UPDATE: Lead author Ben Laken responds in comments below.
I’ve reported several times at WUWT on the galactic cosmic ray theory proposed by Henrik Svensmark which suggests that changes in the sun’s magnetic field modulate the density of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) which in turn seed cloud formation on Earth, which changes the albedo/reflectivity to affect Earth’s energy balance and hence global climate.
A new paper published today in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics suggests that the relationship has been established.
Figure 1 below shows a correlation, read it with the top and bottom graph combined vertically.
As the authors write in the abstract:
These results provide perhaps the most compelling evidence presented thus far of a GCR-climate relationship.
Dr. Roy Spencer has mentioned that it doesn’t take much in the way of cloud cover changes to add up to the “global warming signal” that has been observed. He writes in The Great Global Warming Blunder:
The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.
Well, it seems that Laken, Kniveton, and Frogley have found just such a small effect. Here’s the abstract and select passages from the paper, along with a link to the full paper:
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 10941-10948, 2010
doi:10.5194/acp-10-10941-2010
Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes
B. A. Laken , D. R. Kniveton, and M. R. Frogley
Abstract. The effect of the Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) flux on Earth’s climate is highly uncertain. Using a novel sampling approach based around observing periods of significant cloud changes, a statistically robust relationship is identified between short-term GCR flux changes and the most rapid mid-latitude (60°–30° N/S) cloud decreases operating over daily timescales; this signal is verified in surface level air temperature (SLAT) reanalysis data. A General Circulation Model (GCM) experiment is used to test the causal relationship of the observed cloud changes to the detected SLAT anomalies. Results indicate that the anomalous cloud changes were responsible for producing the observed SLAT changes, implying that if there is a causal relationship between significant decreases in the rate of GCR flux (~0.79 GU, where GU denotes a change of 1% of the 11-year solar cycle amplitude in four days) and decreases in cloud cover (~1.9 CU, where CU denotes a change of 1% cloud cover in four days), an increase in SLAT (~0.05 KU, where KU denotes a temperature change of 1 K in four days) can be expected. The influence of GCRs is clearly distinguishable from changes in solar irradiance and the interplanetary magnetic field. However, the results of the GCM experiment are found to be somewhat limited by the ability of the model to successfully reproduce observed cloud cover. These results provide perhaps the most compelling evidence presented thus far of a GCR-climate relationship. From this analysis we conclude that a GCR-climate relationship is governed by both short-term GCR changes and internal atmospheric precursor conditions.
I found this portion interesting related to the figure above:
The composite sample shows a positive correlation between statistically significant cloud changes and variations in the short-term GCR flux (Fig. 1): increases in the GCR flux
occur around day −5 of the composite, and correspond to significant localised mid-latitude increases in cloud change. After this time, the GCR flux undergoes a statistically significant decrease (1.2 GU) centred on the key date of the composite; these changes correspond to widespread statistically significant decreases in cloud change (3.5 CU, 1.9 CU globallyaveraged) over mid-latitude regions.
and this…
The strong and statistically robust connection identified here between the most rapid cloud decreases over mid-latitude regions and short-term changes in the GCR flux is clearly distinguishable from the effects of solar irradiance and IMF variations. The observed anomalous changes show a strong latitudinal symmetry around the equator; alone, this pattern
gives a good indication of an external forcing agent, as
there is no known mode of internal climate variability at the
timescale of analysis, which could account for this distinctive
response. It is also important to note that these anomalous
changes are detected over regions where the quality of
satellite-based cloud retrievals is relatively robust; results of
past studies concerned with high-latitude anomalous cloud
changes have been subject to scrutiny due to a low confidence
in polar cloud retrievals (Laken and Kniveton, 2010;
Todd and Kniveton, 2001) but the same limitations do not
apply here.
Although mid-latitude cloud detections are more robust
than those over high latitudes, Sun and Bradley (2002) identified
a distinctive pattern of high significance between GCRs
and the ISCCP dataset over the Atlantic Ocean that corresponded
to the METEOSAT footprint. This bias does not
appear to influence the results presented in this work: Fig. 6 shows the rates of anomalous IR-detected cloud change occurring over Atlantic, Pacific and land regions of the midlatitudes during the composite period, and a comparable pattern of cloud change is observed over all regions, indicating no significant bias is present.
Conclusions
This work has demonstrated the presence of a small but statistically significant influence of GCRs on Earth’s atmosphere over mid-latitude regions. This effect is present in
both ISCCP satellite data and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data for at least the last 20 years suggesting that small fluctuations in solar activity may be linked to changes in the Earth’s atmosphere via a relationship between the GCR flux and cloud cover; such a connection may amplify small changes in solar activity. In addition, a GCR – cloud relationship may also act in conjunction with other likely solar – terrestrial relationships concerning variations in solar UV (Haigh, 1996) and total solar irradiance (Meehl et al., 2009). The climatic forcings resulting from such solar – terrestrial links may have had a significant impact on climate prior to the onset of anthropogenic warming, accounting for the presence of solar cycle relationships detectable in palaeoclimatic records (e.g.,Bond et al., 2001; Neff et al., 2001; Mauas et al., 2008).
Further detailed investigation is required to better understand GCR – atmosphere relationships. Specifically, the use of both ground-based and satellite-based cloud/atmospheric monitoring over high-resolution timescales for extended periods of time is required. In addition, information regarding potentially important microphysical properties such as aerosols, cloud droplet size, and atmospheric electricity must also be considered. Through such monitoring efforts, in addition to both computational modelling (such as that of Zhou and Tinsley, 2010) and experimental efforts (such as that of Duplissy et al., 2010) we may hope to better understand the effects described here.
It seems they have found the signal. This is a compelling finding because it now opens a pathway and roadmap on where and how to look. Expect more to come.
The full paper is here: Final Revised Paper (PDF, 2.2 MB)
h/t to The Hockey Schtick
Carla says:
November 26, 2010 at 5:54 am
You’re trying to understand WHAT they did.. I’m trying to understand WHEN..
They state very clearly in the paper when it was done:
Received: 7 June 2010 – Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 2 August 2010
Revised: 16 November 2010 – Accepted: 18 November 2010 – Published: 24 November 2010
Leif, your comment reminds me of the old gas spectrometers. Amazing how those machines could tell you what chemicals and compounds were in something as simple as water, to something as complex as a chemo plant-derived drug. All you needed to do was develop a new language for reading bumps along a spectrum.
HenryP says:
November 26, 2010 at 7:37 am
Why would you think that droplets rubbing each other can cause a charge of thousands and thousands of volts?
Walking across a carpet in dry weather can build up several thousand volts. Enough to trigger a spark when you touch the doorknob [requires 3000 Volt].
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 25, 2010 at 8:17 am
The heliospheric magnetic field impends GCR entry into heliosphere. The Earth’s magnetic field does the same for the magnetosphere. When the GCR count is calculated it is first adjusted for variation for the strength of the Earth’s dipole
If the GCRs have any effect it would be with the GCRs actually reaching the atmosphere, so they should not be corrected when correlated with temperatures. Here is a graph of the uncorrected GCRs [represented by their proxy 14C] and the Earth’s [or the Arctic’s – it doesn’t make much difference which one] magnetic field strength [dots]. You can clearly see that they are strongly anti-correlated [as they should be according to our understanding of how this works]. The tiny wiggles are solar activity related changes. It should be clear that the variation of the main field is by far the dominant, so if climate follows the GCR flux, it should follow the 14C curve. I don’t think it does. You can get around this problem by claiming that we do not know anything about past climate anyway.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 25, 2010 at 8:18 am
Here is a graph of the uncorrected GCRs
Forgot the graph: http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRays-GeoDipole.jpg
Leif, that graphic appears closely associated with an ~11,000 year orbital cycle (and ice ages, etc., etc., etc.).
Are you promoting cyclomania? ;~P
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 26, 2010 at 7:46 am
You are right, your claims border on the edge of ridiculous rather than just amusing.
Hey, no offence,
to a man of limited vision
‘ borders on the edge of ridiculous ’
to a man with foresight is germ of an idea.
Vaughan Ronald Pratt Professor Emeritus at Stanford University:
November 25, 2010 @ur momisugly vukcevic (elsewhere)
“Right, that’s what I find so appealing about your graphs.”
“Our finding is an important one because it will help scientists to understand how the diffuse aurora leads to changes in the chemistry of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, including effects on ozone at high altitude, which may affect temperature right through the atmosphere,” said co-author Professor Richard Horne of the British Antarctic Survey”
Such as contributing to variability in the downward NOx flux which depletes ozone for a cooling effect in the regions above 45km when the sun is more active ?
And which allows recovery of ozone for a warming effect above 45km when the sun is quiet as per the recent Haigh data ?
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 26, 2010 at 7:54 am
We can do some more integrals:
1957-70: 4281
1971-80: 4424 this includes the ice scare
1981-90: 4155 this started the warming scare
1991-00: 4307 maybe one should start at ’93 or so
2000-10: 4315 the last two decades are consistent with higher albedo of Palle et al
I am not saying that there is really a fool proof correlation. But, within the multitude of factors entering into cloud making this could be one more contribution and since ’95 there are cumulatively more cosmics and the albedo is rising since ’97 .
Mr. Clark
Here is a graph going further back
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/VADM.htm
Tim Clark says:
November 26, 2010 at 8:28 am
Are you promoting cyclomania? ;~P
There are definitely cycles [Milankovich etc].
vukcevic says:
November 26, 2010 at 8:29 am
“Right, that’s what I find so appealing about your graphs.”
I think you mean ‘appalling’, check again.
anna v says:
November 26, 2010 at 8:51 am
I am not saying that there is really a fool proof correlation. But, within the multitude of factors entering into cloud making this could be one more contribution and since ’95 there are cumulatively more cosmics and the albedo is rising since ’97 .
The point is that the cosmic variations are so minute that if their effects are proportional to the whole count it will unobservable. There has been very large variations in cosmic ray intensity in the past because the Earth main field varies a lot. These cosmic ray variations do not show up as matching temperature variations.
anna v says:
November 25, 2010 at 10:32 pm
“eadler :
http://ulysses.sr.unh.edu/NeutronMonitor/Misc/neutron2.html
There is no real upward trend in neutron flux between 1950 and 2006. Of course “The Chilling Stars” wouldn’t contain that information.
Hold your horses. It is not the peak trends that will produce clouds or not. It is the integrated area below the curves in the link, assuming the observation from this paper establishes that condensation is proportional to the impinging radiation .
So seems to me there is a sequence of fat, lean, fat, lean plots. Between 1980 and 1990 there is half the area than between 1990 and 2000, and in addition the minimum is smaller, thus the area larger. The observation that from 1995 there is stasis in temperature would agree with the integral being larger since then.
Looking at backward times the ice age scare fell in a fat region.
I do not believe that there is one to one correspondence with any factor entering in producing the weather and climate we observe. It is a dynamical system with many inputs and most probably chaotic, but one can observe threads of influences, and this GCR seems to me valid as a contributor, and certainly cannot be thrown out by looking cursorily at peak trends.”
Fair enough. Eyeballing is not necessarily going to be accurate.
This begs the question: “Is there an 11 year moving average plot which shows a trend in Cosmic rays, which has been plotted by the proponents of the Cosmic Ray Theory, which shows that Cosmic Rays could be a factor?”.
Could you, or any of the “skeptics” reading this, who believe in the Cosmic Ray influence, help out here? If there is no evidence that Cosmic Rays could be driving the current Temperature increase, why all the fuss?
Sorry Leif
the light bulb in my head has not lightened up yet
You say: Walking across a carpet in dry weather can build up several thousand volts. Enough to trigger a spark when you touch the doorknob [requires 3000 Volt].
The key word is “dry”! and the key idea is “friction”!
So is the enormous speed of clouds moving in a thunderstorm against the prevailing air in the atmosphere not causing that friction that is enough to cause lightning?
Note that until it actually rains the clouds should be seen as “dry” – just very high water vapor content.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 26, 2010 at 9:23 am
I think you mean ‘appalling’, check again.
Thanks god ‘mean-minded’ and ‘mean-spirited’ are a tiny minority, some would not even help an old lady across the road.
Dr. V.P. “I strongly encourage you to complete your analysis . And as a native speaker of English I may be of more than merely technical assistance.”
Dear all, this story has generated a thoughtful and useful discussion which I am grateful for. As a point of some clarification, I have added an open letter to my website. http://benlaken.com/index.html
All the best,
–Ben
HenryP says:
November 26, 2010 at 9:44 am
The key word is “dry”! and the key idea is “friction”!
So is the enormous speed of clouds moving in a thunderstorm against the prevailing air in the atmosphere not causing that friction that is enough to cause lightning?
Note that until it actually rains the clouds should be seen as “dry” – just very high water vapor content.
No, it is not the clouds moving. And, actually, the ‘rain drops’ are dry, namely ice crystals. I should have been more precise on that.
vukcevic says:
November 26, 2010 at 10:11 am
Dr. V.P. “I strongly encourage you to complete your analysis.
I think I have urged you to do that many times. You always refuse on the grounds that “others would steal your ideas that could be of enormous importance to mankind”.
HenryP says:
November 26, 2010 at 9:44 am
……………..
Cloud electricity is not there because of rain. It is there because of diffusion of ions, due to the Brownian motion.
Ben Laken says:
November 26, 2010 at 10:17 am
As a point of some clarification, I have added an open letter to my website.
Except that the letter is devoid of actual information 🙁 . I had hoped that there would have been some clarification of:
“I’m trying to understand what they did. The paper states “Thus, the units of GCR changes used here are given as “GU”, defined as a change of 1% of the 11-year solar cycle amplitude in four days.”. At Thule the GCR solar cycle amplitude in neutron monitor counts per hour is ~600 out of a total of ~4300. The change happens over 5 years = 5*365 = 1825 days. In four days the GCRs change thus 600/1825*4 = 1.3 counts. 1% of that is 0.013 count. This sounds silly on its face as there is a regular daily variation of 10 counts or 770 times as large. So, I need some clarification on this.”
vukcevic says:
November 26, 2010 at 10:30 am
Cloud electricity is not there because of rain. It is there because of diffusion of ions, due to the Brownian motion.
Actually, there are several proposed mechanisms. “The two processes generally acknowledged to be the most likely candidates are the process by which ice particles, growing at different diffusional rates, collide and share charges such that the particle growing fastest charges positively, and the inductive mechanism that relies on the pre-existing electric field to produce induced charges in uncharged particles that may be transferred during collisions.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w54350750g275214/
Annav
Skeptical Science web site has a graph of the 11 year average of Cosmic Rays versus temperature. After 1970 there are oscillations but no trend to match the temperature trend.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/cosmic-rays-and-global-warming.htm
Remember that the correlations between cloudiness and cosmic ray increases were hard for the researchers to find. The correlation occurs at the mid latitudes and only for some particular atmospheric conditions. In their discussion section,m the authors state:
It should be noted that although the GCM experiment corroborates
the observed link between changes in cloudiness
and SLAT, it does not provide any further information on the suggested link between GCR and cloud cover.
Based on the
relationships observed in this study, and assuming that there
is no linear trend in the short-term GCR change, we speculate
that little (0.088 C/decade) systematic change in temperature
at mid-latitudes has occurred over the last 50 years.
However, at shorter time-scales this phenomenon may contribute
to natural variability, potentially reducing detectability
of an anthropogenic signal.
Water molecules H-O-H are dielectric. Ions & Brownian motions (which we discussed on number of occasions); so ions diffusion works fine for me, and hey, no ‘magnetic field’ frozen or otherwise required. Think about it.
vukcevic says:
November 26, 2010 at 11:06 am
Water molecules H-O-H are dielectric. Ions & Brownian motions (which we discussed on number of occasions); so ions diffusion works fine for me, and hey, no ‘magnetic field’ frozen or otherwise required. Think about it.
You miss the essential ingredient: how do you separate the charges, once you have got them onto the ice crystals or rain drops? The point here is that the crystals generally fall down and take the charges with them, thus building up a difference between the top and the bottom of the clouds.
I am more confused now then before about where the actual electrical charge in clouds comes from – and I think it is an important lead. I think that there are always charges in the clouds, but it is usually not big enough to cause a lightning strike. That leaves my idea that the directional movement of these (charged) clouds may well be influenced by earth’s magnetic field, which in its turn may be influenced by that of the sun’s, still open?
I agree with Leif about Ben
Unfortunately, unlike many of us here, in the end, it’s all about the money and who pays what and why…
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
To respond to the post by Leif (left at Nov 26th, 2010, 10:17am)
Hi Leif, I am sorry that you were dissatisfied with the content of the open letter; it was not intended to be a compendium to the manuscript but a general insight to give some insight into the meaning of the work for non-academics who may be interested. So I will attempt to answer some of your questions regarding our calculation of changes in the Cosmic ray flux.
I will give a worked example with the real data, but values will deviate, as I am not using all neutron monitor sites, and all values for brevity and these are back of the envelope calculations.
Instead of considering neutron monitor variations from a single site (such as Climax) we aimed to give a more globally comprehensive view of neutron monitor changes, as the work concerned an effect that was widespread. So we combined neutron monitor variations from many sites, which were all normalised against the individual neutron monitor changes experienced over the course of an 11 year solar cycle.
For the raw neutron monitor counts from 3 sites we have the following (from days -3 to +3)
day -3 day -2 day -1 day 0 day 1 day2 day3
Climax: 407959.1 407896.6 408134.9 407744.2 407614.7 408117 4083883.3
Moscow: 556742.2 556559.1 556483.5 556178.0 556480.2 556809.2 556723.5
MtWelling: 392036.2 391693.0 391669.0 391668.4 392175.2 392474.3 392293.1
So if we look at the average of those three sites (with key day value normalised to 0 for easy viewing)
Day -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
Average (counts): 382.3 186.0 232.2 0.0 226.5 603.3 604.7
At this point we can already clearly see a statistical correlation between GCR decreases and the key dates (in the actual paper we had many more neutron monitor sites contributing to the values to increase the robustness of the measurements). So we have a positive correlation between dates of rapid middle latitude zone cloud decreases, and decreases in the Cosmic Ray flux.
Now back to the way we presented the CR flux: as counts are somewhat meaningless to a wider audience, we converted the CR change to a percentage of the change experienced over an 11-year solar cycle, using values from each neutron monitor site.
E.g. Climax (44495.71 counts) , Moscow (54630.13 counts) , Mt Wellington (48190.31 counts)
Finally, we then calculated the CR variation as a change that was relative to preceding days, by subtracting the average CR value (now in percent relative to solar cycle changes) from the average counts of a three day period beginning 5 days earlier. This averaging period approach is similar to that used in other studies (such as Kniveton and Todd, 2001; 2004 JASTP).
So to do that calculation briefly for the average of those three sites for day +2 would give +0.69 units. Where we have defined the units as GU in our paper. Again, I realise this value deviates from the day +1 value presented in the paper, but this calculation was done using only a fraction of the neutron monitor sites from that work to give you further clarification of the method.
I hope this helps,
–Ben Laken
HenryP you can pick and choose.
Ordinary particles without charge in Brownian motion move in random directions, charge particles do not, there is a critical distance regulated by forces of attraction and repulsion. Collisions of charged particles are quite different from normal neutral particle collisions. Neutral particles move independently along straight-line trajectories between distinct collision events, which are typically strong, inelastic events that cause the neutral particle to be scattered in approximately random direction. In contrast, a charged particle moving simultaneously experiences (and is deflected by) the weak Coulomb electric field forces around all the nearby charged particles as it passes by each of them. Since the electric fields around the individual charged particles are quite weak and Coulomb collisions are elastic (energy-conserving), they individually lead to typically only very small deflections in the direction of motion Thus, the trajectory of a charged particle is influenced by many simultaneous, small angle deflections in its direction of motion.
As vapour rises through the air Brownian motion and the Coulomb field separates charges into different polarity layers, building electric potential. So by the time vapour has become cloud it is already charged and highly polarised.
Rubbing of ice crystals is a bit a doubtful physics.
I suggest: take two ice cubes from you drink glass and as an experiment rub them together. No starter.
eadler says:
November 26, 2010 at 9:42 am
I do not want to repeat what we have been exchanging with Leif, if you are interested you can have a look at the posts above starting from
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/25/something-to-be-thankful-for-at-last-cosmic-rays-linked-to-rapid-mid-latitude-cloud-changes/#comment-537508
The interest in the cosmic ray hypothesis rises from the desire to correlate the sun cycles to the weather/climate cycles. As the total energy variations coming from the sun output are very small, amplification factors are sought: One of these is the correlation of cosmic rays with the sun cycles and the hypothesis that the cloud cover increases and thus albedo increases and generate temperature changes.
Α 3% change in albedo can make all the difference in the energy budget to reverse temperature trends.
Dave Springer says:
November 26, 2010 at 1:47 am (Edit)
Steven Mosher says:
November 26, 2010 at 1:03 am
“simply: if cosmic rays explains the warming, then you must accept the warming it explains.”
It’s not an all or nothing proposition. The reported warming may be exagerated and solar magnetic activity may play a major, minor, or no role at all in whatever actual warming really took place. I’d rather not be so vague but the science is very unsettled at this point.
#######
very simply, you change the “observed” warming you change the statistics.
In any case. NCEP surface temp is derived from the temperature aloft. Consequently it has none of the problems we see in surface stations. If the surface stations had significant bias then we could expect the results of NCEP to differ from the surface stations. NCEP does not differ substantially from CRU. that is temperatures for the surface derived from atmospheric temperatures agree with temperatures taking on the ground.