Israeli Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv posted a guest essay at Luboš Motl The Reference Frame titled: The CLOUD is clearing
In a nutshell he’s saying that cosmic ray flux modulated by solar variability has a strong place right alongside CO2, and may in fact be a larger forcing.
He writes:
The results are very beautiful and they demonstrate, yet again, how cosmic rays (which govern the amount of atmospheric ionization) can in principle have an effect on climate.
What do I mean? First, it is well known that solar variability has a large effect on climate. In fact, the effect can be quantified and shown to be 6 to 7 times larger than one could naively expect from just changes in the total solar irradiance. This was shown by using the oceans as a huge calorimeter (e.g., as described here). Namely, an amplification mechanism must be operating.
…
As a consequence, anyone trying to understand past (and future) climate change must consider the whole effect that the sun has on climate, not just the relatively small variations in the total irradiance (which is the only solar influence most modelers consider). This in turn implies, that some of the 20th century warming should be attributed to the sun, and that the climate sensitivity is on the low side (around 1 deg increase per CO2 doubling)
Read the entire essay here
h/t to Dr. Indur Goklany
Also, William Briggs has an excellent summary as well.
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Too bad you don’t carry out into the next step (unlike CO2 which _is_ at EOL); what does that ‘nucleation’ of a beginning ice/water particle do next? Growing in size and number, altering the local environ from WV to ice particle/visible water/clouds etc …
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John Whitman says:
September 1, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Is either Kirkby or Shaviv invested with more authority than the other in this matter? It would seem not. I would like to see them dialog directly with us watching.
Authority doesn’t do much for me.
Leif, which graph(s) of Shaviv’s do you have issue with?
I’ll turn it around: which graph of his matches the actual cosmic ray intensity measured?
tallbloke says:
September 1, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Yes, but not by the people Leif links to.
In this business, cherry picking what you like is a time honored practice.
.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 1, 2011 at 2:17 pm
David Corcoran says:
September 1, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Leif, hasn’t the effect of Forbush events on cloud cover already been clearly demonstrated?
No: http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/13265/2008/acpd-8-13265-2008.html
“In conclusion, no response to variations in cosmic rays associated with Forbush decrease events was found in marine low clouds in remote regions using MODIS data”
I only had a few minutes to scan your linked reference, but I found this+
“Whether such a signal exists at all can not be ruled out on the basis of the present study, due to the small number of cases and because the strongest Forbush decrease events indicate
slightly higher correlations than the average events. Even though those strong events are rare, with only 6 events over 5 years, the amplitude is similar to that occurring during the solar cycle, so from a climate perspective these strong events may deserve particular attention. Further investigations of a larger number of such events are needed before final conclusions can be drawn on the possible role of galactic cosmic rays for clouds and climate.”
In general I would agree that it is entirely premature to conclude that Svensmark et al have been proven right, but I’m also not so sure that it is justified to claim they’ve been proven wrong
Leif, if we asked Shaviv why he does not agree with you on cosmic ray intensity what do you feel his argument would be? and why do you feel he is incorrect? I assume you know his argument (but perhaps not?)
Thanks
in australia we had a long range weather forcaster he believed in the sun the moon and parst records have a read he new all the time that the sun played a big part in the weather http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jones-inigo-owen-539
The issues related to science and politics are confused here. There is a strong desire on the part of many people to use the CERN results to push back hard on the political forces that are using poor science to drive policy, regulations, taxation, and finally bury the free market. Yet again, the pure science forces are ignoring the political battle. You can’t separate these two aspects, even if you’d like, because you won’t be doing science for long if the economy collapses.
Generally speaking, war and starvation are bad for free thought.
Get out of the ivory tower, and get your hands dirty. You will have to pick a side at some point, or you will be placed in one camp or another by others. Don’t forget you are a human, living in a civilized society. I doubt you are growing all your own food and supplying all your own water and electricity.
If you want to avoid a very bad outcome, it is time face the forces seeking total control. Lend a credible voice to oppose power-mad governments. Provide practical alternative visions of the future. Find ways to show the public what authentic experts recommend. If you actually believe windmills and PV will work, fully scaled to supply a significant portion of the population, maybe start by explaining to us how that approach could be practical. I certainly don’t believe it. Otherwise, we need to articulate a better way.
Einstein knew we needed a Manhattan project to survive WW II. He worked to help make it happen. After we won the war, he and others had the luxury of having some second thoughts about the result. We face another threat to freedom and even survival. We haven’t earned the right to sit back and assess the results.
I’ve read a post today on another website that said if the Earth’s magnetic poles are shifting, the magnetic shield would be weakening and in the process and hence changing the amount of cosmic rays that are hitting the Earth. Something to think about…
I still want to see the actual numbers on cloud formation.
The CLOUD experiment has confirmed that there is an effect, but we don’t know if it is minimal or climate-driving.
The problem is that climate science does not want to know what the answer is. They would be perfectly happy if all further experiments were quashed. I and you, however, should want to know what the answer is.
ammonia in the gas phase as a density of 0.72 kg/m3, a little less than methane and much less than N2, 1.2 kg/m3, and O2 1.4 kg/m3. Both ammonia and methane make floating balloons, so ammonia in the upper atmosphere is no problem.
A reasonable ligand, in both liquid and gas chemistry, for free electrons in the form of the ammoniated electron radical anion.
An ammoniated electron would produce a really strange set of hydrogen bonded water clusters, on one side you would have a water cluster binding to the hydrogen atoms and on the other a really strong N(-) H-O-H bond, what is would do to the lone pair would be eye watering.
Essentially what you have is a molecule with the ability to hydrogen bond to the lone pairs of the oxygen atoms of three water molecules N-H…:O-H and on the other side you have an electron trio, giving two 1 1/2 pairing electrons, giving two strong H-N;…H-O-H
My guess is that this might act as a catalytic template, generating two asymmetric, repulsive, water clusters that have a tendency to undergo fission. You could have episodic loss of water clusters, like a drop of a pipe. As the cluster gets bigger the hydrogen bonding energy at the surface of the water cluster will get to be bigger than the inelegant bonding to the nitrogen electron pair and a half.
I must admit I hadn’t thought about a possible autocatalytic water nucleation reaction using an ammoniated electron but it would be very hard to make an unfractured water cluster, by that meaning having interconnected hydrogen bonds on the inside, around an ammoniated electron. Growing and budding is actually a real possibility; thanks Geoff Sherrington.
This is definitely one for the quantum computing chemists
S. Geiger says:
September 1, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Leif, if we asked Shaviv why he does not agree with you on cosmic ray intensity what do you feel his argument would be? and why do you feel he is incorrect? I assume you know his argument (but perhaps not?)
I don’t think he would have an argument as the trend in cosmic ray intensity is an observational fact.
Hoser says:
September 1, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Get out of the ivory tower, and get your hands dirty.
Like Jim Hansen…
kramer says:
September 1, 2011 at 5:57 pm
I’ve read a post today on another website that said if the Earth’s magnetic poles are shifting, the magnetic shield would be weakening and in the process and hence changing the amount of cosmic rays that are hitting the Earth. Something to think about…
The changing magnetic field of the Earth is, in fact, regulating the cosmic ray flux, and that much more than the sun. The observations I refer to are of the net result and show no trend.
Leif – you say “I don’t think he would have an argument as the trend in cosmic ray intensity is an observational fact.”, so could be please be clearer on what aspects you and he disagree on? I thought you stated that you disagreed with his graph of cosmic ray intensity, apparently I’ve mistaken this point.
Thanks
Steven Mosher says:
September 1, 2011 at 1:33 pm
dont bug them with observations Leif. their skepticism has flown the coop………………………………………….
That’s right Steve, I have no concern that co2 increases on the order we are witnessing and on the order of the next 100yrs of spew will cause a climate catastrophe. A global mean temperature as measured today with our shoddy, non-homogenous surface data set and shoddy proxy data gives this 25yr meteorologist little faith in the ridiculous metric known as a ‘global mean temperature’ or any prediction made by IPCC or any other outfit. I fully understand the inherent issues with predicting the future and there is no evidence that co2 DRIVES climate in anything but the most trivial way. However, I DO fully understand the money that is being made by the alarmists and the political ramifications of going down this insidious green highway. It’s plain and clear as an autumnal Canadian High and if you can’t see this, you’re simply a fool.
S. Geiger says:
September 1, 2011 at 6:32 pm
I thought you stated that you disagreed with his graph of cosmic ray intensity, apparently I’ve mistaken this point.
We cannot disagree on the graph, as that is a simple observational fact. He ignores the graph [I think] or does not know about cosmic rays [I don’t think so, but it is possible].
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 1, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Hoser says:
September 1, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Get out of the ivory tower, and get your hands dirty.
Like Jim Hansen………….
NOW THAT’S A KNEE SLAPPER!!! BWAH HA HA!!…
Leif Svalgaard says: September 1, 2011 at 6:21 pm
[The changing magnetic field of the Earth is, in fact, regulating the cosmic ray flux, and that much more than the sun. ]
Nope, that is Not True, it is the Sun.
Indian Journal of Radio and Space Physics
Volume 35, December 2006. pp 387-395
Correlation of the long-term cosmic ray intensity variation with sunspot numbers and tilt angle
…
Introduction:
The long-term behavior of cosmic rays in relation to solar activity has been extensively studied by many authors and different epochs. Now it is an established fact that galactic cosmic rays are inversely correlated with sunspot numbers, having their maximum intensity at the minimum of the sunspot cycle.
…
See Also: Figure 2.
http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/3932/1/IJRSP%2035%286%29%20387-395.pdf
Check the Actual Measured Data, not your old power point slides and other models.
I did point this out to you last week, perhaps you forgot, again.
Bill Illis says:
September 1, 2011 at 6:08 pm
The problem is that climate science does not want to know what the answer is. They would be perfectly happy if all further experiments were quashed. I and you, however, should want to know what the answer is.
Spot on Bill.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 1, 2011 at 3:05 pm
In this business, cherry picking what you like is a time honored practice.
In your case even from within the paper you linked to.
Dave Wendt says:
September 1, 2011 at 3:34 pm
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/13265/2008/acpd-8-13265-2008.html
“Whether such a signal exists at all can not be ruled out on the basis of the present study, due to the small number of cases and because the strongest Forbush decrease events indicate
slightly higher correlations than the average events. Even though those strong events are rare, with only 6 events over 5 years, the amplitude is similar to that occurring during the solar cycle, so from a climate perspective these strong events may deserve particular attention. Further investigations of a larger number of such events are needed before final conclusions can be drawn on the possible role of galactic cosmic rays for clouds and climate.”
The duty of a scientist is to bend over backwards to show the public how he may be wrong; as Feynman said in his treatise on integrity. The scientists who made the study Leif linked discharged that responsibility honorably and responsibly.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 1, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Steven Mosher says:
September 1, 2011 at 1:33 pm
dont bug them with observations Leif. their skepticism has flown the coop
Like AGW became a religion so is skepticism. Both developments are saddening, but such is human nature, I guess, that things eventually end up like this.
===================================
That is a big fat red herring and you know it (or maybe you don’t). But the two do not match.
“Skepticism is a religion?” What the hell are you talking about?
I thought skepticism was the proper attitude in matters of science.
And so I suppose you are including yourself in the “human nature”….things “eventually ending up like this.”
Achilles heel…found.
Even you have one…and it is a prejudice against any scientist who disagrees with you.
Prove me wrong!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Andrew30 says:
September 1, 2011 at 7:31 pm
[The changing magnetic field of the Earth is, in fact, regulating the cosmic ray flux, and that much more than the sun. ]
Nope, that is Not True, it is the Sun.
Cosmic rays produce radioactive 14C atoms. Here is the concentration of 14C for the last 11,000 years: http://www.leif.org/research/14C-past-11000-years.png The red curve is the measured concentration [corrected for the decay of 14C]. The blue curve is the solar part of the variation. Here is the 14C plotted together with the strength of the Earth’s magnetic dipole: http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRays-GeoDipole.jpg The little wiggles are the solar part. Even Kirkby gets it wrong. Here is a plot of cosmic ray intensity according to him http://www.leif.org/research/INTCAL-Jasper.png the red curve is actual concentration, the blue curves the solar part. Beer explains how the modulation of the cosmic rays depends on solar activity and on the geomagnetic field [slide 12 ff] http://www.leif.org/EOS/Beer-GCRs.pdf As you can see the geomagnetic modulation is by far the largest.
tallbloke says:
September 1, 2011 at 8:33 pm
The duty of a scientist is to bend over backwards to show the public how he may be wrong; as Feynman said in his treatise on integrity. The scientists who made the study Leif linked discharged that responsibility honorably and responsibly.
In stark contrast to what Svensmark did.
Nir Shaviv’s blog http://www.sciencebits.com/ is a great read. I especially recommend his discussion of climate sensitivity. He doesn’t post very frequently, but whenever he does, it is pure gold.
Could we have his blog added to the list of recommended links?
savethesharks says:
September 1, 2011 at 8:56 pm
“Skepticism is a religion?” What the hell are you talking about.
Prove me wrong!
You do a good job yourself on that. Most of the people that proclaim themselves ‘skeptics’ adhere to a set of beliefs that cannot be attacked. They are equally dogmatic as the AGW crowd, albeit with opposite sign. To wit: the venom spewed, the falsehoods trumpeted, the ignorance displayed. Take Andrew30 as a shining example.
Scottish Sceptic says:
September 1, 2011 at 11:39 am
And whilst we’re on the subject of CERN, what is the point of CERN? I remember they were a prestigious research institute back in the 1980s, but what have they done since then? Are they still looking of the “god” particle or the “unified theory of how to get research funding” or whatever it was? I assume they haven’t found nuclear fusion which would be useful.
And, what do you do with a god particle?
Seriously, what is the economic justification for CERN?
CERN has been preparing the Large Hadron Collider and the experiments around it for all these years. The cost of CERN , and of ITER, and of any other large collaborative research site, is comparable and no more than the cost of an airplane carrier .
What is the economic justification of an airplane carrier that may be destroyed in a night?
Of course the reason for research institutes is to answer the frontier questions in physics. When frontier questions in science are answered twenty, thirty, a hundred years hence great technological and societal changes take place. Nobody could foresee the technological use of electromagnetism when Maxwell had the breakthrough research.
The same is true for quantum mechanics and nuclear energy.
And in addition there are the spin offs.
If you took the trouble to energize your grey cells you would have known that even this medium we are communicating in, the world wide web, is a spin off from the CERN research of the eighties. Can anybody foresee the spin offs from the current technological push that building and maintaining such a machine and such detectors involves? Already the GRID is pushing data gathering storage and manipulation to never before seen levels.
Some humility in questioning is in order.
Andrew30 says:
September 1, 2011 at 7:31 pm
See Also: Figure 2.
http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bitstream/123456789/3932/1/IJRSP%2035%286%29%20387-395.pdf
These people are rediscovering that the cosmic ray intensity is modulated by the tilt of the heliospheric current sheet. Something I discovered and described in Nature back in 1976: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Nature/262766a0.pdf
This solar cycle dependence is but a very small addition to the main variation caused by the varying strength of the geomagnetic dipole. You see, as Mark Twain once said: “it is not what you know that gets you in trouble, it is what you know, that just ain’t so”.
“cosmic ray flux modulated by solar variability has a strong place right alongside CO2”
right alongside CO2 ? CO2 doesn’t have a strong place in climate modulation!
I want to add a postcript on my diatribe about CERN and large research effort, as also space exploration:
When we look at the works of humans, what remains is the pyramids, the parthenons, the taj mahals , the medieval cathedrals. Building all these required a tremendous collaborative effort and a large percentage of the GDP of the time. Why? It seems that in humans there is a collective urge to create monuments in the glory of the deity of the time.
We do not glorify deities, but we do have knowledge and technology as a goal. Our collective collaborative efforts are the modern cathedrals, this time glorifying knowledge and the mind.
Jason says:
September 1, 2011 at 12:50 pm
“Does it make sense that if we cross the galactic equator, that we get even more than if we’re slightly above or below? Because according to the Mayans, we’re in the midst of crossing it now.”
Actually, we’re not. It will be somewhere between 5 to 15 million years until that happens. What the hoopla is (in relation to the Mayans) is that the orientation of the Earth-Sun will be pointed at the center of the Galaxy… and event that takes about 8 to 12 years to complete… and which has been going on for about 3 to 4 years now.