There’s some interesting information of the six month trend of neutrons being detected globally that I want to bring to discussion, but first I thought that a primer on cosmic rays, neutrons, and their interaction with the atmosphere might be helpful to the many layman readers here. – Anthony
Cosmic rays are energetic particles that originate in space and our sun and collide with particles as they zip through our atmosphere. While they come from all directions in space, and the origination of many of these cosmic rays is unknown, they has recently been shown that a larger percentage emanate from specific deep space sources. Cosmic rays were originally discovered because of the ionization they produce in our atmosphere. They cause ionization trails in the atmosphere much like you see in a simple science project called a cloud chamber, shown below:
Using the Wilson cloud chamber, in 1927, Dimitr Skobelzyn photographed the first ghostly tracks left by cosmic rays.
In the past, we have often referred to cosmic rays as “galactic cosmic rays” or GCR’s, because we did not know where they originated. Now scientists have determined that the sun discharges a significant amount of these high-energy particles. “Solar Cosmic Rays” (SCR’s – cosmic rays from the sun) originate in the sun’s chromosphere. Most solar cosmic ray events correlate relatively well with solar flares. However, they tend to be at much lower energies than their galactic cousins.
Because Earth’s atmosphere also reacts much like the ionization trail effect seen in the Wilson cloud chamber, scientists such as Svensmark have postulated that galactic cosmic rays can affect the earth by causing changes in weather and possibly long term climate. Moving at close to the speed of light, these nuclear fragments smash into air molecules hard enough to knock electrons loose. This well-documented process creates negatively and positively chargedions.
Like the cloud trails seen in the Wilson cloud chamber, cosmic ray ionization trails in our atmosphere can act as cloud seeds. Some studies suggest that ions play a central role in creating aerosols. Aerosols are minute but important atmospheric particles that can serve as the cores of growing cloud droplets. Aerosols can cause clouds to form in the upper atmosphere, after the particles collide with other atmospheric particles in the troposphere and conglomerate into larger particles.
Aerosols: Many atmospheric aerosols are liquid droplets containing dissolved sea salt from sea spray, sulfuric acid (H2SO4), organic molecules from trees and plants, and other compounds. Over agricultural and urban areas, dust and soot are common aerosols Soot particles emanate from incomplete combustion of fuels such coal, wood, oil, jet fuel, and kerosene. Soot consists chiefly of amorphous carbon and tar like substances that cause it to adhere to surfaces. Both liquid and solid aerosols help clouds develop by encouraging the condensation of water vapor, which does not occur readily without an original seed particle of some sort in the air.
A cosmic ray, especially a high energy one from deep space, can cause an entire family tree of smaller particles and ionization trails. See this animation below created by the Cosmus group at the University of Chicago.
The process of a cosmic ray particle colliding with particles in our atmosphere and disintegrating into smaller pions, muons, and the like, is called a cosmic ray shower. These particles can be measured on the Earth’s surface by neutron monitors.
Click on figure to view a diagram of a cosmic ray shower
Neutron Monitors. Ground-based neutron monitors detect variations in the approximately 500 Mev to 20 GeV portion of the primary cosmic ray spectrum.
(Note: 1 Mega electron Volt = 1.60217646 × 10-13 joules)
This class of cosmic ray detector is more sensitive in the approximate 500 Mev to 4 GeV portion of the cosmic ray spectrum than are cosmic ray muon detectors. The portion of the cosmic ray spectrum that reaches the Earth’s atmosphere is controlled by the geomagnetic cutoff which varies from a minimum (theoretically zero) at the magnetic poles to a vertical cosmic ray cutoff of about 15 GV (ranging from 13 to 17) in the equatorial regions. (Note: GV is a unit of magnetic rigidity. Magnetic rigidity is a particle’s momentum per unit charge. It is the relevant quantity for characterizing a cosmic ray’s ability to penetrate Earth’s magnetic field.).
The primary cosmic ray particles interact with the atmosphere and generate secondaries, some of which will reach the surface of the Earth.
When the secondary cosmic rays interact in the monitor, (actually in lead surrounding the counters) they cause nuclear disintegrations, or “stars”. These stars are composed of charged fragments and neutrons typically in the energy range of tens to hundreds of MeV (million electron-volts), even up to GeV energies. As a result of these high energy nuclear interactions, there will be more secondary fragments generated than incident particles and hence there is a multiplier effect for the counters. The neutrons are moderated and then counted using Boron tri-fluoride (BF3) proportional counters which are efficient thermal neutron detectors; hence the name neutron monitor.
The original design by Simpson is often designated as an IGY neutron monitor. From that link:
John A. Simpson, at the University of Chicago, invented and developed the neutron monitor over the years 1948-50 and found that the Earth’s magnetic field could be used as a spectrometer to allow measurements of the cosmic ray spectrum down to low primary energies. The magnetic latitude of a particular neutron monitor determines the lowest magnetic rigidity of a primary that can reach the monitor, the so-called “cut-off rigidity”. The station’s altitude determines the amount of absorbing atmosphere above the station and hence the amount of absorption of the secondary cosmic rays (the higher the station, the higher the counting rate). By using a combination of lead (to produce local interactions), paraffin or polyethylene (to moderate or slow down the neutron component) and multiple slow-neutron counters, Simpson greatly increased the counting rate in his monitor design.
The worldwide network neutron monitors that have since been established gather data that have shown there is a correlation between periodic solar activity and the earthly neutron count. For example:
This plot shows data from the Climax, Colorado neutron monitor operated by the University of Chicago. The cosmic rays show an inverse relationship to the sunspot cycle because Sun’s magnetic field is stronger during sunspot maximum and shields the Earth from cosmic rays.
Right now we are near the solar minimum, but neutron counts are still increasing. The current science says that if we had passed solar minimum, neutron counts should be decreasing.
Michael Roynane writes today:
The Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware manages five real-time neutron monitors, at widely dispersed locations, all of which indicate that over the last six months cosmic rays are increasing. This would not support the hypothesis that we are past solar minimum and suggests that solar minimum has not yet been reached.
Links to the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware:
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/main.html#stations
Newark, DE Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/theplot2.gif)
McMurdo Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/themcplot2.gif)
Thule Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/thethplot2.gif)
Fort Smith Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/thefsplot2.gif)
Inuvik Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/theinplot2.gif)
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To experience how potent seeding is, Pendleton periodically gets sprinkled with cloudless rain. Just West of us there is a strip of highway that has “Blowing Dust” warning signs (the big ones that stretch across the freeway). On a windy day that fine dust can end up quite high in the air in upwells that send it heavenward. The next day, we get cloudless rain.
Robert Wood (15:30:08) :
“you can see a red dot near the bottom of the first graph. It is an hourly value that is ‘out of order’ probably due to some noise.”
But it may also be a real value. You cannot say it isn’t. After all, the real world can be just as noisy as the data is 🙂
Especially when things like cosmic rays and atomic processes are inherently random and statistical in nature.
It is highly unlikely that it is real, precisely because of the random nature. In counting statistics the standard deviation is the square root of the count. The square root of 9580 is 98, and since the red dot is down at 9220, it is 3.67 sigma away from the average, which is extremely unlikely, see e.g. http://www.blackcatsystems.com/GM/experiments/ex4.html
I did say ‘probably noise’. I should have said ‘highly probable’ 🙂
Rob S (17:00:44) :
Is it accurate to say that because we are in uncharted territory in terms of the suns behavior that we cannot predict anything about SC24 from a plateau of CR rates ?.
We are not in uncharted territory, and the CR are a poor predictor because they trail solar activity.
And when we see CR rates start to decline it implies that SC24 has begun to ramp 6-12 months prior ?.
Yes
BTW, I have enjoyed your contribution to this blog and you make us all smarter by just reading you!.
Thanks for the kind words.
Mike Ramsey (17:07:49) :
So you are saying that when we finally do see a decrease in galactic cosmic rays we can say that the solar sunspot number minimum occurred within the last year.
Yes 6-12 months before. Probably 12 or even more, because people will only admit to the decrease long after it has started 🙂
Stephen (17:15:17) :
I read somewhere that some of the present increase in the 10.7 flux may be related to the distance from the sun?
The flux depends on the inverse square of the distance. It is silly to use the observed flux [largest in January, smallest in July] as a measure of solar activity, one must correct for the changing distance. It is NOT silly to use the observed flux as a measure of the excitation of the ionosphere and its impact on radio communication and satellite drag.
Geoff Sharp (17:37:45) :
Do we have a record from reliable stations that show the overall neutron trend since the 1970’s. Oulu certainly shows the neutron count at present going through the so called solar floor.
Almost all stations are reliable, because the observers strive for that. Thule is run by the Bartol people at UDEL and is very good. Here is Thule since 1957:
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux4.png
and here is Thule counts for the three odd-even minima:
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux5.png
compare with Moscow counts:
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux2.png
The counts have not been adjusted in the ‘vertical’ direction. The curves have been shifted to have the up-ramp match.
Dr. Svalgaard,
My apologies, you were correct about the Oulu and Moscow datasets correlating. Here is the as yet un-normalized data for the Oulu & Moscow Neutron Monitors, with a one (1) day sampling interval and corrected for barometric pressure.
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/MichaelRonayne/Oulu_Moscow_NM.png
The Moscow NM graphic which was the source of my confusion is here:
http://helios.izmiran.rssi.ru/cosray/Images/months.gif
While this graphic is clearly the Moscow NM dataset which, is apparently being updated every 24 hours, a negative bias was introduced from an unknown source. Even the on demand graphic interface is a bit questionable, For the Moscow dataset, download the actual data and doing your own plots is the best option.
From the following graphic with data from 2005 to present, I am not able to see any recent decrease in Oulu or Moscow cosmic ray activity. I did try several different best fits but they all suggested that cosmic ray activity is still increasing.
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/MichaelRonayne/Oulu_Moscow_NM_2005.png
I am going to down load the five UDEL stations and include them in my analysis. I will then try to duplicate your graphics. I found that the fractional year date format used by Oulu was very convenient and converted the Moscow dates to this format. I am also going to try different sampling intervals to determine if there is any impact on the results. I am doing everything in Excel and will share the files with anyone who is interested,
I should note that there are 43 missing days in the Oulu dataset and 500 missing days in the Moscow dataset at a sample interval of 1 day. What sampling interval are you using?
Mike
The uncorrected is what gets published in the Solar Terrestrial Activity Report, along with the uncorrected (by SIDC) sunspot and Planetary A index.
I could do a whole lot of work and still get the same answer by painstakingly re-graphing. The entire point I make is relative amplitude. Waves that range between 2 to 4 flux units high need to increase to 8-12 flux units high and sustain momentum.
We don’t currently have enough airspeed to lower the flaps for takeoff.
I looked back at all the available sunspot data that I could find and came up with that number. Then I went browsing around predictive models and found it again. It means something to somebody.
We ain’t got no amplitude, we ain’t got no melody.
Relative, that is.
Somebody get inspired, plug those waves into a music making thing, and lets hear the tunes.
Lee Kington (20:19:56) :
You maintain that should a Dalton (or even Maunder) type event occur with Solar Cycles 24, 25, (and possibly 26) the effect on average global temperatures would be minimal, perhaps undetectable.
The temperature will drop ~0.1 of a degree. If there are significant feedback as some people claim perhaps twice that, although I’m doubtful of that. I would say 0.1.
“Sunspot numbers will be extremely small, and when the sun crashes, it crashes hard,” says Svaalgard. “The upcoming sunspot crash could cause the Earth to cool”
Granted the statement does not quantify the amount of potential cooling, yet it seems you felt it worthy or significant enough to mention.
It is so nice that ‘could’ is a weasel word, but even 0.1 degree seems to be what people consider significant nowadays. From
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/hadcrut-in-how-far-off-the-projections-based-on-anomalies/ Comment#10595:
“If I calculate correctly, the HadCRUt trends are:
Jan 2000-Jan 2009 = 0.0135
Jan 2001-Jan 2009 = -0.1125”
So there much-trumpeted recent cooling is of that magnitude.
Michael Ronayne (21:55:40) :
What sampling interval are you using?
I download the highest I can get. Usually one hour. But because of the diurnal variation on CR intensity it makes more sense to compute daily values, so I do that. There is also a 27-day variation, so for some analysis it is better to work with 27-day averages, or monthly [which gives very nearly the same results].
Robert Bateman (22:00:24) :
The uncorrected is what gets published in the Solar Terrestrial Activity Report, along with the uncorrected (by SIDC) sunspot and Planetary A index.
The sunspot number is not corrected for distance [it should, but we don’t know how to]. A index and F10.7 should be corrected if solar activity is sought, but the radio amateurs [the DX people that use Solar Activity Report] don’t care about true solar activity, they want the uncorrected value as that is what affects radio communication.
I keep an updated graph of corrected TSI and F10.7 at http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png so no painful re-graphing needed for real-time monitoring.
The official F10.7 values [both observed and adjusted] can be found here: ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/daily_flux_values/current.txt
If Leif Svalgaard says it is true then it must be true!
I sometimes wonder why we even bother to collect scientific data from the Sun, since there is no room for ambiquity in the way in which this data is interpreted. As far as Leif Svalgaard is concerned it is all back and white.
If the interpratation doesn’t agree with Leif Svalgaard’s (all knowing) interpretation then it is simply dismissed as hot air.
From a person who is definietly not a member of the Leif Svalgaard avid fan club!
Some observations on the solar-cloud theories, solar minimums and global temperatures:
Firstly, we ought to be more interested in what is happening in the Arctic and in particular the North Atlantic, than some global mean – this region is acutely sensitive to what the sun is up to and to cloud patterns. The area between Iceland and Norway is crucial – what happens here feeds back to the whole Northern Hemisphere.
There are two candidate processes at work and they would interact. At solar minimum, there is an effect on the polar vortex and the jetstream which directs storm tracts and hence cloud banks. There is a tendency to form high pressure systems in the Arctic and these interplay with the high pressure systems further south around the Azores. When the Arctic highs predominate, the jetstream moves south, westerly winds into northern Europe are blocked, and the continent cools as it is no longer warmed by the Atlantic. Cloud banks also move south.
Thus, although during a solar minimum, cosmic-ray induced global cloudiness may increase (by 3%) above the solarmaximum, the spatial pattern is probably more important. In the Arctic, the air is cold with not so much water vapour – between 1980-2000, cloud cover over the Beaufort Sea and polar ice sheet increased by 14% (State of the Arctic Report) most likely as consequence of the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation carrying moisture in over Alaska and the Bering Sea – this cloud radiates heat downward and melts ice, which also gets warm water underneath from the warming North Atlantic current coming from Norway – hence the strong melt-down until 2007 and the slight reversal now that the PDO has shifted phase and Arctic highs are re-establishing themselves – bringing freezing conditions to North America and recently to Western Europe.
When cloud shifts south from seas north of 60N, their insulating effect is lost and warm water is exposed to the night sky and this dominates over extra sunlight and the water cools – further south, less cloud would lead to warming due to more sunlight at the surface.
(If I knew how to interpose a diagram here, I could show the two main ocean gyres where ‘global warming’s accumulated heat from 1980-2002 was stored at depth in the north Pacific and north Atlantic gyres – the Pacific gyre has now lost that heat and the Atlantic will follow in a few years – Anthony, can you mail me on that?)
In a prolonged solar minimum, this transient effect becomes continuous. So I think Leif will be proven wrong (probably the only time!) – a Dalton type minimum might lower global T by 0.1C (more in the northern, and likely a warming in the southern for reasons I don’t yet understand), but a Maunder Minimum would bring 0.5-1C global and 2-3C in some regions of the northern hemisphere.
The main issue at stake here with ‘global cooling’ is that the world’s food surplus, upon which 67 countries rely, is dependent upon northern grain harvests – these get afflicted by cool wet summers and cold winters, leading to short growing seasons and fungal rot.
Eastern countries less in the IPCC loop, seem to appreciate the power of solar cycles and the prospect of such cooling. The sovereign funds of China, Russia and some Middle Eastern states have been buying up millions of acres of productive land in Madagascar, Paraguay and Cambodia – where subsistence peasants have little political clout.
I could have sworn the theory was that the solar magnetic field protected us from GCR’s, not the solar wind. Changes in the magnetic field will propogate outwards at the speed of light.
Dr. Svalgaard,
The following chart is for the Moscow Neutron Monitor from January 1, 2006 through March 15, 2009 with a sampling interval of one day. The minor tic-marks on the X-Axis are in 1/12 of years, not months. As you suggested, the plot was split into two sections before and after November 1, 2008. A liner trend line was plotted for the data from November 1, 2008 to March 15, 2009.
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/MichaelRonayne/Moscow_NM_2006.png
While the fitted liner trend line has a negative slope, the data is so variable that I would want a large sample size before rushing to any conclusions. Adjusting the starting and ending dates would significantly alter the results. From my prospective the data still looks like we are at a plateau. Let’s continue to track the Moscow NM using this metric.
I will continue to use a one day sampling interval when plotting data. Would other dates be of interest?
Mike
So, the variations in energy from the sun do not have a significant direct impact on global temperature according to Leif.
Leif does however accept the possibility of amplifying factors but the solar changes seem to be so small that even an amplification of several multiples would itself be very small.
As far as I can tell Leif is also doubtful about AGW.
Does Leif have any personal opinions or professional views on what it is that primarily causes global temperatures to vary as observed ?
It’s all very well having such a high ‘standard’ that every possibility is excluded but that does not assist in making progress or identifying the areas of science where effort and expense would best be directed.
Dr. Svalgaard,
Using the criteria which were applied to the Moscow Neutron Monitor, I evaluated the behavior of the Oulu Neutron Monitor before and after November 1, 2008. A liner trend line was plotted for the time period from November 1, 2008 to March 15, 2009.
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/MichaelRonayne/Oulu_NM_2006.png
The Oulu NM continues to show a strong increase in cosmic ray activity through March 15, 2009. But again, the sample size is too small to rush to any conclusions at this time. It will be interesting to apply the same test to the UDEL NM stations.
Question: Would it be reasonable to assume that all Neutron Monitoring stations would exhibit the same Solar Minimum signal at the same time?
Mike
MarkW (04:11:15) :
Changes in the magnetic field will propagate outwards at the speed of light.
No, because the heliosphere is filled with a highly electrically conducting plasma. A change of the magnetic field will induce a current in the plasma that has a magnetic field opposing the change [ http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/community/slideshows/eddycurrents/index.html ]. These changes can travel outwards as an Alfven wave [speed about 40 km/s], but actually get here eleven times faster because the supersonic [Mach 11] solar wind drags the frozen-in magnetic field with it at 440 km/s on average. The result is that it takes 149,600,000/440 seconds = 3.93 days for a magnetic field change to travel to the Earth and 90*3.93 days =0.97 years to traverse the 90 AU to the heliosphere termination shock.
Stephen Wilde (05:38:10) :
It’s all very well having such a high ’standard’ that every possibility is excluded but that does not assist in making progress or identifying the areas of science where effort and expense would best be directed.
Not every possibility is excluded. In solving a complex problem you have in front of you a ‘decision tree’ with many branches. Progress is made by lopping off branches. If in that process you find that you have lopped off all the branches, it simply means that you don’t have enough information, data, or theory at this point to solve the problem.
Michael Ronayne (05:57:39) :
Question: Would it be reasonable to assume that all Neutron Monitoring stations would exhibit the same Solar Minimum signal at the same time?
No, because different stations sample CRs of different energy [sorted by the Earth’s magnetic field that varies with location]. The solar modulation of CRs also depends on the energy of the CRs, with lower energies modulated the most. In addition, there are local atmospheric conditions [e.g. temperature in the stratosphere] that are different from station to station, as well as atmospheric pressure [which also depends] on altitude. The pressure changes are routinely corrected for in a crude way by subtracting a count of 46 for each millimeter of Hg increase in pressure [for Thule]. This relation is not quite linear, but let’s ignore that complication for now.
So, if you look in great detail every station will be slightly different in counts and in trend and solar ‘minimum’ [or CR maximum actually] will occur at slightly different times.
Ninderthana, learn from Leif, understand his principles of solar observation and physics and present a different view. In my reading, Leif is not on WUWT to shut people up, but to offer his expertise and to hold alternative views to the highest scientific standards. He is going to be wrong at some time. Won’t that be fun. Less batching and more debating is WUWTs style. As for me, of course “it” is the sun — that gives us most warmth. But how that warmth is distributed in earth’s dynamic, chaotic oceanic-atmospheric-terrestrial “system” is the question, along with geothermal and GCR input. And what is still unknown? I think we are on a wild ride that is at least an E-ticket, if you know what I mean.
Lance (15:45:09) : “Aerosols: Many atmospheric aerosols are liquid droplets containing dissolved sea salt from sea spray, sulfuric acid (H2SO4), organic molecules from trees and plants, and other compounds.”
Most ridicules, dissolved sea salt? In what?!
It sounds ridiculous, but is actually true. Have you ever gone to the shore and notice by the smell that you are getting close? That’s dissolved sea salt as an aerosol. Also, there are certain cave features (e.g., popcorn) that can only be accounted for by deposition of salts from the air.
–Mark
Michael Ronayne (05:57:39) :
assume that all Neutron Monitoring stations would exhibit the same Solar Minimum signal at the same time?
Daily values for Thule thru February look like this:
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux6.png
March and April might be enough to settle the matter.
The solar wind now is not much different from what it was back in 1965: http://www.leif.org/research/Solar%20Wind%201963-now.png so we would expect CRs to behave like they did at that minimum [also coming in to a low cycle, BTW]. Moscow and Thule plots confirm that CR now is very near to the peaks in 1965 and 1987, so we would expect that we have reached that peak now as well:
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux2.png for Moscow
http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux5.png for Thule
Whether or not the peak value will be the same is, of course, the interesting question. Different stations have slightly different long term trends as I have discussed, so one has to look at MANY stations to get a good picture. The overall picture is that there is no long-term trend in the peak values. This is expected as there is no long-term trend in solar wind parameters either.
The Sun could show us otherwise and we would learn something, but if the past is a guide to the future, the Sun is just on track and there does not seem to be a surprise looming. Wishing that there would be a surprise is not science, but what a treat if we get one.
Anthony – as a medical science writer and editor of instructional materials, I found your post to be outstanding (can’t underline, but would!). It educated those of us who are REALLY laypeople. Why? Your writing was CLEAR and progressively built a case so that we could understand your post. As such, you informed, defined terms well, and provided clear data to illustrate your points. Bottom line: you established the necessary knowledge base to solidly make your point that the solar minimum for cycle 23 has not been yet reached.
Given the posts in your blog and Joe D’Aleo’s columns about the extended duration of cycle 23, looks like we could be in for some – ah – “interesting” times. Obviously, time will tell.
Look forward to more of WUWT’s continuing education 100 and 200 courses in the future!
Many thanks!
Bob W.
What do you know of the foF2 measurement?
Robert Bateman (08:40:59) :
What do you know of the foF2 measurement?
It is a measure of the maximum radio frequency that can be reflected by the F2-region of the ionosphere at vertical incidence.
The frequency depends on the EUV flux and is thus a kind of proxy for that flux, i.e. varies with the solar cycle.
Many people have studied the long-term trend of foF2 and they find inconsistent results: at some stations it increases, at others [most, actually] it decreases [but very little], at some there is no change. It has been suggested that trace gases of anthropogenic origin plays a role; even earthquakes have been proposed. Here is more: http://www2.udec.cl/~eovalle/Articulo4.pdf
But be advised that there is no consensus on this problem.
Peter Taylor (03:22:17) :
The main issue at stake here with ‘global cooling’ is that the world’s food surplus, upon which 67 countries rely, is dependent upon northern grain harvests – these get afflicted by cool wet summers and cold winters, leading to short growing seasons and fungal rot.
The sovereign funds of China, Russia and some Middle Eastern states have been buying up millions of acres of productive land in Madagascar, Paraguay and Cambodia – where subsistence peasants have little political clout.
Well stated!
Is Svensmark the source for the theories about cosmic rays / cloud formation? Or only one of the more recent sources?
The Wilson Cloud Chamber (1927) shown above, was surely used to extrapolate theories about atmospheric cloud formation (?)
Albedo, to the best of my knowledge, is also not new or unique to his work?
What aspect of his work specifically merits the subtitle “A New Theory of Climate Change” ?
jae (17:33:17) :
because I want to see Leif wrong, once.
Being wrong is how one learns. I have learned a lot. My most blatant mistake can be seen on page 2 of http://www.leif.org/research/GC31B-0351-F2007.pdf where I suggested that the Sun’s open magnetic field had doubled over the past century [or most of it, anyway]. Other people fell into the same trap as I [e.g. Lockwood et al.]. Science is, however, self-correcting and in due time mistakes get corrected as the link describes.
With reference to my reply to S. Wilde, the ‘doubling’ was a branch that was pruned away.
Regarding comments made RE our website (http://www.nwra-az.com/):
1. The effective-SSN is not based on solar flux except indirectly, This is derived from analysis of ionospheric density observations only. It reflects both the impact of the solar EUV radiation and geomagnetic activity on ionospheric density, as well as things such as tides in the neutral winds at ionospheric altitudes.
2. While plots on our site show F10 increasing since August, that could be just the earth-to-sun distance effect. We plot the raw F10, not the F10 corrected to 1AU, the latter being more germane to this discussion.