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
Stefan (01:27:53) :
We are not an organ of Gaia just because Gaia is physically bigger. That is like claiming that the Nation State owns all its citizens and should dictate their life just because the state and society is bigger than the individual. An individual is capable of conscious awareness, which society is not. Humans can reason and think, which Gaia is not able to do. We may be smaller, we may for the time being rely on agriculture for food, but we are conscious intelligent beings, we have a depth of existence, which Gaia does not. We are not here to serve Gaia. That is a profound confusion, but it does explain the rather self-sacrifcial attitude of some greenies.
My two sentence summary of Lovelock doesn’t do him justice. He was a subtle thinker when he wrote the Gaia Hypothesis. The angle he started from was trying to find a definition of life to inform the planning of Mars lander experiments to discover life. He ended up thinking that a lot of the attributes which mark out living things from non-living things could apply to the planet itself. The ability to regulate temperature for example. Humans have various mechanisms for this, from having hairs which stand up in the cold, to sweat glands for cooling, and so on. Similarly the planet has mechanisms to regulate temperature; cloud albedo for example, and the way vegetation becomes a lighter shade when hot dry weather prevails, thus reflecting more heat back to space.
I agree we are not here to serve Gaia. Gaia just happens to support our existence by providing a nice safe environment for us to live in which protects us from excessive UV and other dangerous rays, excessive heat and cold, Earth also provides us ground to stand on, water to drink, air to breathe and fuel for fire to keep us warm. Facts for which I’m grateful even if you don’t feel the need to be.
Humans can reason and think as you say, but they tend to end up doing what comes naturally and automatically anyway. Groups of humans even more so. Some groups of humans think it’s a good idea not to crap in the water supply and fill the air we breathe with cancer causing toxins. I agree. Other humans think they have the right to pollute the commonwealth for personal gain regardless of consequences because they don’t owe anyone anything, least of all respect to the 8000 miles diameter ball we live on whose surface is covered in a skin of interdependent biological complexity. I think they are shortsighted and greedy.
Some of the humans think our co2 emissions are capable of upsetting the planetary temperature balance. I disagree. that’s my prerogative as a rational thinking individual capable of weighing evidence.
“we may for the time being rely on agriculture for food”
Got any other plan? I have crops in the ground now, and offer a little prayer to Momma Earth and Papa Sol on a frequent basis for their continued well being. It’s self interest as much as anything.
Gary Pearse (04:14:17) :
Further to comment above. I note the temps over the last century rise about 0.7C above the Be10 curve. Isn’t this amount that the temps have been adjusted upwards by NOAA? Lets try plotting raw temps for the whole schmear – after all how accurate are the temps for previous centuries?
One of the crucial errors the AGW camp makes is to assume increasing minimum temperatures (Tmin) over the 20th century, especially the 70s,80s and 90s are due to warmer nights, which is the signature of GHG warming.
In fact, increasing Tmin is mostly due to increased early morning warming (Tmin generally occurs after dawn) and this is likely caused by decreased low level cloud (near the horizon and hence blocking sunlight in the early morning)) with some contribution from reduced particulate haze (reducing due to clean air acts).
See the Svensmak paper below for a graph showing declining GCR levels over the 20th century.
http://landshape.org/enm/henrik-svensmark-2009/
Dr. Svalgaard,
Actually the solar modulation curves (particularly the 10Be) match the shape of the temperature curve quite well from 1250-1880 and then they match quite well again from 1930-2000. The 10-Be curve even has a slightly steeper slope over the 1930-2000 interval. The separation of the curves is entirely due to deviation from 1880-1930; when the 10-Be took a dive and temperatures did not. The genuine anomaly is the period from 1880-1930…Not 1850-2000…Eichler Modified
The scalar relationship between 10Be and temperature may be different for the 1930-2000 period than it was from 1250-1880; but the functional relationship was not…
I realize that this is just one data point from one glacier and, as you stated earlier, should not be confused with a general paleoclimate reconstruction; but it does have one advantage over large-scale reconstructions: the temperature data are from one continuous proxy that can be calibrated (no splicing of instrument data with proxy data or multi-proxy data). It’s just too bad that the data do not go back to 700 AD…It would be very interesting to see how the Medieval Warm Period compared to the Modern Warming.
Leif Svalgaard (14:22:28) :
Pamela Gray (13:34:42) :
Leif, I am curious about your comment that climate affects these cosmic ray measures on a regional basis. How so?
The 10Be [and similar comments apply to 14C] concentration at a given location is the result of balance between production [cosmic rays] and deposition [climate]. The 10Be is created high in the atmosphere all over the globe and eventually reaches the surface by being ‘rained’ [or snowed] out, so winds and rainfall patterns and general circulation come in here. The atoms also attach to aerosols and fall to the surface with them, so volcanoes [or even man] also have an effect on the deposition. Whatever the cause are, what is being recognized more and more is that there are large regional differences in the 10Be [and 14C] concentrations, so the notion that a single core is representative for the globe is rubbish. Differences may be due to different climates thus creating a circular argument. These notes of caution have been voiced by the researchers form the beginning, but are routinely ignored by agenda people, that cherry pick what they like.
Sorry to come so late to the argument, but when do you folks sleep?
Although painful, I must agree with Leif on this one. I’ve shown with plant physiological citations previously on WUWT, that the correlation between C14 and temperature is fallacious. Increased plant growth (growth rings, etc.) is very highly associated with precipitation, not temperature. Any attempt at temperature reconstruction using C14 in organic deposits is bogus. As Leif states, it appears that 10Be deposition is also.
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.
Heat moves from the top few centimetres of the ocean most of the energy from the sunlight is absorbed in, all the way down to the bottom of the thermocline, which can be from 50m in the tropics to over 2000m in some temperate higher latitude seas. There are several different ‘signals’ produced. The diurnal signal as the warm sea surface cools overnight. A seasonal signal as the depth of the thermocline changes between summer and winter, and a low frequency signal from longer term changes in upwelling currents which occur over 60 year oceanic cycles.
There is as much heat capacity in the top 2.5m of the ocean as there is in the entire atmosphere. Western Europe is kept warmer in winter not just due to the gulf stream, but the deflection of wind patterns southwards round the Rockies, then north eastwards to europe, picking up heat from the mid atlantic as it goes.
The ocean heats the atmosphere much more than the atmosphere heats the ocean, because longwave IR from the atmosphere doesn’t penetrate the ocean, just evaporates the surface. The ocean is heated by the sun, loses 170W/m^2 into the atmosphere, and stores the heat it can’t lose at the time due to atmospheric reflection and low temp diffs lower down towards the thermocline.
Using the satellite altimetry, I have run the calcs, and the sea level rise due to thermal expansion says heat is stored in the ocean to an average depth of 1000 meters across the globe. When the sun has an more active run of shorter stronger cycles, with shorter minima in between, more heat is stored in the ocean than when cycles are low for a few decades. It gets released later when the air is cooler and ocean/atmosphere temperature differentials are higher like now. This is why Archibalds -0.3C prediction failed. And there’s your long term signal tacked onto the end of a warm spell. The opposite will happen when the situation reverses.
Because the thermocline in the north atlantic is much deeper than the tropics that’s where the extra heat is stored as well as in the pacific warm pool, which is why the atlantic anomaly has run so high in the late C20th. Hat tip to Mr Tisdale. The southern ocean is different, and so doesn’t get heated the same way, more on that later.
I’ve sussed all this out over the last two days, a bit of a eureka moment. 🙂
If I may paraphrase, what you’re complaining about here is that, many humans are lacking in depth of awareness, many humans are lacking depth of moral or ethical character, many humans are lacking depth of intelligence, many humans are lacking depth of wisdom.
And what we’d like to do instead is to champion greater depth of moral and ethical and intellectual ability. But when people say humans are just another species, we actually divert attention away from the need for greater wisdom, and instead end up painting a picture that we’re just dumb animals who don’t know their place in the ecosystem, and probably deserve culling.
See the difference? If we deny that humans are special, then there is no basis for asking humans to behave better.
Just want to add to my reply to Leif:
This is also why Josh Willis couldn’t believe the ARGO data. There may have been some instrument problems, but I bet that strong cooling signal he was getting from some of the buoys was truer than he realised. This is why surface and air temps are holding up well compared to tropospheric and ocean temps. The ocean is like a big big battery powered UPS which kicks in when the sun lets us down and isn’t charging the battery or running the heating system as warm as usual.
Hmmm, the Undersea Petawatt Storage hypothesis. 🙂
Mike D. (02:08:49) :
reduce the inferential qualities of the simplistic graph above. More rigorous analysis than visual inspection is required.
One presumes that a rigorous analysis was indeed done to establish that there is a relationship and that the graph is the result of that analysis. Therefore the graph is not simplistic. Most scientists can be counted on to be honest and the scientific endeavor is built on that trust.
Tallbloke 6:51:04
Yah, yah, immediate correlations and correlations at 30 years seem possible. You CAN have it both ways. Who could ask for anything more?
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Regarding the steeper rising temperature vis a vis the Be10 and C14 curves, note also that the Be10 and C14 curves are also rising at different slopes-WUWT?
Maybe there is something altered about all three curves during the past century.
kim (08:13:44) :
Tallbloke 6:51:04
Yah, yah, immediate correlations and correlations at 30 years seem possible. You CAN have it both ways. Who could ask for anything more?
In the words of the late great Freddy Marcury
I want it all
I want it all
I want it all
I want it now
But if someone a bit less impetuous saves a bit for later that’s ok by me. 😉
I think multiple timescale signals are possible, because the processes which trigger the release of various strata of stored energy have boundary conditions.
Stefan (07:01:33) :
If I may paraphrase, what you’re complaining about here is that, many humans are lacking in depth of awareness, many humans are lacking depth of moral or ethical character, many humans are lacking depth of intelligence, many humans are lacking depth of wisdom.
And what we’d like to do instead is to champion greater depth of moral and ethical and intellectual ability. But when people say humans are just another species, we actually divert attention away from the need for greater wisdom, and instead end up painting a picture that we’re just dumb animals who don’t know their place in the ecosystem, and probably deserve culling.
See the difference? If we deny that humans are special, then there is no basis for asking humans to behave better.
I totally agree, which is why I picked up on the ‘termites’ reference by Mr Smith, who also agrees, I think.
I’m not an absolutist. When I said I agreed with ‘green’ ideas about not crapping in the water supply and polluting the air I know we can’t and shouldn’t try to achieve perfection and purity. Likewise I think that unfettered enterprise is productive and hastens our evolution culturally, materially and creatively.
It’s a balance and proportion thing. When Gaia and the gods of chaos and random chance decide it’s out of proportion and balance, whammo, black death, swine flu, or whatever. Spanish flu reduced the world population by around 15% in a matter of a year or so only a small number of decades ago.
So yes, humans are special, and vulnerable, and with awareness comes responsibility. Some are able to carry it lightly, others get themselves in a righteous spin over it. We need to apply the corrective, which is a dose of commonsense and skeptical reasoning, along with a recognition that just because they are wrong about co2, doesn’t mean the other issues are without merit.
form today’s CCNet – please delete/ignore if already posted here.
Regards, Allan
12) NEW SVENSMARK PAPER ON COSMIC RAYS & CLIMATE CHANGE
Paul Biggs
Dear Benny,
Henrik Svensmark et al have a new GRL paper in press entitled: ‘Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds’
The Abstract states:
Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth’s surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases (FDs), and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum around 7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays, and so does the fraction of low clouds seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and in the International Satellite Cloud Climate Project (ISCCP). Parallel observations by the aerosol robotic network AERONET reveal falls in the relative abundance of fine aerosol particles which, in normal circumstances, could have evolved into cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Thus a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale.
The paper concludes:
Our results show global-scale evidence of conspicuous influences of solar variability on cloudiness and aerosols. Irrespective of the detailed mechanism, the loss of ions from the air during FDs reduces the cloud liquid water content over the oceans. So marked is the response to relatively small variations in the total ionization, we suspect that a large fraction of Earth’s clouds could be controlled by ionization. Future work should estimate how large a volume of the Earth’s atmosphere is involved in the ion process that leads to the changes seen in CCN and its importance for the Earth’s radiation budget. From solar activity to cosmic ray ionization to aerosols and liquid-water clouds, a causal chain appears to operate on a global scale.
Svensmark, H., T. Bondo, and J. Svensmark (2009), Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL038429, in press. (accepted 17 June 2009)
Climate Research News:
New Paper: Cosmic Ray Decreases Affect Atmospheric Aerosols and Clouds
Gary Pearse (04:14:17) :
The skeptic in me is happy CERN is revisiting the cosmic ray/cloud relationship. The cynic in me suspects CERN is jumping on the global warming train to get more funding. Either way, as long as they remain honest in what they do and say, I’m good with it.
The graphed lag between solar cause and terrestrial effect is about 5 years(Europe excepted).
This implies we’ve yet to feel the effect of solar minimum and, in this case, 4 years of cool global climate will be queued in the pipeline by 2010 mid-term elections.
I think I’ll heed Sadlov and invest in a Blue State body-bag venture.
New Paper: Cosmic Ray Decreases Affect Atmospheric Aerosols and Clouds
Henrik Svensmark et al have a new GRL paper in press entitled: ‘Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds’
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/07/new-paper-cosmic-ray-decreases-affect-atmospheric-aerosols-and-clouds/
The Abstract states:
Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth’s surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases (FDs), and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum around 7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays, and so does the fraction of low clouds seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and in the International Satellite Cloud Climate Project (ISCCP). Parallel observations by the aerosol robotic network AERONET reveal falls in the relative abundance of fine aerosol particles which, in normal circumstances, could have evolved into cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Thus a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale.
The paper concludes:
Our results show global-scale evidence of conspicuous influences of solar variability on cloudiness and aerosols. Irrespective of the detailed mechanism, the loss of ions from the air during FDs reduces the cloud liquid water content over the oceans. So marked is the response to relatively small variations in the total ionization, we suspect that a large fraction of Earth’s clouds could be controlled by ionization. Future work should estimate how large a volume of the Earth’s atmosphere is involved in the ion process that leads to the changes seen in CCN and its importance for the Earth’s radiation budget. From solar activity to cosmic ray ionization to aerosols and liquid-water clouds, a causal chain appears to operate on a global scale.
Svensmark, H., T. Bondo, and J. Svensmark (2009),
Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds,
Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL038429, in press.
(accepted 17 June 2009)
Gary Pearse (08:15:34) :
Regarding the steeper rising temperature vis a vis the Be10 and C14 curves, note also that the Be10 and C14 curves are also rising at different slopes-WUWT?
Maybe there is something altered about all three curves during the past century.
Interesting observation. You could plot it against global precipitation and get a good fit, except the data only goes back to 1900.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/ann/global.html#gprcp
Still agrees with my comments at Tim Clark (06:29:34) :
Hmm! Another thought – the GCR seem to need h2so4 to create CCNs. The source of this is partially global coal/oil use!
bill 10:27:29
Oops. Yet another mechanism besides the aerosol albedo effect by which the burning of fossil fuel causes global cooling. Do you have any idea how quickly the powers that be will be able to shift gears, automatically?
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bill (10:27:29) :
Hmm! Another thought – the GCR seem to need h2so4 to create CCNs. The source of this is partially global coal/oil use!
Anthropogenic Co2 greenhouse effect canceled by Anthropogenic airborne acid from the same fuel?
Interesting.
What strikes me is that the solar / temperature correlation generally is too GOOD to deny likelihood of a causative factor close by; OTOH the CO2 / temperature correlation is too WEAK to explain the 1870-1900 anomaly in this. It is a puzzle but no doubt has an answer. Changes in composition through firnification not properly allowed for? The 20th century solar magnetic field more than doubling? The variable link between 10Be and cloud cover that Svensmark documents if I remember right?
Instant link as well as 30-year link. Both can show correlations, just as temperature correlates to time of day as well as to season of year. The no-delay fit is quite obvious visually. I think it’s neat to use stats to extract another “best fit” that can’t be seen directly.
Great new paper from two Svensmarks – this looks set, together with another paper on solar forcing – with more undeniably good scientists supporting the power of the Sun, this looks set to start to rout the CO2 warmists.
Lucy Skywalker (11:17:57) :
The 20th century solar magnetic field more than doubling?
Even Lockwood knows now that that didn’t happen, so you can scratch that one of the list.
oh, Watts beat me to it.