of CO2 rise from temperature rise?
MINOS is at a depth of 705 meters. This is equivalent to something like 2000 meters of water. At that level, the muon flux should be reduced by about 10,000 from the surface. MINOS reports don’t discuss this much, but you can see hep-ex/0506032 for a graph. My guess is that the people who made the table did it by comparing differences in muons depending on depth; since muons kicked out by neutrinos will not show a dependence on depth, you get the pure atmospheric amount by looking at the differences.
When MINOS looks at a muon, they can keep track of whether it comes from outside their fiducial volume or not. If it’s purely inside, then that’s a neutrino event. If it’s from outside, it could be a neutrino that converted to a muon in nearby rock or it could be an atmospheric muon that survived the 10,000 reduction caused by depth. They can distinguish between these cases by looking at the direction of travel; atmospheric muons come from above.
So I’m interpreting their statements like Lubos; they are indeed looking at atmospheric muons, not neutrinos per se, like Anna V.
In addition to creating muons at the cosmic ray vertex (which isn’t very likely) you probably get most of them by decays of charged pions. If the pions hit something before they decay, then they don’t get to decay, no muon is produced, and none is detected.
Muon lifetime is 2 microseconds = 2000 ns. If they are travelling close to the speed of light, then the length they would travel (before taking into account relativistic corrections) is around 2000 feet since light travels about a foot per nanosecond.
However, charged particles lose energy as they travel through matter. The muons that can dig down to 705 meters are going to be rather high energy and so their lifetimes are going to be much extended beyond 2000 meters. Consequently, we can ignore the effects of muon decay. (This was mentioned in the abstract in that they said that this effect, which would reduce the number of muons from a hot atmosphere, was secondary to the primary effect.)
So when you look at atmospheric muons at a depth of 700 meters, changes to the flux will be due to changes in the number of muons created. That means we have to look at where muons come from.
Muons come from the weak decay of hadrons. To do that, the hadrons have to avoid having a strong interaction. A strong interaction would be running into something, most likely an air molecule, but maybe a jet plane filled with people who might get cancer someday. This happens in the upper atmosphere because the total depth of the atmosphere (for high energy hadrons) is like infinity. So what matters here is the thickness of the upper atmosphere; when it is hot, you have substantial air at high enough altitude that air is far enough apart that more muons are produced; hence the effect.
The Labrador ice has returned:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=01&fd=22&fy=2009&sm=01&sd=23&sy=2009
Nasif Nahle (21:43:27) :
In 2005, I found a direct correlation between interstellar cosmic rays and the oscillations of temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. I could corroborate that the ICR warms the Earth’s atmosphere. …
My report was published here: http://biocab.org/Cosmic_Rays_Graph.html
Fascinating article Nasif.
We await Leif’s objections. 🙂
I’m away to the Spanish mountains for a weeks climbing, can’t wait to catch up with a feast of WUWT posts on my return. Thanks Anthony and everyone for the best science blog on the net!
carlbrannen(23:54:51)
Thank you for the reference on the reduction of muon flux .
My guess is based on the fact that MINOS is a neutrino detector and the backgrounds that could confuse the data would be neutrino like and thus would be of interest to be recorded.
As there is no open link to the publication I guess I will have to wait and see what is really being measured( energy spectrum etc) and how, and also how the backgrounds were corrected for.
Syl (18:44:45) in response to foinavon’s statement: “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?”
To which Syl replied: Red herring.
It’s the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect aspect of the theory that is suspect, not whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Thanks, Syl. I got suckered there for a moment so appreciate your crisp and clear logic check. Devious, aren’t they… Backed into a corner…
Here is the sad part, even if all the rational, intelligent people conclude that global warming is produced by cosmic rays, this will not deter the man made global warming charlatans. The reason it won’t is that their aims where political–not scientific. Their goal was to destroy capitalism in general and the United States in particular. If they were serious for a micro second they would never say another word about man made global warming in English. Rather, they would learn Mandarin. Laying aside global warming and looking at the pollution effects of combustion energy, only China can save the world. Any honest person can see that one billion people trying to reach western standards will dwarf anything the US or even all the west is doing. The solution to pollution or even man made global warming will be spoken in Mandarin. Not English.
Erl:
“the solar wind directly heats the atmosphere ”
This is only a polar phenomenon, a paper out last year surmised 1-2 degrees C for the Arctic.
Damn, this is interesting.
Then again, the current (Jan 20, 2009) Arctic sea ice extent is at the second highest point ever graphed, behind (by a little bit) that of mid-Jan 2008.
Some we-are-melting-the-Arctic-and-drowning-polar-bears-trend, eh?
Syl (18:44:45)
[and Roger Carr (03:35:32)]
Careful with your reading, Syl. My response to JamesG in relation to the IPCC likely climate sensitivity range (2 – 4.5 oC) was in relation to James’ comment ” 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.”. In fact the IPCC range of likelihood is 2 -4.5 oC0 and 1 oC is very unlikely indeed.
You’re seemingly unhappy with my statement:
“Really? The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report assesses the climate sensitivity to be in the range 2 – 4.5 oC. The data that informs the conclusion of a climate sensitivity in that range is pretty much entirely empirical.”
This thread isn’t really the place to discuss this stuff, and so I didn’t above. But let’s do so briefly. I would say there is abundant evidence for a significant climate sensitivity (near 3 oC) and this is largely empirical. Here’s some of the data below [***]. Likewise there’s a vast amount of evidence for a strong coupling of temperatures and CO2 concentrations in the deep past [*****].
It would be foolish to ignore this or pretend it doesn’t exist, while embracing notions for which there is simply no compelling evidence in the real world.
If “grok” means what I think it means, then I grog Svensmark pretty well! Of course there’s an inverse correlation between the CRF and putative effects on temperature.
But where’s the evidence? On this thread we have an unsupported allusion to Svensmark’s idea in the introductory article and a web-based report that JamesG kindly showed us. However on reading the web-based report we find it presents zero evidence for a relationship between the CRF and the earth’s temperature. In fact, taking it at face value, it demonstrates clearly that the CRF can have made no contribution to the late 20th century and contemporary warming.
It doesn’t seem very constructive to adopt a weird “Alice in Wonderland” stance in which you ignore the real world data on CO2 contributions, and pursue unsubstantiated notions that even the proponents demonstrate is largely irrelevant in their own report….
……………………………………………………..
[***]
Some of the data up to 2006 is reviewed here (ignore the modelling bits if you don’t like them!):
Annan JD, Hargreaves JC (2006) Using multiple observationally-based constraints to estimate climate sensitivity. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, art #L06704
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d5/jdannan/GRL_sensitivity.pdf
More recent estimates of climate sensitivity from observational data are:
K-T Tung and CD Camp (2007) Solar cycle warming at the Earth’s surface and an observational determination of climate sensitivity (in press) [not sure I really like this paper!)
http://www.amath.washington.edu/research/articles/Tung/journals/solar-jgr.pdf
Royer DL et al. (2007) Climate sensitivity constrained by CO2 concentrations over the past 420 million years Nature 446, 530-532
[*****]
A recent review compiles much of the data:
D.L. Royer (2006) “CO2-forced climate thresholds during the Phanerozoic” Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 70, 5665-5675.
Even more recent studies supplement the information in Royers review/compilation and cover additional periods with new data sets right through the past several hundreds of millions of years:
R.E. Carne, J.M. Eiler, J. Veizer et al (2007) “Coupling of surface temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the Palaeozoic era” Nature 449, 198-202
W. M. Kurschner et al (2008) “The impact of Miocene atmospheric carbon dioxide fluctuations on climate and the evolution of the terrestrial ecosystem” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 499-453.
D. L. Royer (2008) “Linkages between CO2, climate, and evolution in deep time” Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 407-408
Zachos JC (2008) “An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics” Nature 451, 279-283.
Doney SC et al (2007) “Carbon and climate system coupling on timescales from the Precambrian to the Anthropocene” Ann. Rev. Environ. Resources 32, 31-66.
Horton DE et al (2007) “Orbital and CO2 forcing of late Paleozoic continental ice sheets” Geophys. Res. Lett. L19708 (Oct. 11 2007).
B. J. Fletcher et al. (2008) “Atmospheric carbon dioxide linked with Mesozoic and early Cenozoic climate change” Nature Geoscience 1, 43-48.
anna v (02:24:03) said:
From the paper:
Then see the preprint of [Adamson et al., 2007].
anna v (22:18:26) :
Radiative forcing? in paleoclimate? and what happened to those 800 to 2000 year delays of CO2 rise from temperature rise?
The paleoclimate studies normally compare time periods when temperatures, CO2, and other forcings were relatively stable (i.e., at equilibrium). They then compare the difference in forcings (CO2, albedo…) between those two time periods to determine the sensitivity.
From one of the references above Giles Barr says:
“The basic physics behind these environmental effects has been known for a long time in the particle physics community. However, very few studying climate will know of these.”
Hmmmmmmm.
My initial take on this paper is that it highlights the overall lack of understanding that exists in climate science. And, correspondingly, the lack of respect that should be placed in those who say “the debate is over” or “I have it nailed” or those who support these views.
JamesG (18:04:30) :
But where has it been independently verified? Not in the web-site report you linked to and that we’ve discussed rather thoroughly. They showed there that the solar cycle contribution to tropospheric temperature can perhaps be “teased out”. They don’t present any evidence that there is any temperature response to variations in the CRF. Are you thinking of some other paper that demonstrates a causal relationship between the CRF and temperature?
I think one needs to consider the relationship between CO2 levels and temperature more thoroughly. As well as the last 100/200-odd years, there is strong evidence for a major role for CO2 contributions throughout the ice age cycles and the deeper past. I’ve cited some of this here: [foinavon (07:16:38)]
foinavon
“It doesn’t seem very constructive to adopt a weird “Alice in Wonderland” stance in which you ignore the real world data on CO2 contributions, and pursue unsubstantiated notions that even the proponents demonstrate is largely irrelevant in their own report”
I have no idea if Svensmark is on the right track or not and I’m not claiming anything about the validity of his theory, just that I still don’t think you understand what his theory is. And I simply don’t know what you mean by ‘real world data on CO2 contributions’ that I’m supposedly ignoring. My complaint is not that the globe hasn’t warmed it’s that the globe has not warmed nearly as much as has been projected and/or estimated if one looks at the temperature record.
You can list all the sensitivity estimates you like, they can only be validated by real world data–not model output or handwaving. Perhaps it is you who has adopted a ‘weird “Alice in wonderland” stance’ since you continue to ignore what is happening on our real planet and instead blindly accept the data that lives on paper.
At lower levels, C02 on Earth is antifreeze solution with water vapor. At elevated levels, it is a one-time miniscule forcing that does not increase linearly as it’s levels rise.
Probably what happened to Mars. Once it fell into an Ice Age, it never warmed enough to recover the water vapor and the attendant CO2 antifreeze mix.
Nothing like an independent test case to clear things up.
Jonathan (07:19:54) :
Thank you for the reference. It will take me some time to read it. Fig 4 seems to be a precursor of the paper discussed here. I can already see that my guess was wrong and they do measure penetrating cosmic muons.
Nasif Nahle (21:43:27) :
In 2005, I found a direct correlation between interstellar cosmic rays and the oscillations of temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. I could corroborate that the ICR warms the Earth’s atmosphere. The measurements of the intensity of the ICR were obtained by the Voyagers I and II in the Shock Bow of the Solar System. Calculating an average speed of 213 Km/s and the distance from the Shock Bow to our planet, the ICR nucleons and subatomic particles would delay about 14 months on reaching the Earth. Considering that the supersonic nucleons which have overcome upstream the Solar Wind could carry Energy up to 70 MeV or higher, their effect on the Stratosphere’s temperature is persistent and intense. The article from the Journal of Geophysical Research explains the mechanism which I couldn’t explain in its moment.
My report was published here: http://biocab.org/Cosmic_Rays_Graph.html
I detest to promulgate my own articles, but I think now it could be relevant.
Nasif,
This is very interesting information for a whole array of reasons which have a direct impact on the current AGW Doctrine dispute.
The most important ones:
1. Your conclusions eliminate human kind to effect the earth climate (AGW by CO2 emissions).
2. The data presented in your report makes you conclude that the Svensmark Theory could be correct.
I have the following questions:
A. Is it possible to update the graph in the articles to our current day and time.
B. Does the position of the shock Bow vary with the strength of the Earths Magnetic field and the current Solar Minimum.
If this is the case what would be it’s current position and what would be the implementation for the travel time of the IIGC to reach Earth
C. Is our solar system currently effected by the gas cloud mentioned in the 1978 article to dominate our climate for the next 10.000 years, confirmed by Voyager I and II measurements
D. What could be the consequence of this cloud for life on Earth.
E. Perhaps off topic:
Last year German Scientists found evidence of a sudden shift in the Earth’s climate
into a Glaciation Fase within a period of 1 year caused by a radical shift of the jet streams and wind patterns.
Is there any evidence that the found mechanism could trigger such an event?
F. Joe D’Aleo just posted a response stating that at this moment in time a major warming of the Stratosphere is taking place.
Is it possible to simulate this event based on your theory?
gary gulrud (05:13:59) :
Erl:
“the solar wind directly heats the atmosphere ”
This is only a polar phenomenon, a paper out last year surmised 1-2 degrees C for the Arctic.
Just wondering. Look at this:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215184317.htm
Citation: Smith, A. K., D. R. Marsh, J. M. Russell III, M. G. Mlynczak, F. J. Martin-Torres, and E. Kyrölä (2008), Satellite observations of high nighttime ozone at the equatorial mesopause, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D17312, doi:10.1029/2008JD010066.
While extreme ultraviolet radiation from the sun is the dominant mechanism that causes the thermosphere to “breathe,” the new CU-Boulder study indicates high-speed wind from the sun triggers independent breathing episodes by creating geomagnetic disturbances, heating the thermosphere and altering its density. The wind streams are generated by relatively cool pockets on the sun’s surface known as solar coronal holes that periodically rotate around the sun’s surface, said Thayer.
and also:
Atmospheric Effects of Coronal Holes and Powerful High-Speed Solar Wind Streams in 2003 Observed by the TIMED Spacecraft
Recurrent and powerful high speed streams were responsible for driving a large portion of the magnetic activity during the year 2003. High speed streams in this year were among the most geoffective of the entire solar cycle due both to their long-durations (10’s of days) and high velocities. In addition, the polar coronal holes, that provided the source of the high speed streams, also contributed to a significant variation in solar EUV radiation by covering a large fraction of the solar disc each rotation. The TIMED spacecraft with ground-based collaborators made comprehensive measurements of the atmospheric response to these strong, long-duration energy inputs. Initial analysis indicates an interesting coupling between variations in the EUV radiation and solar wind inputs in producing the atmospheric response. The decrease in solar EUV (due to the presence of the coronal hole on the solar disc) begins to precondition the atmosphere several days before the fast coronal hole wind hits the Earth, causing the atmosphere to cool and increasing the O/N2 ratio. Long intervals of recurrent substorm activity triggered by the high speed streams deposit energy in this preconditioned atmosphere. Models indicate that the effects of magnetic activity penetrate deeper in altitude and lower in latitude in such a cooler atmosphere. In addition, enhancements in NO and other changes in atmospheric chemistry driven by the recurrent long-duration substorm activity may not recover before the next high speed stream hits, making for weeks long perturbations. There are also indications that mesospheric tides may be modulated in some way by the high speed stream inputs.
There is a marked cooling occurring in the equatorial and Antarctic stratosphere in conjunction with the northern stratospheric warming that can be seen here: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/
Given the spatial pattern of these temperature changes it looks more like sun than Rossby wave activity to me.
That atmosphere is just one big bathtub.
The temperature of the equatorial stratosphere will jump when the enhanced stratospheric ozone (due to the current cooling) is hit by UV when the coronal hole passes.
I note that a recurrent trans equatorial coronal hole (CH357) was in an Earth facing position on January 22-24.
I like the description of the physics offered by kuhnkat (19:10:51) :