CERN Finds “Significant” Cosmic Ray Cloud Effect
Best known for its studies of the fundamental constituents of matter, the CERN particle-physics laboratory in Geneva is now also being used to study the climate. Researchers in the CLOUD collaboration have released the first results from their experiment designed to mimic conditions in the Earth’s atmosphere. By firing beams of particles from the lab’s Proton Synchrotron accelerator into a gas-filled chamber, they have discovered that cosmic rays could have a role to play in climate by enhancing the production of potentially cloud-seeding aerosols. —Physics World, 24 August 2011
If Henrik Svensmark is right, then we are going down the wrong path of taking all these expensive measures to cut carbon emissions; if he is right, we could carry on with carbon emissions as normal.–Terry Sloan, BBC News 3 April 2008
Henrik Svensmark welcomes the new results, claiming that they confirm research carried out by his own group, including a study published earlier this year showing how an electron beam enhanced production of clusters inside a cloud chamber. He acknowledges that the link between cosmic rays and cloud formation will not be proved until aerosols that are large enough to act as condensation surfaces are studied in the lab, but believes that his group has already found strong evidence for the link in the form of significant negative correlations between cloud cover and solar storms. Physics World, 24 August 2011
CERN’s CLOUD experiment is designed to study the formation of clouds and the idea that Cosmic Rays may have an influence. The take-home message from this research is that we just don’t understand clouds in anything other than hand-waving terms. We also understand the effects of aerosols even less. The other things to come out of it are that trace constituencies in the atmosphere seem to have a big effect on cloud formation, and that Cosmic rays also have an effect, a “significant” one according to CERN. –David Whitehouse, The Observatory, 25 August 2011
I have asked the CERN colleagues to present the results clearly, but not to interpret them. 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. –Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN, Welt Online 15 July 2011
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. –-Nigel Calder, 24 August 2011
Jasper Kirkby is a superb scientist, but he has been a lousy politician. In 1998, anticipating he’d be leading a path-breaking experiment into the sun’s role in global warming, he made the mistake of stating that the sun and cosmic rays “will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century.” Global warming, he theorized, may be part of a natural cycle in the Earth’s temperature. Dr. Kirkby was immediately condemned by climate scientists for minimizing the role of human beings in global warming. Stories in the media disparaged Dr. Kirkby by citing scientists who feared oil-industry lobbyists would use his statements to discredit the greenhouse effect. And the funding approval for Dr. Kirkby’s path-breaking experiment — seemingly a sure thing when he first announced his proposal– was put on ice. –Lawrence Solomon, National Post, 23 Feb 2007
Smokey is asking the impossible.
He wants ‘”testable, empirical evidence directly connecting AGW – in what otherwise appears [to him] to be simply natural climate cycles and temperature changes – to “carbon”’.
“Empirical” is defined in my Chambers Concise Dictionary as “resting on trial or experiment; known or knowing only by experience”. In my early days as a weather forecaster (in the 1960s) we used many empirical formulae to predict, for example, night minimum temperatures, fog formation temperatures and vertical velocities in mountain wave conditions. Empirical methods are a poor substitute for calculations based on equations linking the values of all the variables, but we did not have the number-crunching computers in those days. Thankfully the case for anthropological global warming does not rest upon empirical evidence.
No forecast can be verified until after the event. Therefore the Scientific Method, in its purest form, withstanding any number of replicated experiments, cannot be applied to a forecast of terrestrial conditions decades or centuries into the future. We and our descendants will be part of the experiment!
From multiple converging lines of evidence, we know the Earth is warming. The warming is closely correlated with the carbon dioxide. Based on the known physics of greenhouse gases, the amount of warming predicted by the radiative physics of greenhouse gases, and the physical relationships of solids, liquids and gases, very closely matches observed increases. This is basic physics.
What Smokey describes as “simply [undefined by him] natural climate cycles and temperature changes” can be attributed to just that, until man started adding to atmospheric CO2. He needs to prove his assertion that temperature changes since then have remained natural. Overwhelming evidence, from past and present relationships between CO2 levels and temperatures, refute that assertion.
There is no precedent for knowing the global effects of CO2 at 392 parts per million (ppm) since at least 700,000 years ago, because the range found in ice core bubbles lies between 180 and 280 ppm. The extra CO2 in our lifetimes is mainly from burning fossil fuels (Suess 1955, Revelle and Suess, 1958).
By analysing its isotopic signature we can reliably differentiate between naturally-occurring CO2 present in the carbon cycle and that produced by the burning of fossil fuels.
What more evidence does he want, apart from wanting future measurements now?
Smokey,
my last post was not permitted by the moderators. I don’t know why. You asked for empirical evidence. I gave you six points – observed, tested, verified facts. All you need to do is explain why a) they are NOT empirical observations, or b) why they do not constitute relevant bits of evidence that increased CO2 causes warming.
You asked for “any evidence” of empirical credentials supporting the proposition that increasing CO2 warms the globe. I will not chase up the dozens of graphs and topic changes you continually introduce until you have explained a) and b). I will not go in circles. I will go step by step. Please do likewise.
4caster and barry,
Let me repeat: “…if there was definitive evidence, then there wouldn’t be this endless argument over whether human-emitted CO2 changes global temperatures. The reason that the argument is endless is specifically because there is no quantifiable, testable evidence that X amount of CO2 raises the global temperature by Y degrees.
“The onus is on you and the rest of the alarmist crowd to show conclusively that human-emitted CO2 causes the global temperature to rise. Sorry you don’t have any testable evidence, but you just don’t. And neither does anyone else – thus the interminable argument, where climate alarmist True Believers try despearately hard to convince scientific skeptics [the only honest kind of scientists] that correlation equals causation.”
Try to let that sink in: there is no agreement regarding definitive evidence of AGW, none at all, thus the constant debate and argument. The AGW debates resemble pre-Keplerian arguments over epicycles. You demand that scientific skeptics jettison the scientific method, and that we accept your evidence-free belief system. But that would be dishonest on the part of skeptics, and we would descend to the same level as climate alarmists.
Also, I did not ask for “any evidence of empirical ‘credentials’ supporting the proposition that increasing CO2 warms the globe.” I specifically asked for testable, falsifiable, replicable evidence. But of course, there is none. Please don’t invent strawman quotes.
The requirements for an accepted scientific theory – which AGW is certainly not – are listed in Karl Popper’s six rules:
Thus there is no AGW theory, because AGW cannot make consistent, accurate, testable predictions. Neither can Astrology. Both AGW and Astrology are belief systems that fail the scientific method and are disconfirmed by the null hyothesis. They may be true. But neither one is able to make accurate, testable predictions.
And barry, if you don’t click on the links I provide and study them, that simply means you don’t want to see those inconvenient truths because your mind is already made up and closed tight. Saying “La-la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you!” is not the result of scientific thinking.
So ‘scientific skeptics’ are ‘the only honest kind of scientists’.
According to dictionary.com, a skeptic is:
1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.
2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.
3. a person who doubts the truth of a religion, especially Christianity, or of important elements of it.
Ignoring definition 3, which would open whole new can of worms, I am happy to be counted in definition 1. Smokey definitely falls into category 2. He maintains his scepticism in the face of overwhelming scientific and pre-historical research, on the grounds that confirmation or refutation of the forecast, based on that testable, falsifiable, replicable research will not be available until the period of the forecast has ended.
John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist, is reported to have said, when his alleged inconsistency was challenged: “When the facts change, I change my mind? What do you do, sir?”
I, previously a type 1 skeptic, changed my mind in 1980 during a Royal Meteorological Society lecture by Prof. Hubert Lamb of University of East Anglia. But, however much data accumulates, and however great the correlation between data and theoretical calculations, Smokey will never change his mind until the complete data-set is available retrospectively. I predict that none of us will be around then. But perhaps Smokey won’t believe that forecast until it has been verified, tested, falsified and replicated.
Correction: The quote from Keynes had incorrect punctuation. It should read:
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
4caster has established the fact that he has no concept whatever of the climate null hypothesis. To quote an esteemed climatologist: “No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.”
A null hypothesis is the statistical hypothesis that states that there are no differences between observed and expected data. To falsify the climate null hypothesis requires that the current climate must differ in some respect – primarily in temperature – from the parameters of the Holocene. But there are no such differences. None at all. Temperatures, trends and rates of change have all far exceeded curent parameters numerous times in the past. Tornadoes and hurricanes have been stronger and more numerous in the past, and all when CO2 was under 300 ppmv. Thus, the null hypothesis has never been falsified.
The entire CAGW edifice is built upon always-inaccurate climate models. That is why Trenberth complains: “…the null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence.” Trenberth knows that the never-falsified null hypothesis wrecks his CO2=CAGW alarmist hypothesis. Since there are no unusual changes, the null hypothesis, the scientific method, and Occam’s Razor all say that since the AGW hypothesis has no discernible or provable basis in the real world, the rational position is to throw out the repeatedly failed CAGW hypothesis, which hasn’t been able to predict it’s way out of a wet paper bag. So Trenberth now wants skeptical scientists [the only honest kind of scientist] to be forced to prove a negative! As if.
At least Trnberth has a rational motive for his anti-science: he’s making a pile of money from it. What I really wonder about are the mindless lemmings who trumpet debunked alarmist talking points, and who can’t answer a simple question like: What X amount of human-emitted CO2 results in Y degree of global warming? And if they have a putative answer, they can’t provide verifiable observations of their Belief from the real world.
CO2 is uniformly well-mixed gas throughout the atmosphere, but almost all the warming is taking place in the Northern Hemisphere. And R.W. Wood’s experiment showed no warming due to CO2. And Venus, with a 96%+ CO2 atmosphere at one Bar gradient shows no CO2 effect. And Mars, also with a CO2 atmosphere, is freezing cold. And as CO2 steadily ramps up, the planet’s temperature has been flat to declining for almost a decade and a half. And at a steady ±280 ppmv CO2 for millions of years, the planet has been much warmer – and much, much colder. Inconvenient facts, eh? Facts that force every honest person to be a skeptic of CO2=CAGW, which anyway only exists in computer models.
This endless argument exists in blogs, not in the real world of science. Roy Spencer agrees that the globe will warm due to CO2 increase. He has been guested at this website explaining how.So does Richard Lindzen. So does Roger Pileke Snr. So does any qualified Earth scientist. The “endless argument” is being carried out by you and not many others. Even the staunches skeptical scientists agrees that CO2 will warm the Earth. Your view is not shared by science, I’m afraid. It’s a wonder you haven’t noticed.
Speaking of “ghosts”, what is the specific mechanism that caused warming for the last 60 years? For the last 30? CO2 explains it because we know CO2 traps long-wave energy. You keep asking for hard evidence and facts – and you’re given them – but whenever you’re asked to explain the warming in the industrial age, you posit “cycles”, and “recovery”. what is the actual mechanism, or are you going to promote your belief in the Gaia spirit?
Let’s have facts and not assumptions and guesswork. What, specifically, has made the globe warm?
Smokey’s latest contribution is just a rant. He now purports a steady plus or minus 280 ppmv CO2 for millions of years. (I congratulate him on finding the symbol for “plus or minus”, but what does he mean by it? How can a proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere ever be negative?) What makes him think that all the warming is taking place in the northern hemisphere? Is it just that most observing sites are there? Or that most of the land mass is there? He asserts that Venus, with a >96% CO2 atmosphere at one Bar gradient (whatever that means) shows no CO2 effect. But it is hotter than Mercury, which sits only half of the distance from the sun as does Venus, and, significantly, has little or no atmospheric CO2.
The people who are making a pile of money from anti-science are those who say what people like to hear: that we can continue plundering and polluting the planet with no ill-effects. People like Christopher Booker and Professor Plimer have a very receptive audience. It is music to the ears of most people, who yearn for “Business as Usual”. Real scientists just want to make an honest living.
Once more, Smokey is asking mainstream scientists to prove a negative, quoting an unidentified but “esteemed” climatologist : “No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.” When two variables are observed to change almost in lockstep, the null hypothesis must be that one is dependent on the other. If Smokey wishes to argue that “the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability”, he needs to explain the causal process. He also needs to explain why carbon dioxide changes can be discounted as the major cause.
Smokey also asks: “What X amount of human-emitted CO2 results in Y degree of global warming?” Well, perhaps someone else can answer this more directly, but according to http://www.skepticalscience.com the correlation between the rates of change of CO2 and temperature from 1880 to 2008 is 0.874. The difference between observed and expected data is only (1 -0.874) = 0.126, which is good enough correlation for most people, given that no-one is suggesting that CO2 is the only cause of temperature variability.
barry me boi, you’re still striking out. I don’t know how you do it, it must be a God-given talent!☺
How many times do I have to explain to you that I accept the radiative physics that says CO2 warms the atmosphere? My view is closest to Prof Lindzen’s, and it has not changed for years. You have a habit of presuming things that aren’t so, and as a result you’re consistently hitting foul balls and striking out. Cut ‘n’ paste my quotes verbatim, and you might start getting some base hits. Inventing strawman positions that I don’t agree with only embarasses you when I post what I actually wrote.
As I also have patiently explained to you, if we knew all the mechanisms that control the climate, the debate would be over. You say: “What, specifically, has made the globe warm?” Since I don’t know, why don’t you tell me? The planet has been much warmer in the past, when CO2 levels were very low. Very much colder, too. So CO2 can’t be the driving force, can it? The null hypothesis says “No.” And Occam’s Razor says: Don’t add extraneous entities… like CO2, for instance. It’s not necessary to explain the climate during the Holocene, and it’s not necessary now. It probably has a minor effect. But that effect is incidental to much stronger forcings.
You’re also incorrect regarding your belief that “Even the staunches skeptical scientists agrees that CO2 will warm the Earth.” You just made that up, didn’t you? C’mon, admit it.
Here are some estimates for Climate Sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 (CO2x2)
Temperature Change (°C):
Miskolczi:
0.0 [ZE-RO]
Idso:
0.37
Spencer:
0.46
Lindzen:
≈ ≥1
Schwartz:
1.1
Chylek:
1.4
And the preposterous IPCC:
3.0+
See? The estimates range all over the map, from zero on up. And the debate continues unabated, because CO2—> AGW is not a testable theory. It is a conjecture, promoted to a weak hypothesis that the planet itself is falsifying.
Finally, you always misconstrue my essential point that there is no testable, empirical evidence per the scientific method directly connecting X rise in CO2 with Y rise in temperature. I never asked for physics-based evidence, I already agree with that. But it’s a leap to say there is replicable evidence proving a direct connection between human emissions and global warming. There is still no evidence of that, and an internationally esteemed climatologist like Dr Miskolczi knows more than you and me put together about the subject. He estimates sensitivity at zero. Just because you like to scare yourself with IPCC ghost stories doesn’t mean they’re accurate. So far, there is no direct evidence supporting any CO2 sensitivity number [but as I said, my view is closest to Dr Richard Lindzen’s].
4caster is clueless as usual. For his edification on what a Bar is [root word, “barometer”, see?] here is a deconstruction of the putative CO2 effect.
4caster is wrong about Mercury because a planet with virtually no atmosphere can’t be compared with a planet with a thick, heavy atmosphere like Venus. We’re discussing atmospheric physics – at least I am. Apples & oranges, my clueless friend.
4caster congratulates me on finding the ± symbol [which I have been using for many years, along with others such as °, ≥, ≤, ≈, ∆, µ, etc., etc. But 4caster asks, “what does he mean by it? How can a proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere ever be negative?” Here’s a clue, my clueless friend: it means more or less.
4caster asks, “…one Bar gradient (whatever that means).” See the link above, it has clues so hopefully you will learn something. We can always hope, right?
4caster says, “Once more, Smokey is asking mainstream scientists to prove a negative, quoting an unidentified but “esteemed” climatologist : “No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.” When two variables are observed to change almost in lockstep, the null hypothesis must be that one is dependent on the other.”
Well… No. By the numbers: first off, the climatologist who made that quote was Dr Roy Spencer. Who, I think, has forgotten more atmospheric physics than Mr 4caster will ever learn. And second, it is quite clear that 4caster still has no understanding of the null hypothesis, none at all. “Two variables” indeed, heh. And of course the null hypothesis has nothing whatever to do with “the causal process.” Mr 4caster still has no clue about what the null hypothesis is, or how it works.
Finally, linking to the debunked Skeptical Pseudo-Science blog? Really? That’s a propaganda blog run by a cartoonist who IIRC is funded by Soros. Lubos Motl, a real scientist, has completely debunked Cook’s blog: ttp://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/john-cook-skeptical-science.html His last paragraph sums up the whole website: ”There exists no climate threat and there exists no empirically rooted evidence that the human impact on the climate deserves the attention of anyone except for a few excessively specialized experts who should investigate such speculative questions. All opinions that the climate change is dangerous, man-made, or even relevant for policymaking are based on the irrational attitude, cherry-picking, intimidation, censorship, and the general sloppiness of the kind that Mr Cook has shown us once again.”
More debunking of Skeptical Pseudo-Science:
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/06/how-john-cook-unskeptically-believes-in-a-hotspot-that-thermometers-cant-find
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/the-unskeptical-guide-to-the-skeptics-handbook
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/as-usual-john-cook-doesnt-get-it
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/an-exercise-in-just-how-clueless-they-are
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/cooks-hokey-stick
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/skeptical-science-climate-sensitivity-negative
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/skeptical-science-completely-missed-the-point
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/john-cooks-logical-flaw
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/talking-out-of-both-sides-of-the-alarmist-mouth
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/18/sea-ice-extend-answer-to-skepticalscience-com
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/11/pielke-senior-misinformation-on-the-website-%E2%80%9Cskeptical-science-%E2%80%93-getting-skeptical-about-global-warming-skepticism%E2%80%9D
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/27/skeptical-science-john-cook-embarrassing-himself
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/07/john-cooks-blog-photosynthesis-is.html
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/08/skeptics-iphone-app-endorsed-de-facto-by-critic
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/01/rebuttal-to-the-skeptical-science-crux-of-a-core
And this one is not really a rebuttal, but it’s something to laugh about: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/07/thanks-to-john-cook-for-boosting-the-our-climate-app
4caster, your comments are literally riddled with factual errors. Tell us exactly who said: “we can continue plundering and polluting the planet with no ill-effects.” C’mon, who said that? Or are you just making stuff up? And why does China get a free pass from folks like you? Really, it’s too easy debunking your misconceptions. Give me more, this is fun & easy.
By an unhappy coincidence, that is exactly what I did with the post that wasn’t allowed.
Either you have trouble expressing yourself, or something else makes your position incoherent. Now you tell us that you accept there is an empirical basis for CO2 warming (“radiative physics”). You confused things when you said upthread.
This reads to me that there is no empirical evidence AT ALL that CO2 would cause warming. But you’ve also said that radiative physics (demonstrates? suggests? is an empirical basis for?) CO2 warming. Even here, your views on ‘radiative physics are vague – I quote you on this below).
Now look at these quotes from YOU.
Ie – NONE. But then you follow with.
I took out the bit about harm/benefit, because these are qualitative judgements. If we just look at your reasoning here as to whether there is an empirical basis for CO2 increase to cause warming – well, you contradict yourself. Either there is evidence supporting CO2 warming, or there is not. It can’t be both. Either radiative physics is evidence that CO2 increase can cause warming, or there is as much evidence for this phenomenon as there is for ghosts – NONE. And if you think that radiative physics is not a sufficient basis for CO2 warming, then why do you hold any such belief that increased CO2 will cause any warming at all?
You can’t have it both ways.
I challenge you to make a post of one sentence, no more than 20 words, agreeing that radiative physics is an empirical basis for CO2 warming, or that it is not. Less than 20 words. One sentence. No links or further arguments or reams of links. Just to be crystal clear. Please. It is otherwise impossible to understand your position on this single point, and it is basic to any discussion that follows.
barry says:
“Less than 20 words. One sentence. No links…” & etc.
Now you’re assigning me homework?? Sorry, barry, but as of 9 am this morning [GMT minus 8] Mrs Smokey and I are leaving on a one week vacation [“holiday”] to the tropical paradise of Maui, Hawaii.
Sorry that I can’t complete your homework assignment, but WiFi permitting, maybe I can respond in the next day or two. You’ll understand that under the circumstances, homework is not my primary concern at the moment.
My mission is to relax and have fun, which includes a zombie-style existence with an umbrella-covered drink in front of me, furtively glancing at young female homo sapiens in skimpy outfits, and hoping that Mrs Smokey doesn’t notice. [Of course, she does notice. But she understands that reading the menu is not the same as ordering take-out.]
So au revoir to you and your pal Skippy [AKA 4caster]. I wish you both the best in your ongoing ghost stories predicting the imminent destruction of Planet Earth by that evil and dangerous molecule, CO2.
OK, gotta finish packing now. See you in the next thread.☺
I wish Smokey a happy holiday. He certainly needs it, and he will not be a bit bothered by his carbon footprint as he jets off to Hawaii.
Returning to his posting of 7th September at 6.37 p.m., his definition of ± takes some beating. I understand it to mean “plus or minus”, or “negative or positive”. He thinks it is “more or less”, which to me means approximately. So when I write that the square root of 2 to three decimal places is ± 1.414, he thinks that means it is more or less 1.414.
Of course I am aware that a bar is a pressure of 1,000 millibars, or hectopascals as we call them nowadays. But his term “one Bar gradient” is gobbledygook. A gradient is a ratio. I think he must mean One Bar Pressure Level, which is more or less (groan!) the average surface pressure on earth, where the temperature averages 15◦C or 288 K.
But that is not the effective emission temperature for outgoing long-wave radiated energy. I quote from University of Dublin Lecture Notes, Physical Meteorology: “Te is known as the effective emission temperature. It is determined solely by the insolation and the planetary albedo. On Earth, Te is much colder than the observed global mean surface temperature of 15◦C or 288 K. The difference must be due to the atmosphere.”