UPDATE: see some reactions to this announcement here
From the GWPF
This refers to the CLOUD experiment at CERN.
I’ll have more on this as it develops (updated twice since the original report now), but for the short term, it appears that a non-visible light irradiance effect on Earth’s cloud seeds has been confirmed. The way it is posited to work is that the effect of cosmic rays (modulated by the sun’s magnetic variations which either allow more or deflect more cosmic rays) creates cloud condensation nuclei in the Earth’s atmosphere. With more condensation nuclei, more clouds form and vice-versa. Clouds have significant effects on TSI at the surface.
Even the IPCC has admitted this in their latest (2007) report:
“Cloud feedbacks are the primary source of inter-model differences in equilibrium climate sensitivity, with low cloud being the largest contributor”.
Update: From the Nature article, Kirkby is a bit more muted in his assessment than the GWPF:
Early results seem to indicate that cosmic rays do cause a change. The high-energy protons seemed to enhance the production of nanometre-sized particles from the gaseous atmosphere by more than a factor of ten. But, Kirkby adds, those particles are far too small to serve as seeds for clouds. “At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it’s a very important first step,” he says.
Update: Bizarrely, New Scientist headlines with: Cloud-making: Another human effect on the climate
================================================================
CERN Experiment Confirms Cosmic Rays Influence Climate Change.
by Nigel Calder
Long-anticipated results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN in Geneva appear in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature (25 August). The Director General of CERN stirred controversy last month, by saying that the CLOUD team’s report should be politically correct about climate change (see my 17 July post below). The implication was that they should on no account endorse the Danish heresy – Henrik Svensmark’s hypothesis that most of the global warming of the 20th Century can be explained by the reduction in cosmic rays due to livelier solar activity, resulting in less low cloud cover and warmer surface temperatures.
Willy-nilly the results speak for themselves, and it’s no wonder the Director General was fretful.
Jasper Kirkby of CERN and his 62 co-authors, from 17 institutes in Europe and the USA, announce big effects of pions from an accelerator, which simulate the cosmic rays and ionize the air in the experimental chamber. The pions strongly promote the formation of clusters of sulphuric acid and water molecules – aerosols of the kind that may grow into cloud condensation nuclei on which cloud droplets form. What’s more, there’s a very important clarification of the chemistry involved.
A breach of etiquette
My interest in CLOUD goes back nearly 14 years, to a lecture I gave at CERN about Svensmark’s discovery of the link between cosmic rays and cloudiness. It piqued Kirkby’s curiosity, and both Svensmark and I were among those who helped him to prepare his proposal for CLOUD.
By an unpleasant irony, the only Svensmark contribution acknowledged in theNature report is the 1997 paper (Svensmark and Friis-Christensen) on which I based my CERN lecture. There’s no mention of the successful experiments in ion chemistry and molecular cluster formation by the Danish team in Copenhagen, Boulby and latterly in Aarhus where they beat CLOUD to the first results obtained using a particle beam (instead of gamma rays and natural cosmic rays) to ionize the air in the experimental chamber – see http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/accelerator-results-on-cloud-nucleation-2/
What will historians of science make of this breach of scientific etiquette? That Kirkby was cross because Svensmark, losing patience with the long delay in getting approval and funding for CLOUD, took matters into his own hands? Or because Svensmark’s candour about cosmic rays casting doubt on catastrophic man-made global warming frightened the national funding agencies? Or was Kirkby simply doing his best (despite the results) to obey his Director General by slighting all things Danish?
Personal rivalries aside, the important question is what the new CLOUD paper means for the Svensmark hypothesis. Pick your way through the cautious prose and you’ll find this:
“Ion-induced nucleation [cosmic ray action] will manifest itself as a steady production of new particles [molecular clusters] that is difficult to isolate in atmospheric observations because of other sources of variability but is nevertheless taking place and could be quite large when averaged globally over the troposphere [the lower atmosphere].”
It’s so transparently favourable to what the Danes have said all along that I’m surprised the warmists’ house magazine Nature is able to publish it, even omitting the telltale graph shown at the start of this post. Added to the already favourable Danish experimental findings, the more detailed CERN result is excellent. Thanks a million, Jasper.
Enlightening chemistry
And in friendlier times we’d be sharing champagne for a fine discovery with CLOUD, that traces of ammonia can increase the production of the sulphuric clusters a thousandfold. It’s highlighted in the report’s title: “Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation” and it was made possible by the more elaborate chemical analysis in the big-team set-up in Geneva. In essence, the ammonia helps to stabilize the molecular clusters.
Although not saying it openly, the CLOUD team implies a put-down for the Danes with this result, repeatedly declaring that without ammonia there’d be little cluster production at low altitudes. But although the Aarhus experimenters did indeed assume the simpler reaction (H2SO4 + H2O), differing results in successive experimental runs made them suspect that varying amounts of trace impurities were present in the air cylinders used to fill their chamber. Now it looks as if a key impurity may have been ammonia. But some members of the CLOUD consortium also favoured (H2SO4 + H2O) and early runs in Geneva used no intentional ammonia. So they’ve little reason to scoff.
In any case, whether the basic chemistry is (H2SO4 + H2O) or (H2SO4 + H2O + NH3) is an academic rather than a practical point. There are always traces of ammonia in the real air, and according to the CLOUD report you need only one molecule in 30 billion. If that helps to oil Svensmark’s climatic motor, it’s good to know, but it calls for no apologies and alters the climatic implications not a jot.
The experiment’s logo. The acronym “Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets” always implied strong interest in Svensmark’s hypothesis. And the roles of the Galaxy and the Sun are acknowledged.Technically, CLOUD is a welcome advance on the Danish experiments. Not only is the chemistry wider ranging but molecular clusters as small as 1.7 nanometres in diameter are detectable, compared with 4 nm in Denmark. And the set-up enables the scientists to study the ion chemistry at lower temperatures, corresponding to increasing altitudes in the atmosphere. Cluster production soars as the temperature goes down, until “almost every negative ion gives rise to a new particle” [i.e. molecular cluster]. The lowest temperature reported in the paper is -25 oC. That corresponds to an altitude of 6000 metres, so unless you wish to visualize a rain of cloud-seeding aerosols from on high, it’s not very relevant to Svensmark’s interest in the lowest 3000 metres.
How the warmists built their dam
Shifting from my insider’s perspective on the CLOUD experiment, to see it on the broader canvas of the politicized climate science of the early 21st Century, the chief reaction becomes a weary sigh of relief. Although they never said so, the High Priests of the Inconvenient Truth – in such temples as NASA-GISS, Penn State and the University of East Anglia – always knew that Svensmark’s cosmic ray hypothesis was the principal threat to their sketchy and poorly modelled notions of self-amplifying action of greenhouse gases.
In telling how the obviously large influences of the Sun in previous centuries and millennia could be explained, and in applying the same mechanism to the 20th warming, Svensmark put the alarmist predictions at risk – and with them the billions of dollars flowing from anxious governments into the global warming enterprise.
For the dam that was meant to ward off a growing stream of discoveries coming from the spring in Copenhagen, the foundation was laid on the day after the Danes first announced the link between cosmic rays and clouds at a space conference in Birmingham, England, in 1996. “Scientifically extremely naïve and irresponsible,”Bert Bolin declared, as Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As several journalists misbehaved by reporting the story from Birmingham, the top priority was to tame the media. The first courses of masonry ensured that anything that Svensmark and his colleagues might say would be ignored or, failing that, be promptly rubbished by a warmist scientist. Posh papers like The Times of London and the New York Times, and posh TV channels like the BBC’s, readily fell into line. Enthusiastically warmist magazines like New Scientist and Scientific Americanneeded no coaching.
Similarly the journals Nature and Science, which in my youth prided themselves on reports that challenged prevailing paradigms, gladly provided cement for higher masonry, to hold the wicked hypothesis in check at the scientific level. Starve Svensmark of funding. Reject his scientific papers but give free rein to anyone who criticizes him. Trivialize the findings in the Holy Writ of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. None of this is paranoia on my part, but a matter of close personal observation since 1996.
“It’s the Sun, stupid!” The story isn’t really about a bunch of naughty Danish physicists. They are just spokesmen for the most luminous agent of climate change. As the Sun was what the warmists really wanted to tame with their dam, they couldn’t do it. And coming to the Danes’ aid, by briefly blasting away many cosmic rays with great puffs of gas, the Sun enabled the team to trace in detail the consequent reduction in cloud seeding and liquid water in clouds. See my posthttp://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/do-clouds-disappear/ By the way, that research also disposes of a morsel of doubt in the new CLOUD paper, about whether the small specks made by cosmic rays really grow sufficiently to seed cloud droplets.
As knowledge accumulated behind their dam and threatened to overtop it, the warmists had one last course to lay. Paradoxically it was CLOUD. Long delays with this experiment to explore the microchemical mechanism of the Svensmark effect became the chief excuse for deferring any re-evaluation of the Sun’s role in climate change. When the microchemical mechanism was revealed prematurely by the SKY experiment in Copenhagen and published in 2006, the warmists said, “No particle accelerator? That won’t do! Wait for CLOUD.” When the experiment in Aarhus confirmed the mechanism using a particle accelerator they said, “Oh that’s just the Danes again! Wait for CLOUD.”
Well they’ve waited and their dam has failed them.
Hall of Shame
Retracing those 14 years, what if physics had functioned as it is supposed to do? What if CLOUD, quickly approved and funded, had verified the Svensmark effect with all the authority of CERN, in the early 2000s. What if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had done a responsible job, acknowledging the role of the Sun and curtailing the prophecies of catastrophic warming?
For a start there would have no surprise about the “travesty” that global warming has stopped since the mid-1990s, with the Sun becoming sulky. Vast sums might have been saved on misdirected research and technology, and on climate change fests and wheezes of every kind. The world’s poor and their fragile living environment could have had far more useful help than precautions against warming.
And there would have been less time for so many eminent folk from science, politics, industry, finance, the media and the arts to be taken in by man-made climate catastrophe. (In London, for example, from the Royal Society to the National Theatre.) Sadly for them, in the past ten years they’ve crowded with their warmist badges into a Hall of Shame, like bankers before the crash.
As I reported on May 14th, 2011 in Update on the CERN CLOUD experiment:
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.
=====================================================
More coverage: Big hat tip to WUWT reader “Andrew20”
Cosmic rays get ahead in CLOUD
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2011/August/24081102.asp
Cloud formation may be linked to cosmic rays
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.504.html
Cloud formation study casts a shadow over certain climate models
======================================================
Update: From Nigel Calder’s blog
A graph they’d prefer you not to notice. Tucked away near the end of online supplementary material, and omitted from the printed CLOUD paper in Nature, it clearly shows how cosmic rays promote the formation of clusters of molecules (“particles”) that in the real atmosphere can grow and seed clouds. In an early-morning experimental run at CERN, starting at 03.45, ultraviolet light began making sulphuric acid molecules in the chamber, while a strong electric field cleansed the air of ions. It also tended to remove molecular clusters made in the neutral environment (n) but some of these accumulated at a low rate. As soon as the electric field was switched off at 04.33, natural cosmic rays (gcr) raining down through the roof of the experimental hall in Geneva helped to build clusters at a higher rate. How do we know they were contributing? Because when, at 04.58, CLOUD simulated stronger cosmic rays with a beam of charged pion particles (ch) from the accelerator, the rate of cluster production became faster still. The various colours are for clusters of different diameters (in nanometres) as recorded by various instruments. The largest (black) took longer to grow than the smallest (blue). This is Fig. S2c from supplementary online material for J. Kirkby et al., Nature, 476, 429-433, © Nature 2011
Henry@Rational debate
Thanks. I don’t see how that isoprene works to trap heat
Leif Svalgaard says
Then I don’t know what your point is/was. Solar activity in the 18th and 19th centuries was as high as in the 20th, yet the temperatures were significantly lower.
Henry
Pity we have no arial pictures of earth that time but I will bet with you that earth has become a lot greener since that time. As the CO2 increases, so it acts as a fertilizer and accelerator for photosynthesis.
It is the increase in greenery and forests that is causing some “additional” warming, on top of the normal warming which indeed is because of more sunshine and/or less clouds. Hence the reason why the warming is not “global”. So everybody is a little bit right here, including those believing in the AGW theory, ehh, eh, hypothesis.
Anyone can check this theory by looking at temps. where forests have increased or decreased.
This statement sums up the situation with the AGW religious crowd
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
— C.S. Lewis
R Gates:
You continue to provide comedy.
It is now clear that you really, really do want to prove you are an idiot again and again and again…
Your latest gem of idiocy is at August 26, 2011 at 4:21 pm.
You had asserted that radiative forcing directly causes warming which, of course, it does not so I had pointed out that it does not.
You repeated your silly and ignorant assertion so I stated two different pieces of evidence that would show anybody of average (or higher than average) intelligence that radiative forcing does NOT directly cause warming.
These were
(a) radiative forcing from the Sun has increased by more than 20% with no discernible resulting warming
and
(b) the Earth is bi-stable in that it has similar temperature in each glacial and each interglacial period despite much different amounts of radiative forcing.
Your reply says to me;
“Your own examples prove you wrong [snip]
Why was the earth warmer in the past when the sun’s output was lower by 30% Could it be the radiative forcing of GH gases, which were much higher then? Suggest you read:
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/5/1425.full
But you probably won’t.”
Of course I read it. There was a small possibility that I might learn from it so I wanted to read it. But, of course, you failed to understand I would read it because the idea that anybody would want to learn is alien to you.
And what does it say; its title tells all
“Rates of change in natural and anthropogenic radiative forcing over the past 20,000 years”.
I gave two examples:
one was a steady change over the last 2.5 billion years
and
the other was glacial and interglacial conditions over millions of years.
And you say a paper that considers “the past 20,000 years” refutes my examples!
Please R Gates, stop it! Stop it! It is too funny! Stop it! The laughter hurts!
Richard
@- Richard S Courtney says:
August 27, 2011 at 1:04 am
“You had asserted that radiative forcing directly causes warming which, of course, it does not so I had pointed out that it does not.
You repeated your silly and ignorant assertion so I stated two different pieces of evidence that would show anybody of average (or higher than average) intelligence that radiative forcing does NOT directly cause warming.”
Anybody of average intelligence might notice that NEITHER of your examples are correct. As the Sun increased its output over billions of years the Earth certainly DID warn, compare the Ordovician snowball Earth with the Jurassic ice-free planet. Of course a lot of those paleoclimate changes are associated with changes in CO2 levels….
The glacial-interglacial cycles in the last few million years have NOT had much different radiative forcing, the changes in CO2 levels have been limited, until now – unless you have evidence that shows otherwise ?
If radiative forcing does not alter surface temperature you are going to have a big problem explaining why Venus is hotter than Mercury.
I am still waiting for a reply to my earlier question about what you think I was denying, and whether you dispute that the preliminary result from this experiment appear to REFUTE Svenmark’s hypothesis that GCRs affect low clouds. –
-”We find that ion-induced binary nucleation of H2SO4–H2O can occur in the mid-troposphere but is negligible in the boundary layer.”-
Well some American republicans such a Rick Perry are threatening to withdrew any more payments to the IPCC and UNCCF (United Nations Climate Change Fund) for good reason.
It’s only our stupid Minister Combet who after Kevin Rudd signed the Kyoto to say they would
not only cut emissions but pay the climate fund $600 million a year. Then Rudd dropped the ETS. Gillard is quoted as saying ‘There will be no carbon tax while I lead government’ but a hung parliament in August 2010 made her hang on by getting the support of the Greens in the House of Reps (1) and Senate, and the stupid Independents well four out of five of them. The Americans were wise not to be pulled into this. And even India is not going ahead, China, Canada and several other countries will not even attend the Durban conference in November to renew the Kyoto agreement. Well if we still have a government then we shall see. Don’t know about the UK
but they are worried about the EU commitment.
Rational Debate says:
August 26, 2011 at 5:35 pm ….
and Smokey ….
Thanks for taking the time and clarify. Yes you are right, words really matter. I have not seen CAGW being more then a hypothesis pushed to be a theory by the CAGW group.
izen says:
August 26, 2011 at 8:46 pm
“AGW theory claims anthropogenic CO2 is increasing global temperature. Because of the physical process invoked by the theory the warming would be predicted to be of greater magnitude at night, at high latitudes and confined to the lower troposphere with cooling of the stratosphere.”
The hypothesis is based on very weak described physical mechanism, using only radiation and “back radiation” concept, ignoring thermodynamics, modeling based on these assumptions and jumping to conclusions.
But the very base physical mechanism of heat transfer is not clarified, not properly described, quantified and tested. This is what makes CAGW a hypothesis and not a theory.
Venter says:
August 27, 2011 at 12:46 am
Leif Svalgaard and R.Gates are certainly in denial. They seem to have no clue of the scientific method. AGW theory and computer models are not reality, not proven and in fact are massive failures when tested against empirical evidence. No amount of waffling can obscure the truth.
Venter must have a highly impressive scientific research track record. Either that or he is incredibly stupid. I, for one, would be reluctant to claim that one of the foremost solar researchers over the last 40 years had “no clue of the scientific method” – no matter how convinced I was of my own argument.
Regarding his(her) point about models and ‘theory’. The ‘theory’ does not rely on the models. There are a number of scientists (e.g. Richard Lindzen) who believe the models are wrong but who, nevertheless, accept the fact that increasing CO2 concentration is likely to result in higher temperatures than would otherwise be the case.
Emission spectra, viewed from satellites, tells us that energy centred on 15 micron wavelength is radiated predominantly from CO2 in the higher, drier regions of the troposphere. CO2 is clearly influential at these altitudes.
Theo Goodwin says:
August 26, 2011 at 10:54 pm
you have no understanding of scientific method whatsoever.
I gave you an example of the scientific method in action. You have no comments on that?
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL048616.shtml with article here
http://www.leif.org/research/Semiannual-Comment.pdf
You have nothing to say on any of these matters. When you say that you understand scientific method, you are bluffing.
Comment on the above.
You may also benefit from reading: http://www.amasci.com/miscon/myths10.html
Theo Goodwin says:
August 26, 2011 at 10:58 pm
Kirkby was surprised by disconfirming evidence but realized that the discovery of his false prediction was more valuable than his original hypothesis. So, he is off on a new hypothesis. That is how scientists should proceed.
Indeed, but it also means that his old hypothesis was falsified, which was my point all along.
Theo Goodwin says:
August 26, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Gaia modelers have no physical hypotheses about cloud formation. Kirkby just demonstrated that.
Kitkby did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he just demonstrated that his own hypothesis was wrong.
Izen:
At August 27, 2011 at 2:27 am you ask me:
“I am still waiting for a reply to my earlier question about what you think I was denying, and whether you dispute that the preliminary result from this experiment appear to REFUTE Svenmark’s hypothesis that GCRs affect low clouds. –
-”We find that ion-induced binary nucleation of H2SO4–H2O can occur in the mid-troposphere but is negligible in the boundary layer.”-”
Sorry, I did not reply to your question because thought the answer was so obvious that even you would understand it. But, since you have again asked, I provide this brief answer.
The CLOUD experiment has proved that GCRs induce aerosol droplets that can be cloud nuclei.
The existing finding indicates that the initial nucleation provides most such droplets that are much too small to be cloud nuclei and that combination of such droplets would be required to induce the degree of observed cloud changes. Those observed cloud changes are important because they provide severe doubt to the AGW-hypothesis.
Clouds reflect solar heat and a mere 2% increase to cloud cover would more than compensate for the maximum possible predicted warming due to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the air. Good records of cloud cover are very short because cloud cover is measured by satellites that were not launched until the mid 1980s. But it appears that cloudiness decreased markedly between the mid 1980s and late 1990s. Over that period, the Earth’s reflectivity decreased to the extent that if there were a constant solar irradiance then the reduced cloudiness provided an extra surface warming of 5 to 10 Watts/sq metre. This is a lot of warming. It is between two and four times the entire warming estimated to have been caused by the build-up of human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. (The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that since the industrial revolution, the build-up of human-caused greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has had a warming effect of only 2.4 W/sq metre).
Also, as you say, the CLOUD experiment only considered the direct effect of GCRs on cloud nucleation and the GCRs only reach down to the mid-troposphere. But interactions of GCRs with atmospheric particles cause secondary particles that cascade down through he lower atmosphere. These, too, have potential to be cloud nuclei.
There is an on-going study at CERNE which will detemine
(a) the probability of secondary particles inducing cloud nuclei in the lower troposphere
and
(b) the probability of small droplets coalescing.
There would be no reason for this on-going study if the CLOUD experiment had failed to find that GCRs do induce cloud nucleation.
But you assert that
“this experiment appear to REFUTE Svenmark’s hypothesis that GCRs affect low clouds”.
That is a clear denial of the fact that the CLOUD experiment confirmed the possibility of the Svensmark Effect which is why the on-going study is to be conducted.
Richard
PS Your comments on radiative forcing are refuted by information in my above posts. Please read them.
phlogiston says:
August 26, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Actually ladies, what is well known from ice cores is that they show CO2 levels rising consistently several centuries AFTER temperature rises, proving that CO2 change is the effect, not the cause of temperature change.
No it doesn’t prove that, at all. Atmospheric CO2 levels do respond to SST but there is no reason to suppose that CO2 levels cannot increase independently if an alternative source is identified (e.g. fossil fuel burning). The CO2/temperature lag over the glacial/interglacial periods is reasonably well understood. However, over ~5000 years, the CO2 increase was just ~100ppm (180ppm -> 280ppm) in response to a temperature increase of 5-6 deg. Since 1850 (~160 years) the CO2 increase has been ~110ppm while the temperature has only risen by ~0.7 deg.
Fossil fuel burning produces ~7 to 8 GtC per annum. The increase in the atmosphere is ~3 to 4 GtC per annum. CO2 concentrations in the oceans is increasing nor decreasing, i.e. they are not releasing more CO2, so where do you think the atmospheric increase might be coming from?
Is there any possibility that nuclei, once formed in the mid or upper troposphere, could drop down in altitude and eventually form clouds in the lower troposphere?
Leif Svalgaard:
“UV is but a small fraction of TSI.”
To remind the readers UV is about 1% TSI, small indeed but potent. It creates ozone among other things and appears to have played an important role in DNA mutation which may have resulted in us. One part in 100 is small but 320 ppm CO2 is orders of magnitude smaller yet is thought to be the primary agent for climate catastrophe if it were to increase by a tiny 100 ppm more. I am not sure of that one but my point is UV at 1% may trigger unknown secondary events so let’s not be too dismissive about its possible affects on climate just yet. UV does fluctuate more than certain other components in TSI as most readers here know. Just as a small 2 inch deflection on the gas pedal having a dramatic change in the speed of my F-150 Ford, small variations in UV might control bigger things here on Terra Firma.
@F. Ross
izen, et al ad nauseum
AGW
theoryhypothesisconjecturewild speculationMore Magnetically active Sun (more sunspots):
– more magnetic shielding from the Sun
– less cosmic rays reach the Earth
– less clouds
– more sunlight reached the Earth
– Earth begins warming
Less Magnetically active Sun (fewer sunspots):
– less magnetic shielding from the Sun
– more cosmic rays reach the Earth
– more clouds
– less sunlight reached the Earth
– Earth begins cooling
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) (Brightness) is Not Important.
Changes in the Magnetic Shielding (sunspots) from the Sun Clauses Climate Change on Earth.
The Thermal Mass of the Oceans slows rate of temperature change on Earth, thus there is a delay before we notice the effect.
Sunspots since 1880 from NASA.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/bfly.gif
Look at the Data from NASA.
There is your Global Warming, and recent Global Cooling.
It is Not Important if you agree with it or believe it.
It has been Physically Proven by Experiment, not by computer simulation or computer modeling, but by Actual Physical Experiment.
It is now a Fact.
Climate Change on Earth is Caused by changes the Magnetic Output of the Sun.
Carbon Dioxide is Irrelevant.
John Finn,
I stand by my comments. If you don’t understand the difference between science and scientific method, I can’t help it. Rational debate, Theo Goodwin, Richard Courtney et. al have stated specifically what the scientific method is. Let Leif show validation of his models based on that method, with empirical evidence, to show that the models are correct and that they have been tested and verified against empirical evidence. Till then those models have worth only in his eyes.
And if you have empirical evidence validating the AGW theory and models, bring it on, and show it.
It may have escaped your attention, but based on this theory and unverified models, billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money are being spent affecting millions of people worldwide under the scare of CO2 and ‘Carbon Pollution’. So these unverified models and this unverified theory is affecting and hitting people worldwide real time. And that’s the scam here.
Play all you want with the models, but stay way from my pocket and the public’s pockets. Play with your money.
@izen “Of course a lot of those paleoclimate changes are associated with changes in CO2 levels…. ”
Can you give me the sources/citations to support that statement?
Aaron says:
August 27, 2011 at 4:50 am
small variations in UV might control bigger things here on Terra Firma.
Look at the plankton response to ultraviolet that I linked a while ago.
Richard S Courtney says:
August 27, 2011 at 3:39 am
The existing finding indicates that the initial nucleation provides most such droplets that are much too small to be cloud nuclei and that combination of such droplets would be required to induce the degree of observed cloud changes. Those observed cloud changes are important because they provide severe doubt to the AGW-hypothesis .
How do observed cloud changes provide “severe doubt to the AGW hypothesis”. They might, perhaps, provide an argument against the higher end climate sensitivity figures – if global temperatures fail to rise – but that doesn’t mean AGW isn’t happening.
The solar crowd have painted themselves into a corner. As David Archibald showed recently, solar activity over the past 2-3 cycles is closely tracking activity in the 20-odd years leading up to and including the onset of the Dalton Minimum. Temperatures both regionally and globally are at least a degree above those in 1800 (despite almost identical solar activity). Something needs to happen soon.
Andrew 30 and denier. Well said. I think some could change the record eh (vinyl) They will argue the back leg off a donkey. Cheers off to bed now my time is 10..21 pm. And I am giving a film interview tomorrow. Have to be clear eyed and wide awake. Not on climate change though.
@-Richard S Courtney says:
August 27, 2011 at 3:39 am
“The CLOUD experiment has proved that GCRs induce aerosol droplets that can be cloud nuclei.”
That was already known and is uncontroversial. The ambient ionizing radiation, much of it from cosmic rays, produces charged particles that are a key component of forming aerosol nuclei.
That they CAN be the basis for cloud condensation nuclei is also agreed, but whether the amount of small (2-3nm) particles has much effect on the eventual number of much larger CCNs is unknown. The best present guess is that there is little influence from variations in the rate of production of small nuclei on the rate of production of CCNs. –
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037946.shtml
-“Good records of cloud cover are very short because cloud cover is measured by satellites that were not launched until the mid 1980s. But it appears that cloudiness decreased markedly between the mid 1980s and late 1990s. ”
It turns out that much if not all of that apparent decrease in cloudiness was the result of the improving satellite coverage. A geometric error in calculating cloud cover from satellite images meant fewer oblique views reduced the reported coverage.
-“Over that period, the Earth’s reflectivity decreased to the extent that if there were a constant solar irradiance then the reduced cloudiness provided an extra surface warming of 5 to 10 Watts/sq metre. ”
Source for this claim please… and how much of that albedo change would be the result of reduced spring snow cover and the melting ice ? A known positive feedback with warming!
“Also, as you say, the CLOUD experiment only considered the direct effect of GCRs on cloud nucleation and the GCRs only reach down to the mid-troposphere. ”
No, GALACTIC cosmic rays are the high energy particles that do have ionising effects at low altitudes and are the component of the cosmic ray flux that is modulated by solar activity.
Svenmark suggests that it is when solar activity is high that Galactic cosmic rays are reduced, reducing low cloud that has a cooling effect.
But during high solar activity the cosmic rays that are from the SUN increase, however these are of lower energy and probably penetrate only into the upper atmosphere, producing their shower of ions in the stratosphere and upper troposphere.
Svenmark specifically invokes the high energy, deeply penetrating Galactic cosmic ray flux modulated by solar activity as the key player in changing low cloud albedo.
He does not AFAIK mention any increase in high thin cloud from the solar wind/cosmic rays when the SUNs’ activity increases.
But ironically the CERN results would seem to point to that –
-”We find that ion-induced binary nucleation of H2SO4–H2O can occur in the mid-troposphere but is negligible in the boundary layer.”-”
Perhaps you could float a new speculation, that AGW has an alternative in the increase solar sourced cosmic rays during the recent solar activity maximum has induced the formation of more high thin clouds that have a warming ‘Greenhouse’ effect !
Of course Leif might point to the data that indicates that no such climate effects appeared during past similar episodes of solar activity….
@-Andrew30 says:
August 27, 2011 at 4:59 am
“Look at the Data from NASA. There is your Global Warming, and recent Global Cooling.”
I can see how there SHOULD be recent global cooling if CO2 is irrelevant and sunspot number controls it all as they peaked in the 1960s.
But while the global Stock Market levels seem to have ‘cooled’ to 1990s numbers the global temperature is is WAY above values for a decade or more ago and could not by any stretch be called ‘cooling’
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
July 2011: +0.37 deg. C
Sean U can Google it. But don’t take any notice of any AGW fanatics sites. Look for ‘Little Ice Age can return’ or Ice not fire Al? . You see a warming period does proceed an ice age. What goes up comes down again. Earth is self regulating really. Humans have changed the landscape though much to our chagrin. I suspect he is on broadband or optic fibre. It doesn’t matter what the CO2 is as it hasn’t had any influence and remember the volcanoes that were more active in the glacial period/s than now. Japan wasn’t permanently occupied until 8,000 years ago (nor was North America or Canada) regarding the amount of seismic activity there. And interesting it was the temps were not that much colder in Australia well 5 c, depending where they were taken of course. Anyway I am off to bed, see you all tomorrow.
Venter says:
August 27, 2011 at 5:09 am
Let Leif show validation of his models based on that method, with empirical evidence, to show that the models are correct and that they have been tested and verified against empirical evidence.
It would be helpful if you would pay attention to the debate. The issue was not whether the models are wrong [which they are], but whether it makes sense to model at all [which it does].
izen says:
August 27, 2011 at 2:27 am
“If radiative forcing does not alter surface temperature you are going to have a big problem explaining why Venus is hotter than Mercury.”
It’s not at all difficult to explain. It’s the same reason that the earth’s mantle is hotter than anywhere on Mercury. Mercury wasn’t able to retain a molten core. It’s too small and lacks an atmosphere. Venus’ uber-dense atmosphere insulates the surface so well that its internal heat from the molten core rises much farther into the crustal rocks. On earth the atmosphere is far thinner and not able to insulate the crust such that internal heat can build up at the surface of the crust but if you dig down a ways the earth is hotter than anywhere on Mercury.
The surface temperature on Venus IS because of the atmosphere trapping heat but it IS NOT because the atmosphere is trapping heat from the sun. The atmosphere is trapping heat from the molten core of the planet. In fact the surface of Venus gets no sunlight at all.
Andrew30 says:
August 27, 2011 at 4:59 am
It is now a Fact.
Climate Change on Earth is Caused by changes the Magnetic Output of the Sun.
Carbon Dioxide is Irrelevant.
———/
Wow! So we can just throw out all the data that show the strong correlation between Milankovitch cycles and climate over the last few million years eh? You should get Nobel Prize for this “fact” that you’ve discovered!