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
DEEBEE says:
August 27, 2011 at 5:52 am
@John Finn
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?
======================
Let’s stipulate your numbers IIMO your ranges are abit to tight). You are asking phlogiston to explain the appearance of extra 3-4 Gtc, could your explain where is the extra 3-4 Gtc disappearing that seems to be unaccounted for in your narrative.
Try reading it again – particularly the bit about CO2 cocentration in the oceans increasing.
Andrew30 says:
August 27, 2011 at 6:06 am
izen
[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]
Jan 2010: +0.54 deg. C
July 2010: +0.42 deg. C
July 2011: +0.37 deg. C (your cherry)
Just a thought but don’t you think ENSO might have something to do with 2011 being cooler than 2010. Though from the anomalies you’ve given it doesn’t look as though La Nina is having the effect it used to.
Leif;
What your data (slides) indicate is a relation between the pumping of the atmosphere by sunlight incrementally raising the temperature during the peaks of solar magnetic activity, and the flattening and now cooling of the Earth as the CMI has been on a incline since the mid of the last solar peak (not really a cycle since it appears to be have paused)
Both your submissions show the same.
In http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/catch/cr3.html there is a clear correlation with (ocean moderated) atmospheric temperature delta.
In your slide 7 the current values are clearly higher than any past value, and a similar correlation.
P.S.
The Sun is as cyclical as the wave on the ocean; peaks and through all the time, until it freezes. Until you see it frozen you keep thinking of the waves it is a cycle, but it never was. Sometimes the water never thaws out again (like Mars), so even the freezing was not part of a cycle. People like cycles because it make them think that they can know the future.
P.P.S.
Climate Change on Earth is Caused by changes the Magnetic Output of the Sun.
Carbon Dioxide is Irrelevant.
John Finn says: August 27, 2011 at 12:12 pm
[Just a thought but don’t you think ENSO might have something to do with 2011 being cooler than 2010.]
John, La Nina is an effect that causes other things, as is El Nino, the cause is the Sun
Andrew30 says:
August 27, 2011 at 12:32 pm
In your slide 7 the current values are clearly higher than any past value, and a similar correlation.
Slide 7 shows there is no long-term trend. That 4003 is higher than 4002 does not mean anything. The changes from minimum to minimum are minute.
Andrew30 says:
August 27, 2011 at 12:32 pm
In your slide 7 the current values are clearly higher than any past value
The variations from cycle to cycle are small and depends a bit in the observing station. Here is the observed cosmic ray [neutron] flux at Hermanus [South Africa]: http://www.leif.org/research/Cosmic-Rays-Hermanus.png
There is no long-term trend, because there is no long term trend in the Magnetic Output of the Sun which you can see directly in Figure 10 of http://www.leif.org/research/2009JA015069.pdf
In fact, at the moment, the magnetic output of the sun is at the level of a century ago, while temperatures are not, so no correlation. Time to let go of your fixation.
As an ice age paleontologist, Svenmark’s theory does not contradict the known fossil record. The AGW theory on the other hand is replete with contradictions. The CLOUD experiment can be repeated in the laboratory, something the AGW crowd is rightly worried about. If Svenmark’s theory can be taken to it’s logical conclusion through reproducible results in the laboratory, then the whole theory of AGW will be measured against Svenmark’s theory and climate science will hopefully become science again.
@-Leif Svalgaard
August 27, 2011 at 11:09 am
Thank you for the link –
http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/group/eodg/1st_year_reports/rosalind_west.pdf
I think I now grasp rather better why the abundance of small droplet aerosols does not match the abundance of large Cloud Condensation Nuclei.
The curvature of the droplet affects the rate at which water vapor can condense and grow the droplet. Small droplets require much higher water vapour levels to grow while large droplets will grow rapidly beyond a certain size. Very small droplets evaporate, large droplets expand fast, in-between there may be a ‘steady state’ where growth and shrinkage balance with rather few droplets reaching the threshold which grows them to fully active CCNs.
But it is possible for many small droplets to compete with a large droplet for the available water vapor effectively ‘drying’ the air so that a large droplet could conceivably grow faster on its own than in a volume of air shared with many small droplets.
It also explained why soluble compounds enhance droplet formation. By altering the surface tension when dissolved they make the condensation onto small droplets energetically more advantageous so small droplets can grow (or avoid evaporation) more easily.
It further reveals that contrary to Theo’s statement that aerosol-cloud interactions were an unexamined hypothesis for modelers, there are several attempts to describe the complexities of CCN formation from aerosol for incorporation into a GCM.
Andrew30 says:
August 27, 2011 at 12:41 pm
John Finn says: August 27, 2011 at 12:12 pm
[Just a thought but don’t you think ENSO might have something to do with 2011 being cooler than 2010.]
John, La Nina is an effect that causes other things, as is El Nino, the cause is the Sun
Andrew
Between 1986 and 1988 there was an El Nino. It continued without interruption throughout 1987. The mean UAH anomaly for the first 7 months (Jan-July) of 1987 was close to ZERO (-0.00143 to be precise). In 2010 there was a La Nina which continued into 2011. The mean UAH anomaly for the first 7 months (Jan-July) of 2011 was ~0.12 deg C. In other words temperatures during a La Nina affected period now are higher than during an El Nino affected period of 24 years ago.
ENSO (or the sun if you prefer) may be responsible for short term variations (including dips) in temperature but it’s got jack all to do with the steadily rising underlying trend over the past 30 odd years.
John Finn:
At August 27, 2011 at 1:49 pm you say Andrew30′
“ENSO (or the sun if you prefer) may be responsible for short term variations (including dips) in temperature but it’s got jack all to do with the steadily rising underlying trend over the past 30 odd years.”
There is no “steadily rising underlying trend over the past 30 odd years” globally or for either hemisphere.
see e.g.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
Richard
Leif;
[In fact, at the moment, the magnetic output of the sun is at the level of a century ago, while temperatures are not, so no correlation.]
Seriously?
Your kidding, right?
I put a pot of water over a gas flame just now, the flame is as hot at the moment as the flame was yesterday when the other pot of water on it was boiling, this pot is not boiling, therefore there is no correlation between the flame and the temperature of the water.
Wow, just wow.
I thought that you understood a bit of physics.
The Thermal Mass of the Oceans slows rate of temperature change on Earth, thus there is a delay before we notice the effect.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 27, 2011 at 11:09 am
“Your use of ‘unexamined’ is silly. Nobody has ever suggested that NH3–H2SO4–H2O were the only ingredients needed for formation of clouds.”
Kirkby constructed an artificial environment in which he had only NH3–H2SO4–H2O. He discovered that this environment lacked one component necessary for cloud formation.
What is new is that Kirkby constructed an artificial environment. This was new because climate modelers had not constructed such an artificial environment. Given this artificial environment, Kirkby could do a rigorous empirical test of the NH3–H2SO4–H2O hypothesis. No such rigorous test had been done prior to Kirkby’s experiment.
So, Leif, do you believe that Kirkby’s test had been done before Kirkby and, for that reason, Kirkby’s test should be treated as no news, as repetitious, and as trivial?
Kirkby concluded that NH3–H2SO4–H2O is not sufficient for production of clouds and he began the search for the missing ingredient. In other words, Kirkby recognizes that his NH3–H2SO4–H2O hypothesis is false and that recognition set him on the search for an additional component necessary to cloud formation.
Leif, you say that no climate scientist had held Kirkby’s hypothesis that NH3–H2SO4–H2O is sufficient for cloud formation. For that reason, according to you, Kirkby falsified his hypothesis but not any hypothesis used by climate modelers. This comparison is altogether unjust. Kirkby’s work is not at all similar to the work of climate modelers.
Kirkby created an artificial environment so that he could do a rigorous empirical test. Climate scientists have never done any such thing. Rather, climate scientists create in their computer models a representation of an atmospheric environment. They assume that it contains NH3–H2SO4–H2O and other things. Then they use their computer model to generate numbers that are compared to observed numbers for cloud formation. If the two sets of numbers are not inconsistent, they claim that they are modeling cloud formation. See the difference between the two approaches. Kirkby has rigorous empirical test of his hypotheses and climate modelers have none.
Climate modelers make the assumption that if their computer model can generate a simulation that tracks observed values well then they are actually predicting those values and they are conducting empirical tests of the computer model. This assumption is false. To know that your model is actually predicting the observed values you have to conduct rigorous empirical tests of the sort done by Kirkby. Without such rigorous empirical testing, your claim that you are making predictions of empirical reality are circular. What you are doing is no different than looking at old graphs of Arctic sea ice melt and guessing the numbers for the coming season. If your guess comes out right, you can boast about it. But surely no one would think that your guess is actually based on science.
This mistake about computer models, (the assumption that if their computer model can generate a simulation that tracks observed values well then they are actually predicting those values and they are conducting empirical tests of the computer model), is the curse of science in this time. People who know better have used this widespread false belief about computer models to enhance the worth of the models far beyond their actual value.
Finally, there is the question of the physical hypotheses. Kirkby formulated physical hypotheses and tested them rigorously. Notice that his physical hypotheses are very clear and easy to explain. One of them is that NH3–H2SO4–H2O is sufficient to create clouds. Another is that a beam of rays with well understood characteristics will increase cloud formation. Both hypotheses turned out to be false. The point though is that his hypotheses and his experiment are very easy to state in a clear and non-technical way.
In contrast to Kirkby’s clarity, climate modelers have never produced some set of physical hypotheses that can be stated clearly and that have been tested rigorously. I have asked you to do that, Leif, and you have not. I will try again. Here is an easy one. What is the composition of Earth’s atmosphere at the level of low flying clouds that is found in some climate model? What rigorous empirical tests have been conducted to support your hypothesis about this composition? My guess is that you have no rigorous empirical tests. Rather, you do the same old, same old, namely, you assume that if your model can generate numbers that track the observations then your model is predicting the phenomena.
I regret that I must shortly end my participation in discussion of this Kirkby post by Anthony. The day job and the family call.
“izen says:
August 27, 2011 at 1:44 pm
It also explained why soluble compounds enhance droplet formation. By altering the surface tension when dissolved they make the condensation onto small droplets energetically more advantageous so small droplets can grow (or avoid evaporation) more easily.”
And ammonium sulfate, certainly formed in the CLOUD experiment, is very soluble. It is also hygroscopic – it attracts water.
“Molecular formula (NH4)2SO4
Appearance Fine white hygroscopic granules or crystals.
Solubility in water 70.6 g/100 mL (0 °C)
74.4 g/100 mL (20 °C)
103.8 g/100 mL (100 °C)[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_sulfate
Andrew30 says:
August 27, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Your kidding, right?
No, not a all.
I thought that you understood a bit of physics.
The Thermal Mass of the Oceans slows rate of temperature change on Earth, thus there is a delay before we notice the effect.
You do clearly not. While it is true that it takes more than a thousand years to heat the deep ocean when there is a change in solar input, half of the change in global mean temperature takes place in the first 15 years, so the delay is short: See Figure 2 of http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL048623.pdf
BTW, Svensmark claims there is not delay.
John Finn says: August 27, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Something about a guy named Jack?
Small incremental changes over a long period of time = large change.
If the input pumping of energy is frequent, so as to overcome the losses, energy level increases.
If the input pumping of energy is not frequent, so as not to overcome the losses, energy level decreases.
Is Jack a relation of yours?
Theo Goodwin says:
August 27, 2011 at 2:10 pm
So, Leif, do you believe that Kirkby’s test had been done before Kirkby and, for that reason, Kirkby’s test should be treated as no news, as repetitious, and as trivial?
No, Kirkby et al.’s work is nice and important, just [as he says himself] does not have any bearing on the cosmic ray theory.
This comparison is altogether unjust. Kirkby’s work is not at all similar to the work of climate modelers.
Correct, the climate modelers do a much more thorough examination of the whole picture as evidence by http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/group/eodg/1st_year_reports/rosalind_west.pdf which you should study carefully.
Both hypotheses turned out to be false. The point though is that his hypotheses and his experiment are very easy to state in a clear and non-technical way. […]
In contrast to Kirkby’s clarity, climate modelers have never produced some set of physical hypotheses that can be stated clearly and that have been tested rigorously.
I refer you to the link above. Now, it may be harder to understand simply because these things are complicated and cannot be dumbed down.
re: Leif Svalgaard says: August 27, 2011 at 5:43 am
I certainly haven’t been debating whether it makes sense to model at all, nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, if you check my statements in this thread I have said clearly that models when used properly can be extremly useful and are excellent tools. I have been arguing very much along the lines that Venter stated at 6:05 am (wrt to models, not statements about Leif).
The CLOUD experiements are all about another factor(s) that may be a major player in Earth’s climate, which is the context of the debate here, which means that our debate about models, as far as I’ve been concerned, has been about major AGW models. That’s where the problem is – current AGW models, their claimed accuracy and the blatant bias and advocacy of some scientists espec. those who’ve created the AGW models & “The Team” (CRU, Mann, etc), and subsequent propagation into politics and policy.
The latter isn’t just a function of the politicians. It wouldn’t be occurring if the models – and the degree of actual scientific support for big picture aspects of the AGW meme – weren’t being badly misrepresented by said scientists. Note that by ‘actual scientific support’ I am NOT meaning the opinion of scientists, or some idea of conspiracy or malfeasence (tho obviously some does occur) – I’m referring to the huge scientific problems associated with ‘climate science’ and AGW, problems of ignoring the null hypothesis, falsifiablity, uncertainty, unaccounted for and/or lack of control for confounding factors, failure to evaluate compared to competing hypotheses, questionable data, questionable data inputs, selective use of peer reviewed research (and questions re abuse of said system), confirmation bias, failure to validate & calibrate against empirical data, and so on.
Izen,
“You must lead a sheltered (scientific) life.
Compared to some of the stuff that emerges in the biological sciences AGW is a paragon of elegance !”
That made me smile. I do recall an evolutionary ‘sub theory’ which alleged – without any evidence – that evolution involved some temporal feedback mechanism in which morphological developments from the future fed back and guided the evolutionary pathways of the past. Compared to that, AGW is indeed a paragon of elegence.
But compared to Darwinian evolution – well that’s another matter.
Leif Svalgaard says: August 27, 2011 at 2:18 pm
[BTW, Svensmark claims there is not delay]
So what?
Svensmark is not a Physical Measurement.
Neither are you.
[half of the change in global mean temperature takes place in the first 15 years,]
And the Sun has missed its latest energy pump into the Earth by how long?
A few more missing, or delayed pumps and this flat (slightly declining) temperature curve will decay further.
Now, it may be harder to understand simply because these things are complicated and cannot be dumbed down any further, but pumping energy is not steady stream, perhaps you might ask a kid with a bicycle.
Andrew30 says:
August 27, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Svensmark is not a Physical Measurement.
Neither are you.
Svensmark is a person that makes claims about delays in temperature with respect to the input.
And the Sun has missed its latest energy pump into the Earth by how long?
A few more missing, or delayed pumps and this flat (slightly declining) temperature curve will decay further.
The last fifty years have had the same solar activity as 120 years ago. Whatever ‘pumps’ you think there are have worked the same [unless you assume some AGW]: http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-Now-and-120yrs-Ago.png
perhaps you might ask a kid with a bicycle.
Your grasp of physics struggles to shine through…
Rational Debate says:
August 27, 2011 at 2:28 pm
– I’m referring to the huge scientific problems associated with ‘climate science’ and AGW, problems of ignoring the null hypothesis, falsifiablity, uncertainty, unaccounted for and/or lack of control for confounding factors, failure to evaluate compared to competing hypotheses, questionable data, questionable data inputs, selective use of peer reviewed research (and questions re abuse of said system), confirmation bias, failure to validate & calibrate against empirical data, and so on.
I don’t see any of these things as real problems. Science is self-correcting. As long as one is modeling the past you can always make things fit. The proof of the pudding is in prediction and the predictions are failing, so there do you have the necessary falsifiability, validation, calibration, etc. What’s your problem? if it is not with the politicians. Is it with the 90%[or whatever that number is] of the unwashed masses who haven’t seen your guiding light? If so, it is a people problem, not a science problem.
Theo Goodwin says:
August 26, 2011 at 2:34 pm
What you said in this post, Theo, was enormously helpful to me in understanding the significance of the Kirkby experiment. Very many thanks for it.
Leif Svalgaard says: August 27, 2011 at 2:18 pm
[half of the change in global mean temperature takes place in the first 15 years,]
Who did that Physical Experiment on the Earth?
Leif Svalgaard says: August 27, 2011 at 3:05 pm
[Your grasp of physics struggles to shine through…]
.. like sunlight between the CLOUDs Caused by unshielded cosmic rays.
re: Leif Svalgaard says: August 27, 2011 at 3:13 pm
It sounds as if in part our disagreement is a problem of the time frame that we’re discussing – and context also. Yes, we are starting to be able to do some empirical checks of the AGW models, but these models were claimed to be accurate before that was even possible, and some aspects will only be able to be checked after many more years/decades have passed. Consider also the rather loud claims of the modeler’s that current ‘deviations’ (e.g., the start of model falsification) isn’t falsification at all, but temporary perturbations in a continuing trend (as ‘projected’ by the models).
Yes, science is self correcting – but only over time, and when researchers actually use the scientific method, use it correctly that is, and when a sufficient number of scientists are studying whatever the subject in question happens to be – including some who actually verify and validate someone else’s prior work.
Please don’t put words in my mouth – I certainly do have a problem with how politicians have approached this issue. I’m just pointing out that it starts with the scientists, and that if they (in general) were accurately representing what the data actually show, and actively correcting false impressions, it would be far less likely or far more difficult for masses of politicians to run in the wrong direction – and far easier for the general population to rein in the ones that do go astray. (Let’s not even get started on main stream media complicity!)
One has to keep in mind that science isn’t divorced from the scientists – and scientists are human too, with all the frailties, foibles, character flaws, ethics & value issues that all humans have. The genius of science is that the method itself works to limit human error – but it only does so to the extent that those conducting the research actually follow the method, and others actually perform oversight to correct improper use of the method – and improper interpretation of the results.
Scientists are People Too. {VBG}
They talk about runaway green house effect… well, I think we’re currently suffering from runaway green house scientists.