WUWT reader Max_B tips us off to this article and video.
According to Nigel Calder’s Blog, CERN’s CLOUD experiment (testing Svensmarks’s cosmic-ray theory) shows a large enhancement of aerosol production and the results are due for release in 2 or 3 months’ time. There is a short Physics World interview with Jasper Kirkby which is worthwhile viewing and was published a couple of days ago…
Further down, we have some information from Bishop Hill liveblogging from the recent conference in Cambridge, UK where he makes notes on Q&A with Svensmark, plus a Josh livetoon.
From Physics World Head in a CLOUD:
In this special video report for physicsworld.com CLOUD project leader Jasper Kirkby explains what his team is trying to achieve with its experiment. “We’re trying to understand what the connection is between a cosmic ray going through the atmosphere and the creation of so-called aerosol seeds – the seed for a cloud droplet or an ice particle,” Kirkby explains.
The CLOUD experiment recreates these cloud-forming processes by directing the beamline at CERN’s proton synchrotron into a stainless-steel chamber containing very pure air and selected trace gases.
One of the aims of the experiment is to discover details of cloud formation that could feed back into climate models. “Everybody agrees that clouds have a huge effect on the climate. But the understanding of how big that effect is is really very poorly known,” says Kirkby.
Here’s the video, click image below to launch it.
Bishop Hill liveblogs from Cambridge about Q&A with Henrik Svensmark:
- Solar effect appears to be large. If exclude solar or regime change, then it makes anthropogenic look much bigger. These effects are not well covered by climate models.
- Can effect be seen in climate? Use ocean heat content. Forcings = volcanoes, gcr, anthropogenic and a regime change in 1977. Solar effect ~1Wm-2, compares well with Shaviv. If remove solar effect left with apparent regime change in 1977. This can be seen in eg tropospheric temps.
- Coronal mass ejections – decrease in gcrs at earth – forbush decrease. Is there an atmospheric response? Liquid water in clouds over oceans fall after forbush decrease. Ditto in low clouds etc. Aerosols ditto
- Always lots of nucleation centres in atmosphere. Is this right?
- Use trace gases in atmosph concentrations. Change amount of ionisation. See if you get more aerosol particles. SKY experiment.
- Correlation between low clouds and GCRs – but need mechanism. Ions?
- Discussion of LIA and solar. Solar irradiance too small to explain Need amplification mechanism – clouds.
- Get correlations between eg stalagmite 18O and solar variability
- One particle entering atmosphere generates shower of particles – incl ions which change chemistry
- CRs accelerated by solar events – supernovae.
Josh Livetoons it:
We have had a quiet Sun for years now, so with extra cosmic ray enabled clouds it should be cooling, but it isn’t. That suggests evidence of AGW.
Bengt A says:
May 15, 2011 at 3:14 am
There probably are some minor issues about the CLOUD submission that prevents it from being published as of now. Hopefully they will get resolved soon.
One might hope that it will be ‘released’ soon. I don’t like teasers. Kirkby could have been straight and said that the paper had been submitted and that there were some issues, but that he expects them to be resolved soon. On the other hand, such public announcement could be seen as putting pressure on the referees. The better strategy is not to tease at all; but, as I said, I would love to lose the bet.
Bob Maginnis says:
May 15, 2011 at 6:12 am
We have had a quiet Sun for years now, so with extra cosmic ray enabled clouds it should be cooling, but it isn’t. That suggests evidence of AGW.
Like many things … it depends. This depends on the lag time. What the clouds may do essentially is reduce the thermal input into the oceans, the oceans will then release less heat into the atmosphere over time. We just don’t know (to any degree) how quickly this plays out. Some claim it should be immediate, others claim decades of lag time.
Bob Maginnis says:
May 15, 2011 at 6:12 am
We have had a quiet Sun for years now, so with extra cosmic ray enabled clouds it should be cooling, but it isn’t. That suggests evidence of AGW.
Not AGW necessarily, but it does work against the Cosmic Ray Theory. The climate now and for at least 150 years past has not varied as the cosmic rays. Solar activity is now where it was a century ago, but the climate looks rather different. The rise in temperatures since the 1970s did not follow a trend in cosmic rays. The measurements of albedo we have do not show a solar cycle [i.e. cosmic ray] dependence. So, CLOUD may have been designed to explain something that is not even observed. With the politics involved, it seems doubtful that anything will be resolved. There will still be conflicting papers, still be claims and counterclaims. People will believe what they want to believe, regardless of the outcome. Even in this thread you see that folks say the they are ‘convinced’ and ‘have no doubt’, even as the results are not released yet.
Richard M says:
May 15, 2011 at 6:58 am
Some claim it should be immediate, others claim decades of lag time.
Svensmark claims no lag.
John Ballam:
At May 15, 2011 at 2:10 am you say;
“Any self-respecting skeptic should visit skepticalscience.com if only to find out what we’re up against.”
I agree, and I have read Mein Kampf for the same reason, but I would not want to make a habit of doing it.
Importantly, the arguments purporting to show an anthropogenic cause of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 are all wrong or circular. The isotope ratio changes are in the right direction (there is a 50:50 chance they would be in the right direction) but they have the wrong magnitude. And all the other arguments amount to “assume nothing changes except the anthropogenic emission and the analysis shows the increase results from the anthropogenic emission”.
So, your attempt to demean the importance of the CLOUD experiment fails.
Richard
Just intuition (after studying issues recommended by Leif – any new book recommendations?) tells me that solar particles would cause temporary cloud effects, and even then, the anomaly would be buried in the cloud formations forced and driven by oceanic/atmospheric couplings.
A place to discover solar-driven cloud effects: Only during multi-decadal ENSO neutral parameters. Otherwise my hunch is that the fickle mercurial noisy Earth will overwhelm Solar driven anomalies. Indeed, that would be the null hypothesis.
****
Max Hugoson says:
May 14, 2011 at 11:11 am
I’m even a fan of the idea that “wobble” in and out of the galactic plane, might increase and decrease cosmic and account for periodic ice ages.
****
The ice-age periodicity follows the Milankovitch changes almost exactly. That leaves little room for significant galactic-plane crossing effects, at least at the magnitude of ice-age changes.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 14, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Ian W says:
May 14, 2011 at 11:29 am
With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays are permitted to enter, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.
The modulation of the Galactic Cosmic Rays is only a few percent and does not significantly present a health hazard. The dangerous cosmic rays [which we today don’t call cosmic rays anymore, but ‘Solar Energetic Particles’] do not come from the Galaxy, but from the Sun. The question is if a less active sun means fewer solar storms [I don’t think so] or stronger and more dangerous ‘superstorms’ [among the fewer that occur]. There is some [weak] evidence that low to moderate solar activity actually allows storms to grow bigger and more dangerous.
Leif thank you for correcting the NASA web page http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/ which was the _reference_ I quoted. 😉
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 15, 2011 at 6:46 am
The better strategy is not to tease at all
But why shouldn’t Kirkby tell us about some of the findings at CERN? He was invited to the conference for this purpose. What he presents is a graph from one run, not much and nothing that can interfere with a forthcoming scientific publication, but still enough to give us a hint about their progress. I find his presentation an excellent example of communicating research to the general public.
Reading many of the comments here, it’s plain to see that few have watched Kirkby’s recent SFU IRMACS presentation. Kirkby, who is honest & forthright about what is NOT known, presents new results with NO ambiguity and NO doubt. It’s crystal clear that he’s confident about the findings. In the context of his other comments, it’s also plain to see that he would not be conveying results publicly if he thought this currently inappropriate.
Kirkby drew sharp attention to neither interannual nor semi-annual oscillations during his presentation. However advanced is his handle on particle physics, this leaves questions (quite serious ones) about his current abstract conceptualization of observed spatiotemporal patterns. I suspect we’ll see a change on this front moving forward. (If this accounts for the publication delays, then the delays are eminently sensible …but I’m not suggesting this accounts for the delays – on the contrary, I’m suggesting that delays for other reasons might be fortuitous.)
WUWT readers may be interested to know that Kevin Trenberth gave a talk in the same presentation series at SFU. For whatever reason, the series was not well publicized.
Ian W says:
May 15, 2011 at 7:52 am
Leif thank you for correcting the NASA web page http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/ which was the _reference_ I quoted. 😉
And that web page certainly needs some corrections as there are several things wrong with it.
Bengt A says:
May 15, 2011 at 8:22 am
I find his presentation an excellent example of communicating research to the general public.
I agree with that assessment. What I have a problem with is when people say that Kirkby communicating research equates to telling us the result: “would he show the graphs if the results are not positive?” If so, who needs publication?
Leif Svalgaard May 15, 2011 at 7:08 am
“[…] it does work against the Cosmic Ray Theory. The climate now and for at least 150 years past has not varied as the cosmic rays. Solar activity is now where it was a century ago, but the climate looks rather different. The rise in temperatures since the 1970s did not follow a trend in cosmic rays. The measurements of albedo we have do not show a solar cycle [i.e. cosmic ray] dependence. So, CLOUD may have been designed to explain something that is not even observed.”
It’s the variance, not the mean, that moves with neutron count, as shown by Le Mouel, Blanter, & Shnirman (2010). Is there not a single reader around here who understands this ABSOLUTELY SIMPLE & FUNDAMENTAL point?
Pamela Gray, interannual terrestrial oscillations are not “noise”, nor are they independent of changes in solar activity. The misconceptions in your comment (May 15, 2011 at 7:51 am) perfectly exemplify the primary bottleneck in our discussions of climate at WUWT.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 15, 2011 at 8:47 am
It’s the variance, not the mean, that moves with neutron count, as shown by Le Mouel, Blanter, & Shnirman (2010). Is there not a single reader around here who understands this ABSOLUTELY SIMPLE & FUNDAMENTAL point?
The variance scales with the mean. This is an absolutely simple & fundamental point. you even say that yourself: the variance moves with the count [the count is the mean]. For seeding the clouds [the Svensmark hypothesis], the actual count [not the variance] matters.
keith at hastings uk says:
May 14, 2011 at 11:51 am
I seem to recall . . .
This paper (Figure 9; page 1.23) has a diagram:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/338170/svensmark-2007cosmoclimatology
Leif, you’ve misunderstood my comment, which was not about the variance of neutron count.
So Leif do you believe in the earth as a giant cooking pot theory and that cosmic rays (or vice versa the aa index) don’t have to keep increasing (or decreasing) for temperatures to decline? I am a cooking expert in developing countries and think there could be some profound simplicity to the earths temperature trends For example see El -borie and Al-thoyaib 2006
http://www.academicjournals.org/ijps/abstracts/abstracts/abstrats2006/Oct/El-Borie%20and%20Al-Thoyaib.htm
To me this data roughly indicates (with a lag) that if the earth is at a global temperature mean of:
-0.2: a solar wind above an aa index of 10 slowly warms it and below 10 cools it;
0.0: a solar wind above an aa index of 15 slowly warms it and below 15 cools it
0.2: a solar wind above an aa index of 18 slowly warms it and below 18 cools it
if the earth reaches the corresponding aa index and temperature stabilizes it doesn’t appreciably change from those values unless the aa index moves appreciably.
regards
roger samson
I have had certain amount investigation into this. There are correlations, but not for claimed reasons. It is analogous to as if it were clamed that when a person steps on scales, on a sunlit pavement, it is the weight of the shadow that moves the dial.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 15, 2011 at 9:28 am
Leif, you’ve misunderstood my comment, which was not about the variance of neutron count.
Perhaps some precision as to what you mean would be convenient. The Svensmark hypothesis [and the CLOUD] experiment is not about the variance of the cloud amount, albedo, or climate. The LeMouel et al. paper you refer to is too flawed to be of any import [as we have discussed at length already] and is, in any event, not relevant for CLOUD.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 15, 2011 at 9:48 am
Paul Vaughan says:
May 15, 2011 at 9:28 am
Leif, you’ve misunderstood my comment, which was not about the variance of neutron count.
The LeMouel et al. paper you refer to is too flawed to be of any import [as we have discussed at length already] and is, in any event, not relevant for CLOUD. And what they actually conclude is “The main part of the semi-annual variation in lod is due to the variation in mean zonal winds”. So a variation of the mean of the winds, not of the ‘variance’.
beng,
“I’m even a fan of the idea that “wobble” in and out of the galactic plane, might increase and decrease cosmic and account for periodic ice ages.
****
The ice-age periodicity follows the Milankovitch changes almost exactly. That leaves little room for significant galactic-plane crossing effects, at least at the magnitude of ice-age changes.”
I believe what is being proposed are ice epochs which have come and gone over time scales of hundreds of millions of years, rather than the periodicity of the glacial/interglacial cycles within an existing ice epoch, which as you point out, follows the Milankovitch changes. This corresponds to the roughly 250 my cycle of the solar orbit around the galaxy.
roger samson says:
May 15, 2011 at 9:31 am
I am a cooking expert in developing countries and think there could be some profound simplicity to the earths temperature trends For example see El -borie and Al-thoyaib 2006
Their study dies not seem very conclusive. Their claim seems a bit on the weak side; they note: “Our results do not, by any means, rule out the existence of important links between solar activity and terrestrial climate”
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 15, 2011 at 8:42 am
What I have a problem with is when people say that Kirkby communicating research equates to telling us the result: “would he show the graphs if the results are not positive?” If so, who needs publication
So if your problem is that people misinterpret what Kirkby says I’m with you 100%. People tend to misinterpret most everything and research results are regularly overstated. We shouldn’t blame Kirkby for that.
Leif Svalgaard May 15, 2011 at 10:02 am
“The LeMouel et al. paper you refer to is too flawed to be of any import […]”
You’re absolutely wrong about this.