From Nature blog: Sunny days for CLOUD experiment
An experiment designed to investigate the link between solar activity and the climate has its first results in the bag. At the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco today, Joachim Curtius presented data from the first runs of the CLOUD (‘cosmics leaving outdoor droplets’) experiment at CERN – the European particle physics lab outside of Geneva.
The experiment has a long and bumpy history. The idea is to test the theory that cosmic rays spur the formation of particles in the air that nucleate clouds, in turn making skies cloudier and the planet cooler. Researchers have noted a dearth of sunspots (which is linked to more cosmic rays) during the ‘little ice age’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a peak in sunspots (linked to a drop in cosmic rays) during the late 1980s, when global cloudiness dropped by about 3% (see Nature‘s feature on the project). No one knows how big this effect might be, and the idea that it might account for a big chunk of the warming over the last century is highly controversial.
CLOUD uses a particle beam from CERN as a stand-in for cosmic rays, and fires them through an ultra-clean steel chamber filled with select atmospheric gases, to see if and how particles that could nucleate clouds are formed. Project head Jasper Kirkby proposed the experiment back in 1998. But it had a hard time getting off the ground – perhaps in part because Kirkby received bad press for emphasizing the importance of cosmic rays to climate change (see this story from the National Post). CLOUD finally got going in 2006, and they started work with the full kit in November 2009 (here’s a CERN video update about that).
The results haven’t yet been published, so Curtius declined to discuss the details. But the important thing is that the project is working – they have seen sulphuric acid and water combine to make particles when blasted by the CERN beam, for example, in a way that matches predictions of the most recent models. The data should help the team to quantify how much of an impact the Sun is having on climate within 2-3 years, Curtius says – though there are a lot more pieces of the puzzle to fill in.
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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.
This graph certainly lends credence to the theory:
Here’s a longer record of cosmic rays:
See also this WUWT story:
Something to be thankful for! At last: Cosmic rays linked to rapid mid-latitude cloud changes
Ric Werme says on December 16, 2010 at 9:14 am:
“Essentially (from memory, I’ve likely missed a step or two – read “The Chilling Stars”) is consmic rays hit upper atmosphere, produce shower of muons, muons ionize H2SO4 gas in lower atmosphere (source is DMS released from ocean by decaying algae being converted to SO2 by sunlight and reacting with H2O and O2) H2SO4 clumps together and H2O joins it to make cloud condensation nuclei.”
Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) would be rapidly oxidized to dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), which is miscible with water, by ozone and more slowly by oxygen. DMS and DMSO could never a be source of sulfuric acid.
JamesonLewis3rd says:
December 17, 2010 at 4:29 am
No joke, this is real:
US Patent: 00685957:
“Apparatus for the utilization of radiant energy”
Nikola Tesla
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/TeslaBio-Patents.htm
rbateman says:
December 16, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Something else may come to light when CERN Cloud is completed:
Not only will they have some physics to rest on (if Cloud pans out what they are attempting to prove), but they should have the tools to attempt to discriminate between the Solar portion of rejecting the GCR’s vs the Galactic contribution to how much GCR’s are attempting to come in. i.e. – variance in local Milky Way GCR’s.
~
Some very local GCR variation as well Rob. Lots to look at here and only time to skim.
Frisch team working with radio isotopes data in the persuit of very local celestial clouds. Interestingly they see some of the larger within 200,000 years and nearer some farther. Speculating how long a traversal would take and relate to isotope data. Also now seeing “mini cloudletts” in nearby downwind direction which may or may not have been traversed by heliosphere. Our past is a bit cloudier than previously relalized or seen due to that solar wind charge exchange on the boundary, making it appear all homogenized in the local vicinity. But not so, “The times they are a changin.” Where did all those pesky GCR come from in the isotope record? Could it be in the cloudy galactic atmosphere around us? late late late
Jeff T says:
December 16, 2010 at 6:54 pm
“Suppose that cosmic rays do increase cloud cover and that this increase does decrease global temperature. Take a look at the plot of cosmic rays from 1950 onwards. the cosmic ray counts fluctuate significantly, but the overall trend for the last 60 years is flat.”
It’s flat like the top of a plateau and this particular plateau is higher and longer lasting than anything in the past 400 years. The scary thing is the 100 years beginning in about 1650 when the “plateau” was damn near at sea level (Maunder Minimum) and lined up pretty precisely with the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the Maunder Minimum the trend has been a series of upward step changes with smaller declines every 100 years where the decline lasts about 50 years. These also line up with historically cold periods in Europe and North America. Fifty years ago was another step change upwards to the highest plateau on record and there hasn’t yet been the smaller downward decline. Not surprisingly if you conflate correlation with causation, which is something the warmists embrace with religious fervor when it comes to manmade CO2, the past 50 years of high sunspot activity called “The Modern Maximum” has lined up pretty much with 50 years of milder winters which has been a boon to agriculture and doubtless is a large factor in the radiation of the human species to every terrestrial nook and cranny that gets even a short growing season and the tremendous population growth during that time. In general the past 200 years since the end of the Little Ice Age has been a time of increasingly warmer climate and in which the human occupation of the planet grew exponentionally. There’s still room to grow if it keeps getting warmer but if it gets colder there’s going to be some big problems as our whole civilization has become dependent on increasingly better conditions for agriculture. Those will continue getting better with more warmth and more CO2 while any significant cooling and/or reduction in CO2 is going to strain an agricultural industry that’s barely enough to feed the world as it is – population grows as the food supply grows and shrinks as the food suppy shrinks. It isn’t rocket science – cooling is bad, warming is good.
In reply to Vukcevic, December 17th 2:58 am
I would not trust implicitly latest CR data from any of the stations near the Arctic. Reason is that geomagnetic field changes there are not in sink with the geo-dipole.
If you look at Moscow station you can see that in the recent years CR count was on par with 1965 if not slightly lower.
The planet was cold in the 1960’s. Why was the planet cold in the 1960’s? GCR is higher now? Is there any evidence the planet is cooling? If so why?
As we have not observed the full range of the solar magnetic cycle it is difficult at this point in time to state what is or is not the significance of Livingston and Penn’s solar observation. What is physically causing what is observed depends on the mechanism that creates the sunspots. Let’s keep observing.
As I have stated in the last 10 years geomagnetic specialists have confirmed that the geomagnetic field’s tilt has cyclically abruptly changed which causes the planet to cool. (A change of the geomagnetic field’s tilt relative the planet’s axis of rotation moves the cut off point for GCR down to lower latitudes. The same amount of GCR with a tilted geomagnetic field results in a colder planet.) The issue is what causes the geomagnetic field to tilt? Why is there concurrent cosmogenic isotopes changes before the tilt?
I am curious at what point the public discussion of cold weather will change to cold climate change.
An observed change requires a cause.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/15/uk-fears-worst-winter-weather-1963
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1393410_storm_warning_heaviest_snow_fall_of_the_winter_on_the_way
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp
“…The point is it takes a heck of a lot to have what we have had. One thing that was not present, though, was the Euro cold in those years to the degree we have it now. London is over 8 below normal, and will finish at over 6 below normal for December, as the coming week will take temperatures down so the rally at the end will only bring it to -6. Last year, London was -2.4, ’05 was -.8, ’00 was PLUS 2, and 1995 was -3.4.
Using a population-weighted approximation finds the high likelihood that the combination of the eastern U.S. and northwestern European major population areas of the world and energy consumers are having their coldest start to winter since 1989, which of course was heavily U.S. weighted.
So it’s not local, especially when one considers what is going into the Far East and world’s most populated nation, China. Whether low solar or volcanic activity have anything to do with it is debatable, but what is not debatable is that CO2 has nothing to do with it, since the argument four years ago was that these were not going to happen anymore (recall the Academy Award Winning Al Gore movie saying that, along with the hurricane idea), and yet now that both turn the other way, many of the people on that side of the argument are claiming it’s because of the very argument that they used to say it would not happen. They now have cloaked it under climate change, or disruption, which gives them carte blanche to claim anything as right.
This does not look like a heat wave.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.12.16.2010.gif
Alex the skeptic says:
December 17, 2010 at 12:21 am
What isn’t debatable is that oil fields don’t refill from abiotic production in any practical length of time. They are discovered, explored, tapped, reach a level of peak production, and then decline. This has occurred in every oil field ever discovered. We wouldn’t be drilling oil wells a mile underwater if there were terrestrial fields being refilled or created new by abiotic processes. I’m not particularly set against hypothetical abiotic production of oil and methane (natural gas) it’s more that I’m convinced that abiotic production doesn’t matter because even if it’s true it demonstrably doesn’t work fast enough to keep reserves of light sweet crude topped off in accessable pockets where it can be easily recovered. We have a problem in the making – underground reserves of hydrocarbon fuels that are economically recoverable are being depleted faster than they are generated and the demand for fuel is growing even as it becomes more difficult to find and recover. Coal is still abundant but the earth or the biosphere isn’t making new coal faster than we using it up either. Those are the hard cold facts.
But regardless of those hard cold facts it can only be a good thing if cheaper ways to fuel civilization can be developed. Even if oil, gas, and coal really were unlimited and not growing more costly to recover then it would STILL be a monumentally good thing to find an even cheaper source of usable energy. I don’t have much faith in nuclear (fission or fusion) being much of an answer although it might be part of the answer. Nuclear generated electricity is far more expensive than generation by natural gas fired turbines, it is not decentralized enough (yet anyhow) to power a ground transporation fleet without huge and very costly expansion of the electrical grid, you’ll never see transportation aircraft powered by electricity (maybe not never but it’s not remotely practical now or in the foreseeable future), and it comes with host of problems because of the dangers in dealing with highly refined fissionable fuels and radioactive wastes which can be used for making bombs (clean, dirty, or both) and also long term storage of such hazardous wastes. New hydroelectric power is also far more expensive than natural gas turbine plants because building new impoundments means flooding a lot of developed real-estate which, at least where private property exists, means purchasing that property at fair market value. Wind power is actually cheaper than new hydroelectric or nuclear power plants but the locations where the wind is dependable enough and not too remote are so limited it can’t ever be more than a small fraction of total power generation. Currently the most expensive electricity is photovoltaic at about twice the cost of nuclear and hydroelectric and four times the cost of the most efficient natural gas fired plants. The thing is that with photovoltaics a cost reduction of 10x is easily possible and almost inevitable if it follows the trajectory of every other solid state electronic technology and I see no reason why it won’t. A 2x improvement will make it competitive with nuclear and hydro, a 4x improvement will make it competitive with natural gas, and a 10x improvement will make it less than half the cost of the most efficient source of electricity today. The only downside is it’s an intermittant source and there’s nothing on the technological horizon to cheaply store electricity so we’ll still need sources that generate 24/7 but PV solar can supply about half the total demand and it can do it without adding any capacity to the electrical grid which is very very important in getting it done because upgrading the grid has the same problem as adding hydroelectric power – too much expensive developed real estate needs to be acquired to expand the grid – transmission lines don’t expand vertically they expand horizontally i.e. doubling the capacity means doubling the width of its ground track. And just imagine all the political opposition from people who don’t want high tension electrical lines passing over their homes, schools, and workplaces even if they are compensated for it by the purchase of overhead easements.
In reply to Vukcevic, December 17th 2:58 am
I would not trust implicitly latest CR data from any of the stations near the Arctic. Reason is that geomagnetic field changes there are not in sink with the geo-dipole.
If you look at Moscow station you can see that in the recent years CR count was on par with 1965 if not slightly lower.
The planet was cold in the 1960’s. Why was the planet cold in the 1960’s? GCR is higher now? Is there any evidence the planet is cooling? If so why?
As we have not observed the full range of the solar magnetic cycle it is difficult at this point in time to state what is or is not the significance of Livingston and Penn’s solar observation. What is physically causing what is observed depends on the mechanism that creates the sunspots. Let’s keep observing.
As I have stated in the last 10 years geomagnetic specialists have confirmed that the geomagnetic field’s tilt has cyclically abruptly changed which causes the planet to cool. (A change of the geomagnetic field’s tilt relative the planet’s axis of rotation moves the cut off point for GCR down to lower latitudes. The same amount of GCR with a tilted geomagnetic field results in a colder planet.) The issue is what causes the geomagnetic field to tilt? Why is there concurrent cosmogenic isotopes changes before the tilt?
I am curious at what point the public discussion of cold weather will change to cold climate change.
An observed change requires a cause.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/15/uk-fears-worst-winter-weather-1963
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1393410_storm_warning_heaviest_snow_fall_of_the_winter_on_the_way
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp
“…The point is it takes a heck of a lot to have what we have had. One thing that was not present, though, was the Euro cold in those years to the degree we have it now. London is over 8 below normal, and will finish at over 6 below normal for December, as the coming week will take temperatures down so the rally at the end will only bring it to -6. Last year, London was -2.4, ’05 was -.8, ’00 was PLUS 2, and 1995 was -3.4.
Using a population-weighted approximation finds the high likelihood that the combination of the eastern U.S. and northwestern European major population areas of the world and energy consumers are having their coldest start to winter since 1989, which of course was heavily U.S. weighted.
So it’s not local, especially when one considers what is going into the Far East and world’s most populated nation, China. Whether low solar or volcanic activity have anything to do with it is debatable, but what is not debatable is that CO2 has nothing to do with it, since the argument four years ago was that these were not going to happen anymore (recall the Academy Award Winning Al Gore movie saying that, along with the hurricane idea), and yet now that both turn the other way, many of the people on that side of the argument are claiming it’s because of the very argument that they used to say it would not happen. They now have cloaked it under climate change, or disruption, which gives them carte blanche to claim anything as right.
This does not look like a heat wave.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.12.16.2010.gif
Carla says:
December 17, 2010 at 7:08 am
“Where did all those pesky GCR come from in the isotope record? Could it be in the cloudy galactic atmosphere around us?”
All cosmic rays originate outside the solar system and generally correlate with stellar density in that region of the galaxy. More stars per cubic light year mean more supernovas and other highly energetic sources of cosmic rays. Interestingly our solar systems doesn’t orbit the galactic center at same rate as the galactic arms and it also drifts above and below the plane of the galaxy. Over periods of time measured in many millions of years the solar system crosses in and out of greater and lesser regions of cosmic ray intensity. Of course a nearby supernova can vastly increase the GCR intensity in our region of space for a geologically short period of time and can happen anytime – it’s just the odds of it increase when the solar system is traversing the galactic plane or going through a spiral arm.
Where our sun comes into play is it’s magnetic field serves to deflect more less cosmic rays as it waxes and wanes and this is independent of the GCR strength in the particular time and place where the solar system is relative to the rest of the galaxy.
There are good alternative explanations for your low clouds vs solar activity graph.
We see medium cloud cover change in anti-phase to low cloud cover. This can be comfortably physically explained (at least for the most part) by solar activity warming the atmosphere and encouraging clouds to rise. So ‘low’ clouds become ‘medium’ clouds.
This also explains why most of the cloud cover change is in fact BEFORE cosmic rays, but after solar activity. If cosmic rays were causing most of the change, you’d expect them to change before the clouds.
More study is needed, but the evidence so far seems to suggest the effect is not very important in recent climate changes.
(references: papers by Sloan, Erlykin and Wolfendale plus personal correspondence with Wolfendale)
It seems some didn`t want the experiment to take place.
Sir John Mason, formerly of UK Meteorological Office, what a pompous git.
B.J. Mason (1957) The Physics of Clouds Oxford University Press,
http://s446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/?action=view¤t=cosmicrays.mp4
Cosmic ray, solar cycles and lake sediments, Dr Tim Patterson, Aug 2007.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8668666223073644839#
I would like to hear Dr. Svalgaard’s latest opinion on the Svensmark hypothesis.
“”””” Mike Mangan says:
December 17, 2010 at 11:26 am
I would like to hear Dr. Svalgaard’s latest opinion on the Svensmark hypothesis. “””””
Well I would let Leif give Dr Svalgaard’s latest opinion on the Svensmark Hypothesis; BUT, I do recall the gist of one of the cautions that he raised ages ago. To whit :
Even if one accepts the premise that Cosmic Rays can nucleate cloud formation (Leif didn’t say he accepted that; or verse vicea for that matter), what he did say was there is a question of WHAT RATE of cloud formation could that possibly explain; given that global CRs fluxes are quite well documented.
So it’s the Brazillian butterfly thing. If your flush toilet eventually feeds the SF and Monterey Bays; and you flush twice in quick succession; what effect will that have on the surf conditions for next week’s Kona Surfing Contest ??
For me personally; the Wilson Cloud Chamber demonstrates that high energy charged particles CAN nucleate water droplets in saturated water vapor atmospheres. And then, I take Leif’s caution VERY SERIOUSLY ! OK, so it works; but is it significant ??
And for the record; at this point I have no idea if it is a significant effect; I DO believe it is an effect. And I thought that Leif (and Dr Svalgaard too), put his opinion clearly where one could understand it; so I’m not surprised he is not apparently in a rush to elaborate here. We DO have to do some of our own thinking.
But I think it is great that one of the great labs of the world is actually doing some serious Physics, on an interesting question.
William says:
December 17, 2010 at 8:41 am
………….
Other things were also happening in 1960 beside CR count that could cause cooling.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETng.htm
Dave Springer says:
December 17, 2010 at 9:02 am
Carla says:
December 17, 2010 at 7:08 am
“Where did all those pesky GCR come from in the isotope record? Could it be in the cloudy galactic atmosphere around us?”
All cosmic rays originate outside the solar system and generally correlate with stellar density in that region of the galaxy. More stars per cubic light year mean more supernovas and other highly energetic sources of cosmic rays.
~
Thanks then you should find this interesting. Picture that supernova and expanding shell. An outer shell called S1 and an inner shell called S2. We used to live in the S1 shell (outer ring) and now very possibly are entering the flow of the S2 shell (inner ring).
But the distribution of the interstellar clouds, cloudletts, and mini clouds (thin bands) along the way are important also in the GCR distribution contribution.
“””The Solar Journey: Time-Variability in the Solar Galactic Environment and Consequences”””
Frisch, Priscilla C.
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #216, #210.01
05/2010
Abstract
The nearby galactic environment of the Sun is dominated by the low density magnetized interstellar material (ISM) in the Local Bubble void. The Sun has recently entered a flow of ISM originating from the direction of the Loop I superbubble, which may related to the Loop I superbubble itself. The physical properties of the cloud forming the outer boundary conditions of the heliosphere have changed several times during the past 100,000 years. Interstellar ionization, density, and magnetic field all affect the heliosphere response to interstellar material, as well as the flux of galactic cosmic rays at the Earth. Galactic cosmic rays at the Earth are traced by the geologic records for 10Be and 14C. Are we able to identify the properties of the clouds previously encountered by the Sun well enough to match the geologic radio isotope records with astronomical transitions? How well can we identify the next cloud the Sun encounters, in the less than 3700 years? The answer to these questions will be discussed. This research is supported by NASA.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AAS…21621001F
As a further note on the Svensmark effect (if it is relevent); an aspect that has interested me, is that the local magnetic fields (of earth and sun) are known to affect the trajectories of at least some charged particles arriving at earth (maybe solar particles rather that CRs), which can affect where such particles get steered to on earth. And since the solar field (apparently) reverses each 11 year half period of a full solar magnetic cycle, while earth’s field does not; then one might expect a 22 year cyclic variation in the surface distribution of such partilces on the earth upper atmosphere (troposphere). And to the extent that such particles can nucleate droplet formation; then one might expect that a distribution shift could affect how much cloud is formed, since the atmospheric water content varies from tropics to polar regions.
Steven Wilde proposes (I think) a latitudinal shift in cloud formation. I’m not tweaked in on his theory; but he has mentioned that. A CR distribution shift could take part in such a shift.
George E. Smith says:
December 17, 2010 at 12:32 pm
……………..
One shouldn’t get too excited about the CRs because flux is so low. Neutron count is only about 120-130/sec (presumably per cm2), while each cm3 of the atmosphere probably contains millions if not billions of H2O molecules.
“”””” Rob R says:
December 17, 2010 at 12:23 am
George E Smith
What we can do is measure the “earthshine” reflected from the income sunlight incident on the Earth to the Moon and back to see if there is any trend in the albedo of the Earth. This is being done and has been used as a proxy for cloud cover. The warmists positively hate this approach because it supplies actual numbers and they tend to vilify researchers like Phil Goode by the usual methods. “””””
Rob, I’ve seen so many references to this “earthshine” PROXY.
Some thoughts:-
Earthshine contains many components. One component of earthshine would be the blue skewed scattered sunlight caused by the Raleigh Scattering in the earth clear air atmosphere. Seat of the pants, that component should have the same radiance as the day time clear air sky radiance. Neither one of those has anything to do with clouds.
Earthshine should contain a blue depleted (near) Solar Spectrum signal amounting to about 2-3% of ground level (air mass 1-2) solar irradiance due to Fresnel reflection from the ocean surface. That component should vary negatively (in some way) with cloud cover; more clouds; less ocean reflection.
Earthshine should contain a component proportional to surface level sunlight spectrally modified according to terrain spectral reflectances (including ice and snow); and again also negatively cloud related, since more clouds less solid surface reflection.
The solid reflectance-cloud relationship and the ocean surface-cloud relationship are not the same functions.
Well then there is an actual cloud scattering signal to earthshine; that is solar spectrum related; but spectrally modified also since the scattering is wavelength related; and also incidently cloud thickness and water content related.
Earthshine will also contain a whole host of LWIR components, some of which will be cloud cover related.
If this doesn’t sound like a mess to you; I would love to see what your apartment looks like.
Now last time I checked, the sun never illuminates more than slightly in excessof 1/2 of the earth surface. If my memory serves me, the atmospheric refraction of sunlight at the horizon amounts to about 34.5 minutes of arc; no I dunno why I remember that number; but it means that when the sun’s disc is sitting right on the horizon (oceanic), the entire sun is actually below the geometric straight line horizon , since the sun is about 1/2 degree angular diameter.
It has not been observed that clouds form ONLY on the sunlit side of the earth; so at all times half of the clouds are not being observed at all.
Astronomical observations show that the moon moves around the earth, so at any point in time, the earth-sun line forms some angle with the earth moon line. OK; one can measure “earthshine” by observing some lunar area that lies on or near the earth-moon line; so near normal observation of perhaps oblique illumination.
I have no knowledge of the state of knowledge of the spectral angular distribution of the reflectance of the lunar surface; and in particular at that near suface n0ormal location.
Well the L&S of it is that I don’t place a lot of faith in “earthshine” as a reliable proxy for around the clock around the globe continuous monitoring of earth cloud cover; and in particular I don’t consider it a proxy for the total ground level solar radiation that reaches the non atmospheric surface of the planet.
Cloud cover levels follow temperatures not GCR`s :
http://www.climate4you.com/images/CloudCoverAllLevel%20AndWaterColumnSince1983.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm#Cloud%20data
The cloud cover changes are forced by solar driven temperature changes.
William says:
December 17, 2010 at 2:58 am
The paleo climatic record shows cycles of warming followed by abrupt cooling which requires an explanation. (Cosmogenic isotopes changes correlate with the cycle so the question is not if but how the sun causes what is observed.) Livingston and Penn’s observations provides support for the assertion that the solar tachocline has been interrupted.
The isotope proxy records show us there is a regular modulation to solar output that will agree will the GCR record if we measured it far enough back. It will also agree with the sunspot record but that does not mean the GCR’s affect cloud cover, there is still a way to go before that can be claimed. The GCR theory even if proved will still have large holes in it not unlike using the sunspot record to totally explain climate variation. There are other factors that need to be taken into consideration (PDO,NAO etc) that may also be tune with solar output. SC19 is a good example where we saw record high sunspot activity but the world temperatures were already starting a big decline down to 1970.
L&P do not offer a mechanism to explain their observations, so we should not try to speculate….especially when other data shows that their observations are spurious.
Anyone still ‘out there’ in comments, I have a question.
What do any of you think of (documentation-wise that I could research) on that HAARP thingie up in Alaska, and…….while I’m thinkin’ of it……..the ‘seeding of clouds’ with contrails???
Inquiring Minds Want to Know, of course………
continually a-musing……(hahaha… at least, here’s hoping I am!)
C.L. Thorpe
If anyone is still ‘out there’ in Comments, I have a question.
What do you think of (documentation-wise that I could research) that HAARP thingie up in Alaska, and…….while I’m thinkin’ of it……..the ‘seeding of clouds’ with contrails-issue? I’d just like ‘Scientific Thought’ on these issues.
Relentlessly Inquiring Minds…continually a-musing, rather than annoying……hopefully.
C.L. Thorpe
Hopefully, some Scientist is still ‘out there’ in these Comments, ’cause I have two questions I’d like answers to…
Where can I go to do research about that ‘HAARP thingie’ up in Alaska? I’d specifically like to know if it’s connected to the ‘Smart Grid’, too… And…while I’m at it and you’ve got a moment… Do you know where I could start reading about ‘seeding of clouds’??? specifically, the contrails-issue?
Relentlessly Inquiring Minds…continually a-musing, rather than annoying…
Cynthia Thorpe
“There are other factors that need to be taken into consideration (PDO,NAO etc) that may also be tune with solar output. SC19 is a good example where we saw record high sunspot activity but the world temperatures were already starting a big decline down to 1970.”
High solar activity partially offset by negative ocean cycles tucking the extra solar input to the oceans away instead of releasing it to the air ?
From mid 70s onwards the oceans changed to their positive (warming mode) so through active solar cycles 21, 22 and 23 the air warmed.
Ocean heat content continued to rise despite the strong run of warm El Ninos because the jets and their cloudbands went poleward to allow more solar energy into the oceans than was being lost by the El Ninos.
Note that the important feature as regards solar shortwave input to the oceans is not the tiny change in TSI but instead the amount of cloudcover over the receiving oceanic areas hence the importance of latitudinally shifting cloudcover and the associated changes in total global albedo.
“Steven Wilde proposes (I think) a latitudinal shift in cloud formation. I’m not tweaked in on his theory; but he has mentioned that. A CR distribution shift could take part in such a shift.”
Cosmic ray quantities would most likely just be a proxy for solar variability and need not have any effect at all but in view of the popularity of the Svensmark proposal I don’t feel inclined to discount it.
However I would judge the Svensmark effect to be very small in relation to the albedo effects that could result from latitudinally shifting the cloudbands and thereby changing both reflectance and cloud quantities along lengthened or shortened air mass boundaries.
The last graph of this post is pretty strong evidence that cosmic rays can not have been a major culprit in having caused the recent global warming of the past 3-4 decades, since they show no sign of a trend.