Something to be thankful for! At last: Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes

Leif, did you not read this bit ?
“The above results already show that the effects of energetic particle precipitation
on the atmosphere can be of significant importance for the Earth’s atmosphere, perhaps even for the climate. Recent satellite observations have also shown that energetic particle precipitation, combined with atmospheric dynamics, is an important NOx source in the polar winter middle atmosphere. Chemistry-climate models have systematically under-predicted NOx in the polar winter stratosphere, probably because they do not include the downwards transport from the mesosphere. Using the latest information provided for example by the atmospheric chemistry instruments on the Envisat satellitem the results on the energetic particle precipitation impact on the global climate system could be further defined. After all, whatever the effect will turn out to be, it is important for us to be aware of it EVEN IF IT IS NATURAL,NOT MANMADE VARIABILITY.
It would seem that my hypothesis is pretty damned close even if adjustments do have to be made to the precise mechanism.
The step forward that I claim to have made is a description of the atmospheric and climate response to whatever the process is in the upper atmosphere that has yet to be nailed.
If the Haigh data is verified by a confirmation of ozone increases above 45km when the sun is less active then in terms of the climate response I will be home and dry even if I have not precisely identified the upper atmosphere mechanism.
After all. what matters for climate, is the response of the polar vortices (and the consequent latitudinal jetstream positioning) to the solar forcing however induced.

Pamela Gray said:
“But are you not basing your hypothesis on what has been measured and demonstrated to be temporary ozone affects that you think are cumulative? It is here that I ask you to provide the physical mechanism for a cumulative affect.”
The stratosphere and mesosphere both appear to have cooled increasingly over time whilst the sun was more active. Now that the sun is less active they appear to have ceased cooling and may have warmed slightly.
That is measured and demonstrated is it not?
The mechanism is another issue and I am debating with Leif on that aspect. For some reason the stratospheric and mesospheric temperature trends move in the opposite direction to the thermospheric and tropospheric temperature trends both when the sun is active and when it is inactive.
The Haigh data clearly implicates ozone chemistry because it reveals a reversal of sign at about 45km. Below that level a quiet sun provokes ozone depletion, above that level a quiet sun provokes an ozone increase.
That fits my hypothesis (that there must be a reverse sign solar effect somewhere in the climate system) perfectly and was first anticipated by me in November 2009.
I have made certain speculations as to the mechanism. At present Leif does not accept them so in view of Leif’s expertise I accept that some adjustment may be necessary.
Nonetheless I still think that my description of the climate effect of whatever the mechanism is remains correct.
However one cuts it the polar vortices respond very sensitively to solar variability. If you do not agree please feel free to provide an alternative explanation to recent observations.
Why is the polar vortex so negative with a quiet sun when it was very much more positive with an active sun ?

“An opposing but plausible mechanized theory for any event is a falsification”
Such as ?
Why were the polar vortices positive when the sun was active and now negative with the sun less active ?
I’m a seeker of truth just as you are.

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 27, 2010 at 9:52 am
The correct analysis is to assume no errors. What is reported is the number of ‘clicks’ from the counter. There are no errors on that, you hear 18 clicks, so 18 clicks it is. Or you see 4 sunspots, so 4 it is. If several 10-second intervals give clicks of 15, 18, 20, 19, 18 , 16, … it means that the cosmic ray intensity [going through your counter] varies [not that there are errors]. If you on several days see 4, 3, 7, 2, 0, 6, … spots, it means that there were a different number of spots on the sun, not that there are errors in your count.
Perhaps a real example: the first 48 hours of 2004, the McMurdo counter recorded an average count per hour of 8929. The square root of that is 94. Is that the ‘error’? The 48 individual counts varied a lot less. The standard variation was 27. The average change from hour to hour was 14. The cosmic ray intensity was seemingly rather steady [variations at other stations were similar, so whatever changes there were, were not random counting errors, but simply small changes in the actual cosmic ray intensity].
Well, all I can say is that we do not do it that way in my field. Whatever we count, or is countable, we assume there is an error of the square root of N. Maybe it is the “error” terminology that is the misunderstanding, error in this case means the probability that the distribution sampled by the count might have given a different count than it gave by 1 sigma. The assumption is of Gaussian distributions. Once distributions are not Gaussian, systematic errors have to be estimated/calculated usually using monte carlo simulations.
So yes, the counter counts 18 clicks and this is the probable path reality came up with. But the probability distribution says it might have come out 18+/-4.2 . This gives the significance of the measure, how many sigma it is different than 0, and the “error” band around the measurement.
Now with sunspots of course you have the count that has come up and you are not probing the probability distribution from which sunspots come. It is a different problem.
Going back to the paper under discussion, the neutrons coming in are the beam, they have a distribution which is time dependent but the objective is to see if this distribution is the generator of clouds . The more statistics accumulated the smaller the error in the distribution estimate (bar systematics).

Everything is energy which transforms itself and manifests itself in different wavelegths (sizes=dimensions), frequencies, as the simple photocell effect shows it, if correctly interpreted: It is not light that “excites” zinc it is light energy which transforms itself into electricity. At an electric power plant, gravity is transformed into electricity and we use it to obtain, again, work=gravity, in our homes. That “soup of words” is confusing us.

“Stephen Wilde says:
November 27, 2010 at 11:58 am
“After all. what matters for climate, is the response of the polar vortices (and the consequent latitudinal jetstream positioning) to the solar forcing however induced.”
“That is the part that is bad and that is not in her thesis”
Please clarify. One liners are not helpful.
She explains that In the winter polar middle atmosphere transport is largely determined by the polar vortex. In the winter pole, near the polar night terminator, strong temperature gradients lead to formation of the Polar Night Jet. As shown in Figure 2.4, the Polar Night Jet is a strong eastward (westerly) wind in the upper stratosphere-lower mesosphere near 60◦ N/S latitude, formed due to the thermal wind balance [Solomon, 1999; Holton, 2004]. The winds in the Polar Night Jet, which reach their peak of about 80 m/s near 60 km altitude, act as a transport barrier between polar and mid-latitude air, blocking meridional transport and isolating the air in the polar stratosphere and thus forming the polar vortex. The edge of the vortex is usually near 60◦ N/S and it extends from approximately 16 km to the mesosphere. The isolation is greater, and the polar vortex more stable, in the Antarctic where there is less wave activity affecting the vortex than in the Arctic. In the Arctic, the atmospheric wave activity disturbs the vortex, leading to greater mixing and faster downward motion, compared with those in the Antarctic vortex [Solomon, 1999].”
It is upwards-traveling wave activity from below that controls the polar vortices, not solar activity from above.”
Right, Leif, I’m with you on that but you haven’t addressed my earlier point.
If more NOx is available for drawdown at a time of more active sun then that must have an effect on the net outcome.
If an active sun creates more NOx (as it must) then as soon as the polar vortex starts to draw NOx down in the winter season it will encounter a more concentrated reservoir of NOx and the ozone in the polar vortex will be depleted according to the concentration of NOx encountered.
More active sun, more NOx, more ozone depletion above 45km, cooler mesosphere and stratosphere, higher tropopause, more poleward jets. Voila.
Less active sun, less NOx, less ozone depletion above 45km, warmer mesosphere and stratosphere, lower tropopause, more equatorward jets, Voila.

Thank you for your attention Leif. Two queries as follows:
i) “In the mesosphere and upper stratosphere, ozone loss is caused by H and OH produced as th result of ion-molecule reactions associated with particle induced ionization” From: http://www.leif.org/EOS/1999JD900752.pdf”
The precise reason for ozone loss doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is whether ozone loss is greater when the sun is more active. I take it from you and Richard Horne that that is indeed the case.
ii) “What the mesosphere does [cools or heats] has little effect on the stratosphere as far as ozone is concerned. To change anything you need to change the ozone in the stratosphere: higher solar UV [more active sun] creates more ozone and a warmer stratosphere. This is the basic mechanism, both in the mesosphere and in the stratosphere [interrupted by rare proton events]. From 1979 until about ten years ago there has been a clear decline [~12%] of ozone near 40 km altitude. In the last 10 years there has been no decline, at some stations even an increase, consistent with the decline of stratospheric chlorine. Solar activity has had little [if anything] to do with this.”
I’m aware of the basic mechanism and the proposed chlorine effect but it doesn’t seem to accord with observations. I think the temperature of the mesosphere is relevant in the same way as an increase in downward inclination along part of a river bed will increase the speed of the downward flow all the way from the source.A cooler mesosphere will increase upward energy flux from the stratosphere.
From 1979 to about ten years ago there was indeed a decline in stratospheric temperatures linked to the decline in ozone above 40km. I propose that the decline in ozone was solar induced and not chlorine induced because a more active sun creates a stronger downward NOx flux which causes the mesosphere to cool due to reduced ozone and the stratosphere follows . Also you have said that an enhanced NOx flux affects the stratosphere.
From ten years ago the sun started to decline in activity which resulted in less NOx available to be drawn down into the polar vortex with a consequent ozone recovery.
So I have to decide, as you do, whether the observations fit best the chlorine scenario or the solar scenario.
I elect for the solar scenario because:
i) The jets moved poleward as they must if the stratosphere cools and the tropopause rises. That happened in the MWP when agriculture became possible in Greenland so it cannot be anything to do with CO2 or CFCs.
ii) The observed range of latitudinal jetstream shifting is far greater than the models can reproduce on the basis of the standard mechanism. There has to be another process supplementing the standard mechanism by expanding and shrinking the polar vortex in line with varying levels of solar activity.
iii) No one has ever suggested that the chlorine emissions alone can shift the jetstreams. CO2 is no longer a contender if one accepts that the jets are now moving back equatorward because CO2 continues to rise so the jets should be moving further poleward but they are clearly not.
iv) The Haigh data indicates increasing ozone above 45km between 2004 and 2007 despite (or in my view because of) the less active sun. Such an increase is contrary to expectations.
So for various reasons I cannot accept your bald statement that solar activity has little (if anything) to do with it.

I think I now have enough information to state an opinion.
Leif, you and others have provided me with a variety of mechanisms whereby a more active sun depletes ozone at the higher levels of the atmosphere for a net cooling effect.
It is well established that in the lower levels of the atmosphere a more active sun increases ozone and UV acts on the ozone present for a net warming effect.
Now we know that the temperature of the stratosphere increases with height up to about 50km due to that warming ozone effect.
However from 50km upwards the temperature of the atmosphere decreases with height due (at least in part) to that ozone depleting cooling effect.
So at or around 50km (the stratopause) one effect segues into the other so that below the stratopause the ozone creation and UV warming effect is dominant but above the stratopause the ozone depletion cooling effect is dominant.
Thus any change in the balance between the two opposing processes will result in a change in the height of the stratopause.
In fact a change in that balance from a change in the level of solar activity will actually result in a change of height at the mesopause, stratopause AND tropopause.
A more active sun appears to deplete ozone and cool the higher layers more than it creates ozone and warms the lower layers for a net cooling of both stratosphere and mesosphere exactly as observed during the late 20th century period of active sun.
Change the height of the tropopause and one changes the pressure distribution below the tropopause with the climate consequences that are becoming obvious.
A more active sun raises the height of the tropopause to deepen the polar vortex but reduce its horizontal extent with more poleward jets.
A less active sun appears to reduce the height of the tropopause for a shallower but more extensive polar vortex with more equatorward jets.
So via that mechanism a change in solar activity from above can alter the global climate below.