From the Register and Nigel Calder’s blog via bunches of people who submitted in Tips and Notes, hints of a new project, the RCC (Real Climate Collider) /sarc.
CERN ‘gags’ physicists in cosmic ray climate experiment
What do these results mean? Not allowed to tell you
The chief of the world’s leading physics lab at CERN in Geneva has prohibited scientists from drawing conclusions from a major experiment. The CLOUD (“Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets”) experiment examines the role that energetic particles from deep space play in cloud formation. CLOUD uses CERN’s proton synchrotron to examine nucleation.
CERN Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer told Welt Online that the scientists should refrain from drawing conclusions from the latest experiment.
“I have asked the colleagues to present the results clearly, but not to interpret them,” reports veteran science editor Nigel Calder on his blog. Why?
Because, Heuer says, “That would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate. One has to make clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.”
Full story here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/18/cern_cosmic_ray_gag/
===========================================================
Calder writes on his blog:
Four quick inferences:
1) The results must be favourable for Svensmark or there would be no such anxiety about them.
2) CERN has joined a long line of lesser institutions obliged to remain politically correct about the man-made global warming hypothesis. It’s OK to enter “the highly political arena of the climate change debate” provided your results endorse man-made warming, but not if they support Svensmark’s heresy that the Sun alters the climate by influencing the cosmic ray influx and cloud formation.
3) The once illustrious CERN laboratory ceases to be a truly scientific institute when its Director General forbids its physicists and visiting experimenters to draw the obvious scientific conclusions from their results.
4) The resulting publication may be rather boring.
The interview with Welt Online (in German) is here:
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article13488331/Wie-Illuminati-den-Cern-Forschern-geholfen-hat.html
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/%E2%80%9Cno-you-mustnt-say-what-it-means%E2%80%9D/
I really hope that this quote is just a mis-translation of idiomatic German – or something.
Why do an experiment ?
To test a hypothesis
What do you do with the results of the experiment ?
Interpret them in terms of what the experiment was supposed to test (ie agrees with the theory/disagrees with the theory)
What do you do with the interpretation of the results ?
Modify the theory so it better describes the real world.
The result HAVE to be interpreted otherwise the experiment is a waste of time and money – and since I have been forced to become a ‘citizen’ of the EUSSR; rather than remaining a subject of the nation of my birth I object to the waste of my tax £
Or do I mis-understand the whole damn purpose of making an experiment ?
It’s probably true that the results support Svensmark, but even if they didn’t it’s wise for an organisation of experimental physicists to provide the data to those that can interpret it rather than have either side of this slanging match saying you don’t have the expertise to say what the effects of the data you’ve collected will have on the climate.
The CERN experimental confirmation of ion mediated cloud nucleation is not surprising as there are roughly a hundred different papers supporting the hypothesis that the ice epoch (tens of million year periods when the planet moves into an ice house), decade, centennial, and millennial climate change are caused all caused mechanisms that modulate GCR and ions in the earth’s atmosphere.
The next shoe to drop will be falling planetary temperature due to the solar cycle 24 Dalton or Maunder like minimum. There is a physical reason for the delay in cooling. There is observational evidence the cooling has started. There was roughly a 12 year delay in planetary cooling following the Maunder minimum.
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/Ice-ages/GSAToday.pdf
Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?
We find that at least 66% of the variance in the paleotemperature trend could be attributed to CRF variations likely due to solar system passages through the spiral arms of the galaxy. Assuming that the entire residual variance in temperature is due solely to the CO2 greenhouse effect, we propose a tentative upper limit to the long-term “equilibrium” warming effect of CO2, one which is potentially lower than that based on general circulation models.
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/ClimateDebate/RahmReply/RahmReply.html
RECONSTRUCTING COSMIC RAY FLUXES —The starting point of SV03 is a reconstruction of cosmic ray fluxes over the past 1,000 Myr based on 50 iron meteorites and a simple model estimating cosmic ray flux (CRF) induced by the Earth’s passage through Galactic spiral arms ([Shaviv, 2002; Shaviv, 2003]). About 20 of the meteorites, making four clusters, date from the past 520 Myr, the time span analysed in SV03. The meteorites are dated by analysing isotopic changes in their matter due to cosmic ray exposure (CRE dating [Eugster, 2003]). An apparent age clustering of these meteorites is then interpreted not as a collision-related clustering in their real ages but as an indication of fluctuations in cosmic ray flux (CRF). One difficulty with this interpretation is that variations in CRF intensity would equally affect all types of meteorites. Instead, the ages of different types of iron meteorites cluster at different times [Wieler, 2002]. Hence, most specialists on meteorite CRE ages interpret the clusters as the result of collision processes of parent bodies, as they do for stony meteorites (ages _ 130 Myr) to
which more than one dating method can be applied.
http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sspvse…ntergreen1.pdf
Quote:
In The Modern Era (Since 1954)
( 1 ) The galactic cosmic ray intensity near earth has been one of the lowest in the past 1150 years.
( 2 ) The frequency of occurrence of large solar particle events has been low compared to the long term average.
For A Period Similar To 1889 – 1901
( 3 ) The galactic cosmic ray intensity was higher compared to the modern era by factors of:
– 7.0 AT 100 MeV
– 3.5 AT 300 MeV
– 2.25 AT 1.0 GeV.
There are a number of paleoclimatic papers that note there is correlation with C14 and other cosmogenic isotopes changes gradual and abrupt climatic change. For example Gerald Bond’s Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene.
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
…The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantic’s 1500-year cycle…
Another example is this paper which discusses the cause of the Younger Dryas abrupt climatic change which interrupted the current Holocene interglacial returning the planet back to the glacial phase.
“Reduced solar activity as a trigger for the start of the Younger Dryas?”
http://www.geo.vu.nl/~renh/pdf/Renssen-etal-QI-2000.pdf
From the paper:
“Estimates for the start of the YD all demonstrate a strong and rapid rise of C14 (Cosmogenic isotope that increases when there is decreased solar activity that hence allows increased galactic cosmic rays GCR to strike and interact with the atmosphere.) This change is the largest increase of atmospheric C14 known from the late glacial period and Holocene records.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_sun_paradox
http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0306477
John Robertson, I tried your link to the Google translation of the link mentioned in the article and found the cloud-study quotes right there, two paragraphs below the Pleiades photo.
@ur momisugly anna v
fx: applause
anna v,
Thank you for your insight. I always enjoy your comments. I would add one thing: when the boss “advises” those under him, the understanding is implicit that ignoring his advice could affect their job security.
He said this is to avoid entering “the highly political arena of climate science”.
I think this statement is acceptable. You can’t imagine a more devastating critic of climate “science” than that.
Oh yawn. It won’t matter in the least. Once the results are out, others will write their own journal papers around them, citing them for authority. And surely the press and blogs will go to town.
Since CERN isn’t really full of climate scientists anyway, in fact it is probably better to let others do the analysis, because to do it well will require integrating those results into other data sets that the CERN folks are not nearly so expert at.
Sven says:
July 18, 2011 at 9:09 am
““That would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate.””
“What?! So there IS a climate change debate after all?? But hey, Al said there isn’t! And just recently, after a long and courageous denial of a pause in global temperature rise, they are now explaining WHY there is this (non existent) pause in the temperature rise. Anthropogenic global pause of anthropogenic global warming… As soon as Wallis the hitman of Outside Organisation is arrested they can’t stay on message any more.
Oh dear dear, who and what am I now to beleive?”
I do not believe any of these cowardly scientists would be concerned about the “political arena” if the results could support the AGW fanatics. Strange to see this even taken into consideration.
Shooting from the lip there, Gary. CERN (not CERM) is “… an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the Northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border (46°14′3″N 6°3′19″E / 46.23417°N 6.05528°E / 46.23417; 6.05528). Established in 1954, the organization has twenty European member states.
The term “CERN” is also used to refer to the laboratory itself, which employs just under 2,400 full-time employees/workers, as well as some 7,931 scientists and engineers representing 608 universities and research facilities and 113 nationalities.
CERN’s main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research. Numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN by international collaborations to make use of them.” Wikipedia.
It was induced, after years of trying, to perform the ‘CLOUD’ experiments testing Svensmark’s hypothesis. It is about as far from an AGW-promoting group as you can get — pure physics. That’s why many here, like Calder, suspect heavy pressure has been brought to bear to keep it from endorsing Svensmark too explicitly.
CERN has joined a long line of lesser institutions obliged to remain politically correct about the man-made global warming hypothesis.
I respectfully disagree with this conclusion. It is plainly obvious that CERN Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer see the AGW debate as a source of dispute. CERN has no dog in this AGW fight, and doesn’t want to gain any enemies over somebody else’s fight. Clearly, many politicians of many nations are fully invested in AGW, and CERN doesn’t want to see it’s funding, that comes from members Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, compromised.
@John Day:
Gotcha. Thanks for that input! Things make more sense, now.
anna v,
Thanks for your insider’s view.
It will be exciting to see the results of their experiments. Can hardly wait.
Alexander Feht says:
July 18, 2011 at 11:10 am
””I could do without recommendations of people defining, a priori, the Great Divide between “healthy skepticism” and “deep cynicism.”
History shows that even “deep cynicism” is usually not deep enough to describe the cynicism of Academia mountebanks who make good living off ignorance and superstition.””
– – – – – –
Alexander Feht,
Hey, Alexander, I represent your remark. : )
Having had, since at university 40yrs ago for an engineering degree, only an interaction with scientists and engineers involved in industry then I have not developed a much of a taste of a cynical view of academia.
But I am willing to taste/lick the [my words] ‘hairy underbelly’ of cynicism associated with the academic arena. Lead on.
John
“One has to make clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.”
And the same goes for CO2 thank you very much.
Will James Hansen decry this muzzling of The Scientist by The Administration ?.
Bizarre. How “to present the results clearly”, without “to interpret them”?
ScientistForTruth is absolutely right. The only thing the experimenters should do is honestly report the results of their experiment with enough details that someone else can replicate those results (or not). Anything more is bull crap.
I agree with Freeman Dyson that our understanding of the climate is weak. People on both sides of the debate are claiming an expertise well beyond what they actually have. Once they go out on a limb, their arguments are easily refuted.
The experiment’s results, by themselves, will be robust. That’s what we need. Any possible interpretation by the experimenters can only hurt the credibility of the experiment as a whole. The interpretation should be left to others (there will be no shortage).
So far not much mention about “Jasper Kirkby”, he is a good man and his results will be outstanding ……….. I have a feeling they will speak for themselves !!!
Watch and learn …………. http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/
As a (now non-practising) nuclear physicist, I am confident that CERN will have the results published as cleanly as possible – along the lines of ” x flux of quasi-cosmic rays produces y density of precipitating nuclei” .
What they won’t do is the red-top headlines “Svensmark for the Nobel” or “Svensmark for the Bastille”. Happily. Given the data, others can interpret.
+1
Hell, +2!
Perfect.
Brian H says:
July 18, 2011 at 11:44 am
Of course; I completely agree. Never should a top-notch scientific laboratory underscore the results of an experiment as truth. A simple report of the results is asking way too much! /sarc off.
Neo says:
July 18, 2011 at 11:46 am
“I respectfully disagree with this conclusion. It is plainly obvious that CERN Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer see the AGW debate as a source of dispute. CERN has no dog in this AGW fight, and doesn’t want to gain any enemies … CERN doesn’t want to see it’s funding … compromised.”
i.e. Science be damned, keep giving us money.
Dr Heur has already interpreted the results:
“cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters”
He is saying it is a parameter. Although I see a fair amount of support for the “edict” by people I respect (plus a few trolls), it is an “order” that could only come out of the new era of post normal science. One would never have heard such an order in the golden age unless it came from the church. Lets face it: the question being investigated more-or-less, is- are GCRs important cloud formers. I suppose one can say the data itself is enough. We all know what effect a cloud has when it passes over us on a hot day.
I’m a bit in agreement with ScientistForTruth,
The CERN Physicists probably haven’t done all the background research to adequately interpret the results. And even if they have: there are some really rabid “enthusiasts” on both sides of the debate. Whatever interpretation you give will generate anger from one side or the other. Who wants to be in the middle of that?