You’ve probably all heard of Svensmark and the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) to cloud cover modulation theory by now. Lot’s of warmists say it is “discredited”. However, CERN in Switzerland isn’t following that thinking, and after getting some encouraging results in the CLOUD06 experiment, they have funded a much larger and more comprehensive CLOUD09 experiment. I figure if it is “discredited”, a bunch of smart guys and gals like CERN wouldn’t be ramping up the investigation. There’s also word now of a new correlation:
I get so many tips now it is hard to choose, but this one is a gem. If you look at nothing else this month, please take the time to download the slide show from CERN’s Jasper Kirkby at the end of this article.
He does a superb job of tying it all together. I found Kirkby’s slide show quite interesting, and I’ve grabbed some slides for our WUWT readers. He proposes a GCR to cloud droplet mechanism, which to me, makes sense meteorologically. He also touches on the possibility that the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) may have been shifted due to GCR modulation during the LIA/Maunder Minimum. This ties in with Willis Eschenbach’s theories of the ITCZ being a “thermostatic mechanism” for the planet with some amplification effects. – Anthony
Norm Potter writes in Tips and Notes for WUWT with this-
The end is near for the warmists, I suspect. This month, Jasper Kirkby of CERN explained the Centre’s CLOUD experiment, which is moving forward:
“The current understanding of climate change in the industrial age is that it is predominantly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, with relatively small natural contributions due to solar irradiance and volcanoes. However, palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the climate has frequently varied on 100-year time scales during the Holocene (last 10 kyr) by amounts comparable to the present warming – and yet the mechanism or mechanisms are not understood. Some of these reconstructions show clear associations with solar variability, which is recorded in the light radio-isotope archives that measure past variations of cosmic ray intensity. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established.
“Estimated changes of solar irradiance on these time scales appear to be too small to account for the climate observations. This raises the question of whether cosmic rays may directly affect the climate, providing an effective indirect solar forcing mechanism. Indeed recent satellite observations – although disputed – suggest that cosmic rays may affect clouds. This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year.”
I found this side on page 29 to be plausible from a meteorological standpoint:
Here is a slide showing the ITCZ shift he’s proposing:
And here is the data and some conjectures, obviously more data is needed. However what is seen so far certainly seems far from “discredited” as some warmists say.
In the conclusions of his slide show, Kirkby outlines the state of knowledge and areas of investigation:
• Climate has continually varied in the past, and the causes are not well understood – especially on the 100 year timescalerelevant for today’s climate change
• Strong evidence for solar-climate variability, but no established mechanism. A cosmic ray influence on clouds is a leading candidate
• CLOUD at CERN aims to study and quantify the cosmic raycloud mechanism in a controlled laboratory experiment
• The question of whether – and to what extent – the climate is influenced by solar/cosmic ray variability remains central to our understanding of anthropogenic climate change
More info, see: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/ – the CERN Colloquium
Download Kirkby’s Slide show (Large 7.8 MB PDF, be patient)
http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=slides&confId=52576
Backup Copy on WUWT server: Kirkby_CERN_slideshow09
Leif Svalgaard (12:06:47) : It’s not “special pleading” it’s just obvious that the ocean responds slowly to energy changes due to its heat capacity. The clouds would be modulated in the “here and now” and you wouldn’t see the response in the system until some time later.
The rest of that about only effecting land/ocean I don’t even know where you are going with it.
Eichler’s ice core data only go back to the beginning of the Little Ice Age (LIA)…You’d have a more valid question if the ice core data extended back through the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Modern Warming appeared different than the MWP.
The LIA ended in about 1850. From 1850 to about 1880, the temperature curve tracks the 10-Be curve. From 1880 to about 1930 the 10-Be curve declines and the temperature curve continues to climb. After 1930 the temperature curve and the 10-Be curve essentially have the same shape and the 10-Be curve has been climbing more rapidly than the temperature curve. The separation in 2000 is about half what it was in 1930.
Here’s another image of the graph with CO2 included…Eichler.
If something anomalous happened, it happened between 1880 and 1930. That 50-year period is the only time period in which the 10-Be and temperature curves had significantly different shapes.
It would be nice if there was a data file available.
George E. Smith (10:39:12) :
We know from our astronomer friends that sooner or later, the earth is going to get hit by one of those close encounter asteroids.
intelligence as we define it, is proving to be a failed experiment in survival by Mother Nature. Gaia has about had it with us. Maybe earth will be just fine when the non meddling termites take over from us.
In Jim Lovelocks original book about the Gaia Hypothesis, he put forward the idea that humans are the evolved nervous sytem of the planet, with the capability to communicate instantly round the globe, and see the future through telescopes and equations. We could serve Gaia and our fellow species by knocking one of those collision course asteroids off collision course with a nuke, Bruce Willis stylee.
I found it quite inspirational at the time. Pity Jim lost the plot. I think the adoring greens got to him with the AGW crap.
Re ” David Corcoran (11:08:35) : I feel for the CERN physicists. If they confirm Svenmark’s theory in even a minor way, AGW advocates will savage their reputations. ”
Actually, it looks like he got in trouble with that before, though whether from AGW backlash or for proclaiming the results before the experiment even started (bad scientist!) is hard to tell. See below.
“Anthony, it looks like you could subtract the Be10 curve from the temperature record and get a pretty good handle on the ‘Hanslification’ of the temperature data over the C20th.” The graph says the temp record is from a Siberian glacial ice core, not NASA.
>Jasper Kirkby is a superb scientist, but he has been a lousy politician. In 1998, anticipating he’d be leading a path-breaking experiment into the sun’s role in global warming, he made the mistake of stating that the sun and cosmic rays “will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century.”
Page 39 is all you need from that slideshow. They seem to have demonstrated that yes, GCR can and probably does have a strong influence on CCN formation. Since that is demonstrated, it’s just a matter of argument over numbers to determine how much it influences cloud formation, but even that should be experimentally verifiable (over a long-term experiment)… Simply measure GCR flux over a specific area of Earth (by satellite?), and measure the cloud cover over that same area for the same period of time (perhaps a larger area to account for atmospheric movement during the CCN formation process?).. then subtract any events/statics that may influence your results, done.
Leif,
thank you for the response. The report seemed to state that the 10Be was a good proxy for solar activity, but measurements could be effected by the regional dynamics of ice movement leading to errors linking the 10Be to actual climate effects. A lot of the data reduction and analysis went well beyond my background, but I think I got the gist of it. My last question though was how well does the “.1%” variation in solar radiation represent the magnetic field variations responsible for modulating cosmic radiation?
Now I wait for the claims CERN is funded by big oil!
timetochooseagain (12:30:12) :
Leif Svalgaard (12:06:47) : It’s not “special pleading” it’s just obvious that the ocean responds slowly to energy changes due to its heat capacity. The clouds would be modulated in the “here and now” and you wouldn’t see the response in the system until some time later.
Whenever a cloud passes I feel the effect [the ‘response’] right away. The oceans respond to the large seasonal changes with a delay of a few months, and you are trying to tell me that the effects of the clouds brought about by a 3% change of cosmic ray flux show up only 20-30 years down the road. I’m not buying.
Anyway, that is not my point. The point is that the various graphs that Svensmark and Co. have put forward show a correlation with no delay and Eichler et al. claim a 20-30yr delay. Can’t have it both ways.
The rest of that about only effecting land/ocean I don’t even know where you are going with it.
Leif Svalgaard (11:15:51) : The GCR theory and the various correlations that have been produced posit the there is no delay whatsoever between GCRs and climate [or is it weather],
If you modulate ‘weather’ long enough, then don’t end up modulating ‘climate’ as well?
I’ve annotated Eichler’s chart…HERE.
From about 1880-1930 the 10-Be and 14-C curves are declining and the temperature curve is essentially flat…Hence the two solar modulation curves deviate from the temperature curve. From 1930-2000 the solar modulation curves climb more rapidly than the temperature curves.
If there is a deviation from a solar-temp correlation, it’s from 1880-1930…Not from 1850-2000.
Please can somebody explain how GCRs were measured as far back as 1300? And how accurate those measurements can be? Especially if even temperature readings today can’t be trusted.
re. Leif’s comment about the red curve and the following comments. Has anyone noted that the A in AGW isnt only CO2.? Why Isnt RP Sr’s land use issue mentioned by either side in the discussion above? Didnt Freeman Dyson say that biology is a key issue? Vast increases in irrig agriculture world wide in the 20C surely would influence water vapour and cloud formation.
Sorry to lower the intellectual tone but I really need to know . Do I say Cloud 9 or Cloudo 9?
Thanks in advance.
Ed.
“”” Leif Svalgaard (13:02:07) :
timetochooseagain (12:30:12) :
Leif Svalgaard (12:06:47) : It’s not “special pleading” it’s just obvious that the ocean responds slowly to energy changes due to its heat capacity. The clouds would be modulated in the “here and now” and you wouldn’t see the response in the system until some time later.
Whenever a cloud passes I feel the effect [the ‘response’] right away. The oceans respond to the large seasonal changes with a delay of a few months, and you are trying to tell me that the effects of the clouds brought about by a 3% change of cosmic ray flux show up only 20-30 years down the road. I’m not buying.
Anyway, that is not my point. The point is that the various graphs that Svensmark and Co. have put forward show a correlation with no delay and Eichler et al. claim a 20-30yr delay. Can’t have it both ways.
The rest of that about only effecting land/ocean I don’t even know where you are going with it. “””
Well i’m with you Leif, on the instantaneous response to the passing cloud.
I submit that the “response” that is instantaneous, is the change in surface level insolation; which would be about as prompt as a sudden 1% jump in TSI (perish the thought that that could happen any time soon).
Any delays in the climatic respose would be expected to have the same thermal delays that would accompany any change in TSI.
Whatever delays of 30 year extent would not be any different, respoinding to a cloud change or to a TSI change.
IMHO of course.
dennis ward (13:10:17) :
through ice core measurements of isotopes left over from CR interaction with our atmosphere. The difference between the accuracies is that for the ice core work, much of the uncertainty is at least identified. In the current surface temp records, those uncertainties are hidden or pushed under the rug in favor of giving a solid number. The trust issue isn’t just that the numbers are wrong, it’s that known sources of error are ignored.
It is a narrow interpretation and conclusion to think that the recent increase of the temperature (red curve) relative to the BE10 (purple curve) or C14 (black curve) during the last century could only be due to AGW (or something else due to Man). Rather, it could be viewed as an integrated response to the sustained higher levels of ‘solar modulation’ associated with BE10 or C14. The oceans and polar regions would be expected to respond much more slowly than land regions to changes in solar energy actually reaching the surface. Their response would be expected to be more related to the integral of the instantaneous radiation.
During the last 200 years the ‘solar modulation’ from BE10 is consistently higher than the previous 500. As such, an integrating function would show a positive slope for temperature over the time period.
A mental model for temperature response to varying cloudiness could contain a very short term response function for heating over land along with a longer term integrating function for oceans and polar regions. If the data were available, this would make a nice differential equations excercise.
Rather than do the work, I guess that it is easier to blame SUV’s and cars that are painted black.
Leif
The paper you reference ( http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL038004.pdf ) does not agree with the Eichler 10BE curve. Does this mean that 10Be is not consistent between Siberia (a rather lager location) and Greenland specific points?
Wiki Has an interesting plot of 10Be cf sunspot number. The 10Be looks very much like the Eichler plot However the 10Be is inverted – I assume the solar modulation implies this inversion?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V3S-4C7DC5T-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=945465003&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=55aefb9282d3cbaa47eaad798b39e93d
Abstract
We perform an analysis of two recent reconstructions of the terrestrial temperature and the cosmogenic isotope 10Be, considered as a proxy of the cosmic ray flux, for the period 1580–1985. We find that the 10Be is ambiguously related to temperature on secular time scales, as one record shows no relation, and the other one presents an anticorrelation. In particular for the period 1930–1985 the correlations between both temperature records and 10Be are low, furthermore the temperature series have the same decreasing trend as the 10Be series, when an opposite behavior between them should be expected. It is observed a large jump in temperature 1909 that could be attributed to the opposite large jump in cosmic rays due to an enhancement of the solar magnetic field. The temperature trend behavior from 1930 onwards could be attributed to the anthropogenic contribution to the climate warming.
Leif Svalgaard (11:25:32) :
If you actually read the Eichler paper, their conclusion states:
“However, during the industrial period (1850–2000) solar forcing became less important and only the CO2 concentrations show a significant correlation with the temperature record” how this can be interpreted as ‘the end is near for the Warmists’ beats me.
Leif – I respect you greatly, but you’re going out of your way to be obtuse here. If I had a dollar for every time you have said that correlation do not equal causation, I’d be rich. Yet, here you are pointing out a correlation must be causation argument from the paper and using that to belittle the “deniers”. You’re better than that. One statement from a long paper does not refute the “end is near” comment.
Tom
“”” dennis ward (13:10:17) :
Please can somebody explain how GCRs were measured as far back as 1300? And how accurate those measurements can be? Especially if even temperature readings today can’t be trusted. “””
Just a wild guess Dennis, but Cosmic ray flux is believed to be the primary source of the transmutation of Nitrogen into radioactive C14 in the atmosphere. That C14 abundance then becomes entombed in tree rings and other types of proxies.
To the extent that C14 abundance is a good proxy for GCRs, tree rings can give GRC data back to 1300 and beyond.
Teh c14 production rate was once presumed to be absolutely constant (for lack of any real knowledge), and that was a basic assumption of radio carbon dating methodology.
It was shown by dating each ring of 4000 year old Bristle cone pines from the White Mountains of CalNev, that the C14 production rate was anything but constant.
These tree ring data, were used to “lineartize” the radiaocarbon dating scale; and as a result of that correction, world history was changed. Certain pottery technology that was previously believed to have migrated from Mesopotamia to southern Europe (Spain), based on dating of kiln ashes; was proved to have gone the other way from Spain into the middle East, once the radio carbon calendar was fixed.
So yes to some extent, GCRs from the LIA is not unreasonable.
George
How was the temperature data spliced? Do we really have ice cores for the entire data set? Or was there a splice between core and temperature sensors for the last 100 or so years on the graph? Due to sampling differences (ice core versus temperature sensor), in addition to many other differences between the two kinds of data sets, the split in the end of the graph could have many reasons.
Leif, I am curious about your comment that climate affects these cosmic ray measures on a regional basis. How so?
Gino (12:56:59) :
My last question though was how well does the “.1%” variation in solar radiation represent the magnetic field variations responsible for modulating cosmic radiation?
Both the 0.1% variation and the factor of two change in the interplanetary magnetic field are due to the same magnetic field on the Sun. But it is not a simple relationship, and the modulation of cosmic rays have really little to do with the variation of the magnitude of the Sun’s magnetic field. The main reason for the modulation of cosmic rays is solar rotation [with some help from coronal mass ejections]. It works like this: There are two kinds of solar wind, fast wind from coronal holes and slow wind from the rest of the Sun [it is a bit more complicated, but those complications are details]. As the Sun rotates an observer at a distance will see solar wind with different speeds go by him coming from areas with alternating slow and fast wind. So in any given direction the fast wind will run into the slow wind and ‘pile up’ in what is called a corotating interaction region. In this region whatever magnetic fields there were will be tangled and compressed and it is this ‘tangle’ that scatters the cosmic rays. The polar areas are at solar minimum covered with large coronal holes and hence uniform fast wind, thus no interaction regions form there, meaning that the interaction regions will be confined to low latitudes only. So cosmic rays coming in from a random direction has only a small chance of being scattered by an interaction region. When the solar cycle gets going the polar coronal holes shrink [as they are ‘nibbled’ away by new polarity magnetic flux form the new cycle] and the interaction free volume shrinks correspondingly’ leading to a larger volume occupied by interaction regions and hence more scattering away of cosmic rays, so there will be an inverse relation between solar activity and cosmic rays. In addition coronal explosions also produce material running into slower wind and piling up. To it is only indirectly that the Sun’s magnetic field [by providing sunspots and CMEs] control the cosmic ray flux.
I agree with Leif. At the moment the GCR theory has no defined mechanism and process which suppossedly will come from the CLOUD experiment. If GCR modulates temperature in some fashion (creates more clouds) then for this to show up 30 years later would mean that the inherent oscillations would not be destoyed. The ocean acts like a filter, meaning it turns short term high frequency into longer term low frequency. It would take an intriguing process to maintain coherence of a 30 year old signal. To be honest I can’t see this as a viable option, even just applying Occam’s Razor.
GCR may perturb the thunderstorm process though, lowering the threshold for heat to bypass the troposphere via the creation of heat pipes (following Willis’ logic).
If dust is present in the atmosphere and water vapour concentration is sufficient then clouds will form using these cloud condensation nuclei. If there is insufficient water vapour then no cloud will form – whatever the level of galactic cosmic rays passing through or dust in the air.
As I asked above – are there insufficient particles floating around so the air becomes supersaturated just waiting for a cosmic ray ro trigger a cloud??
Experiments using silver iodide to seed clouds I thought had shown little promise.
If low level clouds form these will reflect short wavelength TSI back to space, however they are formed. The reduced insolation will cool in hours the atmosphere – this will show within minutes on a thermometer. There should be no lag to temperature recordings made away from coasts. A 11 year cycle should then show – it does not. Increased clouds will eventually (30 years???) appear as a sea surface temp reduction (perhaps) – but there should still be a air temperature instant effect.
Also why is the LIA and MWP missing from the temperature and 10Be plots?
Leif Svalgaard (13:02:07) : “Anyway, that is not my point. The point is that the various graphs that Svensmark and Co. have put forward show a correlation with no delay and Eichler et al. claim a 20-30yr delay. Can’t have it both ways.”
I have a memory from 30 years ago when we were measuring cosmic rays in a laboratory that said that there is no need to look out to find out the weather just look at the data. Less anecdotal evidence of the correlation can be found in the scientific literature as you said.
But why shouldn’t we have both no delay correlations and 20-30yr correlations? There are solar cycles.
The question of cosmic rays and clouds is not, of course, a simple one. Ongoing studies in CERN are just a start of understanding.
Note also that it is not either sun or CO2. In complex systems like global climate many factors are important. You can’t just select one even if that factor shows the best correlation.
Bill Yarber: very impressive demonstration. You hsould send it to some climatologist just for fun. Following
Kiehl, J. T.; Kevin E. Trenberth (February 1997). “Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget” (PDF). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78 (2): 197–208.
the contribution of CO2 is 9-26%
Peter: the fact that we don’t know if something happened doesn’t mean it happened more than probably. At least it didn’t happen in the last 200 years or so.
rbateman: you should send a rebuttal to the paper then, if you’re so sure I (and they) are completely wrong and didn’t take into account rain in California to explain Siberian temperature trends
Tim: the reference I gave is based on satellite measurements, not simulations. Things are quite clear now, aren’t they?