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
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Further thought on cosmic rays, cloud cover, and temperature.
The rise in skin cancer was coincident with rise in global temperatures. Cancers are caused by penetrating radiation (UV-B at least, perhaps cosmic rays as well.) Is it possible that during this period cloud cover was abnormally low?
Now, cloud cover is returning to a more natural state, causing temperatures to drop. I don’t know that skin cancer has been on the decline for the past few years, but would be another interesting correlation to investigate.
If so, you’d have a very interesting correlation between radiation reaching the earth and global temperatures, which would imply that cloud cover is a huge factor.
—————
I see they used two data sets, both satellite data and reanalysis data: ” . . . ISCCP satellite data and NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data . . . “
John
I’ve never been convinced that GCRs are much more than a small effect. This paper doesn’t change that feeling very much. However, it does show that our favorite GCMs are missing yet another factor. I wonder how many missing climate elements it takes before people realize they have been pretty much useless.
That the NAO has flipped to the negative mode, could it ´be linked to solar activity?
Hi everyone, thank you for all taking an interest in my work, I didn’t expect such a response – I like all the comments!
I am a bit pressed for time as at the moment, but I wanted to attempt to leave a (hopefully) clarifying comment:
Firstly, I would say (and I sure I speak for my co-authors Dom and Mick also here), this work does not comment on global warming and it should not be interpreted to cast doubt on recent anthropogenic warming. What it does, is rather establish that there may be good evidence of a Cosmic Ray – cloud signal detectable in satellite observations of clouds, which has traditionally been a very murky area as over the last 10 or so years, published work in this area has dealt with small sample sizes, and observations of limited statistical significance.
So, the important thing here is that it finds interesting evidence to suggest that this complicated element of (theoretical) natural atmospheric variability, may be operating. Note I said variability: this work does not identify a trend, and indeed at the end of the paper we state
“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”
From the research I got the impression that any Cosmic ray – cloud link is strongly dependent on not only variations in Cosmic rays themselves, but also on the state of the atmosphere. I.e. if cosmic rays are enhancing microphysical processes connected to clouds, then it is very likely be governed by the cloud conditions.
In fact, I suspect that this is why the approach we have used in the ACP paper has been successful at identifying a relationship: past approaches used rare high magnitude decreases in the Cosmic Ray flux to test for cloud changes – these events were essentially random, and therefore are insensitive to atmospheric conditions.
To comment on a few Posts:
Guido Guidi says:
November 25, 2010 at 1:00 am
Interesting. Any news from the Cloud experiment being run at Cern? It could provide some experimental validation of these findings.
Ben—I heard Jasper Kirkby speak very interesting experiment in Easter, and he is being very careful not to release any results before he has done a thorough analysis.
wayne says:
November 25, 2010 at 1:01 am
So if this ends up true it was the sun after all.
Now who would have ever guessed such an outlandish reason.
Ben—No Wane!
Ryan Maue says:
November 25, 2010 at 1:25 am
Upon seeing the usage of NCEP-Reanalysis surface air temperatures, I quit reading.
Ben—I think this is an important point I would like to reply to.
We are aware of the limitations associated with NCEP (for anyone unfamiliar, NCEP reanalysis are not observations as Ryan rightly says – they are a mixture of observations from various sources fed in to a Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model). NWP’s are similar to weather forecast models, which predict the weather. To re-state, this model is fed with up-to-date observations from many sources, and represents a best-guess at conditions based on our understanding of physical processes, and our knowledge of recent atmospheric conditions (from observations). Uncertainties with a dataset are not to say they are incorrect, or should not be used. In fact using them in a large composite as we have done is a good way to handel uncertainty, as it is essentially an ensemble.
If we discarded any dataset with issues there would be nothing left to use! As scientist, we can only work with best guess and attempt to minimise uncertainty.
Also, I think that most people would agree when you have distinct datasets showing a comparable response (as we do), it is a good verification of the reliability results.
Steeptown says:
November 25, 2010 at 1:56 am
Yes indeed, they still have to secure future funding.
Ben – that would be nice, if you have any floating around send it my way!
Yarmy says:
November 25, 2010 at 2:10 am
The author has his own website here:
http://benlaken.com/index.html
He’s very young: looks like he’s only just finished his PhD.
Ben – I did just finish, about 3 months ago!
I would like to reply to more posts, but I have run out of time. Thank you all again for the interest, the work is on-going, so hopefully there will be more publications on the way.
Best ,
–Ben
Speaking at the 3rd International Climate Cobnference in Berlin, Dec. 3-4, 2010:
Prof. Dr. Henrik Svensmark, Denmark, Atmospheric Sciences
Prof. Dr. Nir Shaviv, Israel, Astrophysicist
Prof. Dr. Jan Veizer, Canada, Paleo-geologist
I’m attending, and I’m now really really looking forward to it!
Leif Svalgaard says: Coincidence, the correlation breaks down when you go back in time, e.g. to the MWP
Could you explain or reference that remark?
Since there seems to be a large disagreement about the magnitude, extent and even existence of MWP, making such a bland comment about correlation is rather meaningless.
Who’s version of MWP does not correlate ?
What is it “coincident” with. Your other comments on the paper are interesting I think you need to be a lot clearer about what you are saying here.
regards.
Leif, you beat me to it.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 25, 2010 at 3:17 am
It’s perfectly possible to have a robust correlation on a longer timescale but a weak or non existent correlation on shorter timescales.
You responded:
November 25, 2010 at 3:17 am
The nature of the superposed epoch method is such that it applies to the shorter time scale, i.e. that of the width of the graph. So you are saying that on a time scale of 3 days it works, but on a time scale of 10 days it doesn’t have to. That is special pleading.
Some events in nature have cumulative affects, either occurring due to real cumulative build-up (IE ice ages), or occurring by chance because the event happened hundreds of times (Sun exposure and skin cancer). Other events in nature do not have cumulative affects (this Arctic blast blowing up my skirt in Wallowa County will end in a few days). If Steven wants to state a case for cumulative affects, plausible mechanism must be the arbiter, else you run the risk of falling into the butterfly affect as your fallback mechanism.
Steven, it is very clear from the graph that a plausible mechanism exists for short term cosmic ray affects. But once things rebound in short order, what is the mechanism for cumulative affects? Especially if you can’t find lingering evidence of the short term affect after it goes away?
_Jim says: November 25, 2010 at 5:21 am
Are you possibly confusing or not differentiating between Earth’s magnetic field and the solar magnetic field? The two would seem to be operative in different areas of ‘space’ …
No I am not. 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 (which is different to the Arctic MF) and than remainder is attributed to the strength of the heliospheric field, mainly defined by the SSN.
see also:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET&10Be.htm
Oops. Sorry folks I don’t know how to add italics and my egg nog coffee has addled my brain. Leif’s comment ended with “…That is special pleading.”
WhichBruce Cunningham says:
November 25, 2010 at 3:10 am
I was struck by Ryan’s comment also. I assume the NCEP-reanalysis temps are not so good? A bad thing to use for correlation of their theory?
“Assume” , either positive or negative, is never a good staring point. If you have a doubt check it out.
I am now , sadly, skeptical about all these temperature records and more skeptical the more they are “reanalysed” or whatever. However, I would not dismiss it out of hand. Most of the dubious adjustments seem to concern longer term variation. There is some hope that they may accurately reflect such short term changes.
P. Solar says: November 25, 2010 at 6:11 am
……………
It is a reference to my correlation:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LL.htm
(temperature reconstructions vs GMF).
See my reply:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/25/something-to-be-thankful-for-at-last-cosmic-rays-linked-to-rapid-mid-latitude-cloud-changes/#comment-536878
One more point, clear skies do not lead to a hot Earth. It all depends on necessary factors. Under clear sky conditions, strong radiative cooling can plunge temperatures into negative numbers, if other necessary factors are present. The picture graphic used is somewhat misleading in my opinion.
REPLY: Well I did say “simplified” in the caption, and given I posted this late last night, it was the best I could find. Zzzzz. I agree though, and the authors note that state of the atmosphere is also a significant factor. – Anthony
Enneagram says: November 25, 2010 at 5:08 am
…………..
For time being the Antarctica is the main problem to the ‘magnetic field’ being the key. Magnetic field there, in the first approximation, has had linear decay during last 150 years, so no obvious correlation. My view of this is as follows:
The Earth has a large hemispheric asymmetry in number of respects: geophysical, oceanographic and geomagnetic etc.
Northern Hemisphere is mainly influenced by events in the Arctic ; transpolar current with number of gyres, shallow Greenland-Scotland ridge, specifics not available in the SH, that make the Arctic’s temperatures more vulnerable to the external influence.
In contrast the SH by itself is far more stable, not only due to larger water mass but also the circumpolar current acting as a giant flywheel in hydro / thermo -dynamic sense, which is far less prone to the short term disturbances. North Atlantic’s effect on the Southern hemisphere is only a partial ‘cross-talk’ on a decadal time scale, due the oceans’ conveyer belt, resulting in an out of phase polar temperature variability.
I have no data on the Antarctica’s Beryllium, the Arctic’s is questionable for very good reason.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET&10Be.htm
Pamela Gray says:
Steven, it is very clear from the graph that a plausible mechanism exists for short term cosmic ray affects. But once things rebound in short order, what is the mechanism for cumulative affects? Especially if you can’t find lingering evidence of the short term affect after it goes away?
Showing a short term effect establishes the mechanism, upto now being refuted as unproven, that links solar factors other than simple direct insolation.
This means we need to look at long term magnetic and other effects, not just flares.
Even if this effect just happens for a few days at a time, that affects the energy entering the system. That will not remain as a pocket of hot air but the energy is still there. A series of such events is necessarily accumulative.
Since this is not just a local effect it could be significant over a very large area.
Pamela Gray says:
November 25, 2010 at 6:40 am
Steven, it is very clear from the graph that a plausible mechanism exists for short term cosmic ray affects. But once things rebound in short order, what is the mechanism for cumulative affects? Especially if you can’t find lingering evidence of the short term affect after it goes away?
Does it have to be cumulative? An accumulation of what? Not of the short term effects, but a long term change in galactic cosmic rays, if the short term effect is valid, can be argued to produce a similar increase in cloud cover. If during the ten days the clouds follow the leader galactic cosmic rays, it is possible to argue that a long term leading would also be followed in a similar way.
I find this observation similar to what the CLOUD is trying to do at CERN. That will also be a short term effect by construction, but it would show that condensation follows the amount of radiation supplied.
Lets recapitulate: If condensation follows the amount of radiation supplied then the plot above seems to me to be a confirmation.
Just my opinion, but recent work showing a very tight correlation between N hemisphere summer insolation & rate of ice-changes seems to preclude any other significant influence(s), including GCRs or CO2, at least at the time-scales involved in the studies (the last 800k yrs).
Correct me if I am wrong, but, as I interpreted the wording in your first post (I cannot read your mind therefore have only your words to go by) it looked as if you only considered near-earth effects, and implied the solar effects were somehow only earth-centric and not heliosphereic related (at some, say, +100 earth radii away from earth):
As we all know, the Sun’s “solar magnetic field” extends throughout our galaxy whereas the Earth’s does not extend throughout our galaxy, therefore, the “solar magnetic field” is capable of affecting, say, “sweeping away GCRs” before ever coming close to seeing the effects of the Earth’s magnetic field …
Good to see we have cleared that up.
.
Above, in reference to this phrase in the text, “prior to the onset of anthropogenic warming”, Gail Combs says:
“You have to laugh at the “magic phrase” needed to mollify the CAGW gatekeepers that was necessary to get the paper published.”
Reminds me of something my daughter, who works for a big architectural firm told me recently. All architects working on large projects where any government funding might be involved have to insert stereotypical “green language” and green modifications to even have their proposals considered. Not surprisingly, most in the field are committed to AGW.
This brings back to what all chemists know very well: The formation of hydroxides in a solution; they usually form as fluffy compounds floating in the middle and above solutions.
In the present case we also have an hydroxide formation, in the “atmosphere solution”: That of Hydrogen Hydroxide H-OH (charged “water” that we use to call “Clouds”). ..and that H ( a METAL for which we are “THANKFUL”-as said above-) in this case comes from “above”.
Note:These charged hydrogen nucleii sometimes smash our cellphones’ chips.
The butterfly effect, little things mean a lot. Give a girl a small diamond ring and see what happens, don’t give her one at all and see what happens. It is certainly worth looking into to see what the results are in weather. It just might be useful to know.
ninderthana says:
November 25, 2010 at 4:25 am
……………
Agree, but I think albedo is relevant only with a direct reference to latitude and time of the year i.e. insolation. Albedo is far more important factor at lower latitudes than within the polar circle, let’s say: tropical and subtropical regions up to 12 months , temperate regions 8-9 months and polar regions only 3-5 summer months. Cloud cover is reverse: cooling in tropics, warming effect in polar regions.
Hence: Svensmark’s effect (more GCR more cloud, if proven) cools tropics, warms the Arctic, but I am not yet convinced that GCR count is high enough to affect cloud formation to the required degree.
There is also a point of the negative feedback here: stronger the HS magnetic field, less GCR, less cloud, more heat, more evaporation, more cloud, i.e. less cloud results in more cloud, hmm…
Anthony, I am thankful for a vigorous scientific debate on WUWT Thanksgiving morning. Hope your family is enjoying renewed health and greetings to all the magnificent commenters on WUWT. Now back to cooking.
Gail Combs:
Thank you for your post at November 25, 2010 at 5:20 am which responds to my post at November 25, 2010 at 3:06 am by saying;
“SWAG:
IF Vukcevic is correct for the poles and Laken et al. are correct for the mid latitudes, perhaps this might effect the jet stream as Stephen Wilde pointed out???”
Yes, that is a good example of the kinds of effects that I was supposing may possibly exist when I wrote in my post;
“Finally, the effect of these different flux modulations in different regions on heat flows (a) around the planet and (b) to and from the planet need to be determined.”
But please, please note my point that said;
“Firstly, your finding and the finding by Lakis et al. each needs to be confirmed.”
I listed the logical progression from that point to my final one.
Speculating on what a research study could lead to is good because it gives reason and incentive to conduct the research. But, very importantly, one needs to first determine
(a) whether the effect(s) to be studied is (are) known to exist with significant certainty
and
(b) if the magnitudes of the effect(s) is (are) significant or trivial.
Concentrating on what the research may provide can induce a false confidence in the importance of the effect. The determinations I state as (a) and (b) MUST take major priority over everything else or gross error is inevitable.
Indeed, AGW is a clear example of such error. No agreed determination of ‘climate sensitivity’ to atmospheric GHG concentration changes exists, but political and economic policies are being based on indications of GCMs that assume high climate sensitivity. If the climate sensitivity is low then AGW is trivial and the horrific costs of adopting the policies are not needed. But if the climate sensitivity is high then adoption of the policies may be essential.
Richard
Pamela Gray says:
November 25, 2010 at 6:54 am
I assume you must mean at night? As radiative cooling is unlikely during the day with sunlight hitting the surface!?
but yes, the graphic is rather simplified, but I guess it’s because it relates only to GCR’s