Svensmark has a new paper and it is a doozy: Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds (full text PDF).
The major conclusion: “A link between the Sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale…”
This paper confirms 13 years of discoveries that suggest a key role for cosmic rays in climate change. It links observable variations in the world’s cloudiness to laboratory experiments in Copenhagen showing how cosmic rays help generate atmospheric aerosols.
This is important, because it confirms the existence of a sun-earth atmospheric modulation mechanism for clouds and aerosols. It is seen in an event called a Forbush Decrease, which A Forbush decrease is a rapid decrease in the observed galactic cosmic raycoronal mass ejection (CME). It occurs due to the magnetic field of the plasma solar wind sweeping some of the galactic cosmic rays away from Earth. Here is what the Oulu Neutron Monitor plot looked like during such and event on May15th, 2005:
When the CME hit Earth, the magnetic field of the CME deflects the Galactic Cosmic Rays and the secondary particle flux (Neutrons) decreases. In this graph there is also another Forbush decrease visible, which was caused by another, not that powerful flare, which CME passed Earth a few days before this event.
See more from CosmicRays.org Now at last, a linkage has been established on earth showing such events affect cloud cover and aerosols. Luboš Motl gives a good summary ina post from a few days ago, shown below.
Forbush decreases confirm cosmoclimatology
By Luboš Motl
Recall that cosmoclimatology of Henrik Svensmark and others postulates that the galactic cosmic rays are able to create “seeds” of low-lying clouds that may cool the Earth’s surface. A higher number of cosmic rays can therefore decrease the temperature. The creation of the cloud nuclei is caused by ionization and resembles the processes in a cloud chamber.
The fluctuations of the cosmic ray flux may occur due to the variable galactic environment as well as the solar activity: a more active Sun protects us from a part of the cosmic rays. It means that a more active Sun decreases the amounts of low-lying clouds, which means that it warms the Earth.
Because the low-lying clouds remove 30 Watts per squared meter in average (over time and the Earth) or so, one has to be very careful not only about the very existence of the clouds but also about the variations of cloudiness by 5% or so which translates to a degree of temperature change.
A systematic effect on the clouds – e.g. one of the cosmic origin – is a nightmare for the champions of the silly CO2 toy model of climatology because the cloud variations easily beat any effect of CO2. Two alarmists, Sloan and Wolfendale, wanted to rule out Svensmark’s theory by looking at the Forbush decreases, specific events of a solar origin named after Scott Forbush who studied them 6 decades ago, involving the plasma. However, their paper was incorrect.
In April 2008, this blog (The Reference Frame) published the following relevant article:
Sloan and Wolfendale complained that no cosmoclimatological signal could have been seen during the Forbush decreases, i.e. short episodes when the activity of our beloved star decreases the amount of cosmic rays reaching Earth. However, Nir Shaviv explained that it should be expected that such a signal is not seen in the averaged monthly data they had used.
In order to see the “tiger in the jungle”, using Svensmark’s words from a press release
that will be published tomorrow (I am allowed to read it now because my uncle lives in Melbourne which already has August), and in order to separate these clean effects from the huge meteorological noise, one needs to increase the temporal resolution to several days and also cover the whole globe to dilute the effects of local weather.
Newest paper
Tomorrow, on August 1st, 2009, Geophysical Research Letters will publish a new paper by Henrik Svensmark, Torsten Bondo, and Jacob Svensmark:
The People’s Voice (summary of the paper)
Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds (full text).
When you click the second link above and obtain an error message, press alt/d and enter to reload the URL: without a direct external link, the PDF file will be displayed correctly. Or open the Google cache as PDF-like HTML.
Svensmark and his collaborators have looked at 26 Forbush events since 1987 (those that were strong according to their impact on the spectrum seen in the low troposphere where it matters): most of them occur close to the solar maxima (in the middle of the 11-year cycles). The observations with a much better temporal resolution imply that the mass of water stored in clouds decreases by 4-7%, with the minimum reached after a nearly 1-week delay needed for the cloud nuclei to get mature. Roughly three billions of tons of water droplets suddenly disappear from the atmosphere (they remain there as vapor, which is more likely to warm the air than to cool it down).
An independent set of measurements has also shown that the amount of aerosols, i.e. potential nuclei of the new clouds, also decreases. All these “strength vs decrease” graphs display a lot of noise but the negative slopes are almost always significant at the 95% level (with one dataset being an exception, at 92%, which is still higher than the official IPCC confidence level that climate change is mostly man-made).
Each Forbush decrease can therefore warm up the Earth by the same temperature change as the effect of all carbon dioxide emitted by the mankind since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. While you might think that such an effect is temporary and lasts a few weeks only, it is important to notice that similar variations in the solar activity, the solar magnetic field, and the galactic cosmic rays take place at many different conceivable frequencies, so there are almost certainly many effects whose impact on the temperature – through the clouds – is at least equal to the whole effect of man-made carbon dioxide.
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John K. Sutherland @06:52:38
For those unfamiliar with UK jargon, as put forth by UK skeptic, the word ‘nous’ possibly should have an ‘e’ on the end and is pronounced to rhyme with ‘house’. It means ’smarts’.
I thought it was pronounce “NO-US” from the Greek for intellect.
mr. svalgaard,
i have come to respect your understanding of solar physics…however, i have yet to divorce myself of a sunspot/temperature correlation…do you think svensmark’s large forbush ionizations can account for the energy necessarry to drive climate? secondly, when you say smaller decreases should show up in weather, are you talking about fingerprinting say a hurricane, heatwave, tornado outbreak ect., to an ionization event?…i guess i am having trouble understanding what correlation to weather you are wanting to make? thanks in advance
After almost years of hearing about “end of the world” theories, of hundred of times reading those who postulate that the sun has nothing to do with earth’s climate, after too much time of unrepeatable nonsense. Any one of you please tell me, all this have been concocted just for selling windmill generators and solar panels?
Which altruistic purpose, if any, is behind all this craziness?
Does somebody know it?.
Do you remember when our friend Anthony felt so bored and exhausted that expressed the idea of abandon this gigantic effort of trying to dissentangle this confused gordian knot?
George E Smith ,
Methinks that they’re grasping at any old positive feedback straw . They have to find one somewhere .
Vincent (12:06:25) :
“My main criticism of of the paper is the cherry picking of Forbush Decreases, namely selecting only those that had a large effect.”
Svensmark explained that small FD’s don’t have an effect. I thought this was perfectly understood. Why include something that is not germain to your hypothesis?
The medium FDs are then the important ones. They should have a ‘medium’ effect. If they have no effect, then the question of what exactly the criterion was for selecting a large one, and how that selection criterion was selected. The selection should be done without regard to the effect.
sammy k (12:12:18) :
i guess i am having trouble understanding what correlation to weather you are wanting to make?
I don’t want to make any. Svensmark claims that there is an effect within 7 days. A change in a week is weather, not climate.
Well we sure have had the clouds this year in Canada and we do have a solar minimum. It was 1.9deg C in the Battlefords, Saskatchewan and 2.9deg in Saskatoon – should be about 10-11C for the average low. Broke century long records by about 2-3deg.
Nogw (12:14:44) : Altruism is in the eye of the promoter, and often stems from self-delusion or as a psychological justification for actions that, in the end, primarily benefit only the person who congratulates themselves on their goodness. It makes them feel good about themselves, regardless of the consequences on others. There are exceptions of course – the soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades for example – but I don’t see any “warmists” doing the equivalent of that. On the contrary, I see a lot of greed associated with the promotion of the AGW conjecture.
mr. svalgaard,
thanks for the response…understand your position on weather…if i may rephrase my first question, do you think there is enough change in energy from fd’s to drive climate on timescales of decades and longer?
sammy k (13:14:12) :
do you think there is enough change in energy from fd’s to drive climate on timescales of decades and longer?
FDs are rare events, so, no. And the change in energy [not quite sure what you have in mind] is minuscule compared to the changes we see every day in the weather events.
Here I found the Svensmark paper in Doc file format:
[snip]
Reply: That looks like a potential copyright violation. ~ charles the moderator
I understand the concern that many of you express on this thread about “cherry picking” data. However, one could, and people have, made the same charge about Millikan and his results for electron charge, yet Millikan’s value was pretty close to that currently accepted. In another example, the case of Toxic Oil Syndrome in Spain in (1980?) a single observation of an infant suffering the syndrome is what lead epidemiologists to tainted cooking oil. A single case out of 12,000 sounds a lot like “cherry picking” does it not? aperhaps there are other ineteractions of which we are unaware.
No one has proposed a causative mechanism yet, so perhaps a charge of “cherry picking” is premature. Frankly I am more concerned with this effect being so near the noise level, lack of proposed mechanism, and so forth. It’s intriguing, though.
Nogw (12:14:44) :
of hundred of times reading those who postulate that the sun has nothing to do with earth’s climate,
How remarakable. I have never read one of those. The average temperature of the earth is 287K. Human sourced gasses are hypothisised to have caused 0.7K of warming , so are thought to be less than 0.25% of the total warming of the earth.
Where do these insane fools you have heard suggest the other 99.75% of the heating comes from?
dorlomin:
When people say the Sun has nothing to do with Earth’s climate, they mean THE LEVEL of VARIATIONS in solar output we measure have nothing to do with the changes in the climate we measure. This imprecise language drives me batty and creates endless arguments about nothing.
JIm Clarke (08:01:40) :
dorlomin (04:32:46) “And why were the 50s not the warmest decade of the 20th centuary”
Why is mid afternoon hottest when the sun is strongest at noon? Why are July and August so hot when the peak of solar energy arrives in June (Northern Hemishere)? There is always a lag because the energy is cummulative, not instantaneous. But there is much more…
————————————-
So why then did the 60s not show the fastest acceleration in heating.
Given the heuristic of the sun being 1% weaker every 100 million years in the past you are looking at something like 3K less heat every 100 million years. Ill be generous and give you 2K. How then do you account for the temperatures in the Paleozoic? Just less cloud cover enough to make up all that heating?
And as for ‘slushball’ earth the Neoproterozoic, how does that get broken back into a blue liquid watery planet. Or does that theory have to get binned?
mr svalgaard,
my bad, i appreciate your patience…i am a joe q public your conversing with…do you think there is enough “change in energy” from cosmic rays reaching the earth’s atmosphere to effect increased cloud formation (climate) during solar minimums (dalton, maunder), a hypothetical result from decreased solar wind and magnetic field deflection of the rays…if so, any guess on percentage of difference in cosmic ray energy reaching earths atmosphere during minimums as to what we know historically, about the periods between the minimums…
I don’t think we can expect that we will ever be able to say that cosmic rays control earth’s climate; I don’t think that is in the cards, and I don’t think Svensmark suggests that.
I do believe that water controls the climate, and that the comfortable earth temperature range is a direct consequence of the physical properties of water.
I also believe what I think Leif alluded to that major orbital shifts are resonsible for major climate shifts as in ice ages, althought I have never tried to figure out any of the details; I’m sure others have.
But I think Svensmark’s work is indicating that CRs can affect cloud formation (but aren’t the be all and end all of cloud formation), and that that can make a solar connection that is beyond just the 0.1% TSI variation.
And I don’t see any role for CO2 or any other GHG besides water vapor. Since they are only present in our environment in a single (vapor) phase; they can’t produce the compensating thermal effects that water does via cloud formation.
And I don’t care what anybody says, anything that blocks solar radiation in any spectral range from reaching the earth’s surface, is going to result in a cooling of the earth’s surface.
The process of capturing solar radiation energy in the upper atmosphere by any mechanism; thermalizing it by converting it to mechanical (heat) energy, and then re-radiating it in any spectral range (and in an essentially isotropic radiation pattern) can never compete in heating efficiency with having that original solar energy penetrate to ground level.
In the case of the CO2 absorption of long wave IR, since the CO2 band is on the long wave tail of the existing thermal radiation spectrum, the upward path of that radiation to outer space is more efficient than the downward path to the surface, because of how the temperature gradients go with altitude, and the resultant Wien displacement of the spectral peak.
As for the positive feedback effects of clouds; I believe that that will go away once these folks get it through their heads, that the temperatures cause the clouds, and not the other way round.
It is not hot and balmy at night because there are clouds in the sky; the clouds are there at night because it is hot and balmy; and the hotter it is, the higher the water vapor has to go before it reaches the dew point and can form clouds; with or without Cosmic Ray assisitance.
George
Charles the moderator: Sorry, but anyway it is openly available at google. (link above)
Reply: That doesn’t mean we encourage it or add to it. ~ ctm
Leif Svalgaard (09:00:06) :
Patagon (06:10:02) :
Svensmark gave an excellent talk at my university recently. They showed a long term study, comprising at least the two last glaciations. There was an excellent correlation between GCR and global temperature on those time scales.
Which would seem to undermine the whole thing. It is pretty well established that glaciations are mainly caused by orbital/precessional changes and not solar activity. GCR proxies are sensitive to temperature changes so perhaps the correlation is just climate vs. climate.
—
Good Point.
I actually asked about Milankovitch, but honestly, I couldn’t tell you what was the clear answer, thought I had to dig in his papers…
Would you mind to give some directions about those GCR proxies dependent on temperature?
Thanks
They should say what they mean, then, instead of distorting it into something totally different, thereby creating a strawman argument. The only people who say “the sun has nothing to do with the Earth’s climate” are those who are wrongly restating someone else’s position. I’d say it’s probably on purpose to make those other people look silly.
Jeff Alberts:
Yup, this is why I said:
sammy k (13:14:12) :
It is not being hypothesized that the FD are *themselves* responsible for climate change. Instead, the FD provides an impulse to the system – a step change in GCRs – from which one can observe the aftereffects.
And Lief’s suggestion that the FDs are selected based on magnitude of effect is I think incorrect. The FDs are rated based on the magnitude of the change in GCRs, giving 26 events during the satellite record.
All 26 events are considered in Svensmarks Figure 2. It’s just that consideration of some events means exclusion because the event did not occur during the available satellite record for that objective (SSM/I, MODIS, ISCPP, or AERONET).
His Figure 1 says, OK, let’s look at the top 5 – ranked not in terms of effect but in terms of strength (i.e., degree of reduction in GCRs) and for which all 5 are present in all 4 objectives.
So it’s misleading to suggest that he cherry picked in terms of effect on the four objectives. He picked based on the FD strength which he defines in terms of GCR reduction.
jeez (14:25:47) :
dorlomin:
When people say the Sun has nothing to do with Earth’s climate, they mean THE LEVEL of VARIATIONS in solar output we measure have nothing to do with the changes in the climate we measure.
———————————–
Then should such a person appear before you I suggest you banish them with a nifty waving of the IPCC which attributes about 0.3Wm^2 forcing.
You can also rather handily dispatch such phantoms by poinitng out the changes in insolation estimated from peak to trough of a solar cycle actualy exceed the forcing attributed to CO2.
I gotcha. “Imprecise” just didn’t seem strong enough. 😉
philw1776 (11:24:57) :
…. As an engineer and technologist, not a scientist, I’m unclear on the boundary where the proponent of a scientific hypothethis needs to give up on the hypothethis.
Quite often there is no recognition by the proponent of the failure of an hypothesis. Many, many would-be scientists have a great deal of difficulty with the creative thought processes that lead to any kind of hypothesis. When they do achieve an idea, they treat it like it was a precious gem. If they are influential in any way – say they’re pals with a committee that issues grants, they may be able to control research spending in a field directly or indirectly for a generation. Cliques within communities come to control important modes of funding and communication such as specific publications. They can prevent or impede dissent from being effectively expressed and create the image of a “consensus” that acknowledges the primacy of their ideas.
… It bothers my idealistic view of how science should be done when Leif says that folks rarely publish negative data. That’s cherry picking.
“Cherry picking” isn’t a bad thing necessarily. It can denote the relative “youth” of an idea, e.g. 1) maybe cosmic flux can through some mechanism influence cloud formation and planetary climate; 2) if true, there should be a signal of some sort – cherry pick potential data sets at this point for ANY evidence at all that clouds and solar CMEs correlate; 3) if there are apparent correlations, then expand the study.
At this point in hypothesis formation, there is still no full blown scientific hypothesis. Essentially Svensmark has made a logical conjecture based on an analogical argument nuclear decay event -> cloud chamber cloud formation ==> cosimic ray -> atmospheric cloud event. Now he has additional though limited data that further warrants his initial argument. It is far from a proof of a causal linkage though.
AGW stalled very early in the hypothesis development process, when it became popular among the “mea maxima culpa” set, where the mind-set seems to be seeking the extinction of the human race. There seems to be a propensity in the west to assume everything is either the fault of the human race, or can be fixed by human intervention. Since it became an ideological darling, the proponents have resorted to torturing data to conform to predictions rather than evolving a truly predictive model, or moving along when it has become plain the original hypothesis was broken.
scikid:
“So Basically, what you are saying is that if there were more low-lying clouds, then there would be a cooler earth? Or would the earth be warmer?”
One has to be careful with all the types of clouds that exist but pretty much the average or typical cloud cover during the daytime is going to cool. Because the surface is above 0 Kelvins, it’s going to radiate, in the far infrared because of its temperature. This occurs 24hrs a day while incoming solar power occurs only on the daylight side. Clouds (& other atmospheric stuff) are responsible for most of the reflecting of about 1/3 of the solar incoming power (albedo).
When averaged, the planet receives about 341 W/m^2 of power per unit area from the Sun and reflects away about 105 W/m^2 and absorbs around 235 W/m^2. The surface is radiating around 390 W/m^2 with an averaged T of around 288 Kelvins. Of this, a certain amount is absorbed by the greenhouse gases, primarily water and in second place, co2. This absorption is hand in hand with emissions by these gases both downward and upward that depends on the local temperature and concentrations. Since the T is lower higher up, the emission rates are lower higher up.
Clouds tend to provide excellent blocking of the IR, capturing the heat and transferring it through the cloud to the top, where it can again radiate but at a lower rate due to the temperature being quite cold up there. However, one now has a new situation as there is liquid or solid h2o particles up there that are not limited to the gas spectral emission/absorption constraints.
One then has pretty much a situation where no cloud cover or clear sky conditions permit maximum outgoing IR but also allow for maximum incoming solar power. If the planet were clear sky only then the T would have to be somewhat higher since the solar power would be much closer to 341 W/m^2 than the present 235 W/m^2. Actually, it would tend to be more around 312 W/m^2 instead of 235 W/m^2 using these crude numbers so the surface would have to heat some to output that much more (plus enough to overcome the fraction being absorbed by the ghgs).
If one tended to total cloud cover, the cloud tops – assuming similar to today’s – would be radiating only around 210 – 220 W/m^2 or so due to the much lower cloud top temperature. However, the total cloud cover – versus something like 62% for our current cover – will result in somewhat less incoming solar power since the albedo will increase and reflect away more of that – reducing the needed 235 W/m^2 for balance to a value somewhat less than that. Such a value might be closer to 30 or 40 W/m^2 than to the current 230 W/m^2 or so. The result would be a necessary decline in surface temperatures so that balance would be met.
What we can wind up with graphically is a linear graph of cloud cover (assuming a typical mix) fraction versus power. The output line and the input line – power/area as a function of cloud cover have different slopes and they intersect at present at around 62% cloud cover. Move to lower cloud cover fraction and incoming power exceeds outgoing power. Move to raise cloud cover fraction and the outgoing power exceeds the incoming.
Being that cloud cover fraction varies over time (along with albedo), one is faced with the concept that while it appears that something drives it towards a particular point, it doesn’t necessarily stay there. This suggests a setpoint (negative feedback concept) is at work which regulates Earth’s temperature using cloud cover albedo as the regulating mechanism. It’s understandable in the system as more clouds reduce incoming solar power which reduces surface warming which then reduces the amount of evaporation of h2o vapor which reduces (or helps reduce) the raw material needed for cloud cover thus reducing cloud cover. It also permits other mechanisms that can affect cloud cover to have a major effect on Earth’s temperature mechanism and it permits the presence of long term ice ages where surface ice “short circuits” this mechanism so that cloud cover no longer has control over the albedo and temperature variations as it becomes stuck reflecting large amounts of incoming solar – until the ice albedo drops and/or other transient mechanisms come into effect.
Who’d have thought that clouds only live for a few hours? They must all come to Indiana to die, then (especially from October through May); Indiana is a veritable Old Age Home for Clouds. Honest, I have seen the exact same cloud (shaped like a seahorse) hanging around above the house for the past two days. /humor
This discussion has been great. Although I am unhappy with Pamela suggesting continued cold, wet weather. We have been robbed of summer and have only a lousy, wet winter in the cards, I am afraid.
Hi cba,
That seems like an excessive focus on cloud cover percentage (62%). Wouldn’t cloud top heights (on average) have a more important role in climate, higher colder ones being cooling and lower warmer cloud tops being generally warming? And that’s just for outgoing IR, how do high and low cloud tops affect albedo (if at all)? Also I assume the cloud top height effect would be latitude dependent? The ice age discussion reminds me that it albedo depends on what is under the clouds if there are clouds.
Thanks for any answers,
Eric