This new paper shows what appears to be a link between Forbush descreases and terrestrial temperature change shortly afterwards. It is a short time scale demonstration of what Svensmark is positing happens on a longer climate appropriate time scale as the solar magnetic field changes with long periods. I’ve covered the topic of Forbush decreases before, and thus I’ll draw on that for a refresher.
A Forbush decrease is a rapid decrease in the observed galactic cosmic ray intensity following a coronal mass ejection (CME). It occurs due to the magnetic field of the plasma solar wind sweeping some of the galactic cosmic rays away from Earth.
Well we have that going on in a dramatic way right now [Feb 19th, 2011], it’s been going on since late yesterday. See the Oulu neutron monitor (a proxy for cosmic rays) graph:
You can monitor it live on the WUWT solar page here.
Nigel Calder reports of a new peer reviewed paper from the Institute of Physics in Belgrade, Serbia which demonstrates a link between such Forbush events and the increase in the diurnal temperature range averaged across 184 stations in Europe. It is quite compelling to read.
Europe: diurnal temperatures after Forbush decreases
A. Dragić, I. Aničin, R. Banjanac, V. Udovičić, D. Joković´, D. Maletić and J. Puzović, “Forbush decreases – clouds relation in the neutron monitor era”, Astrophysics and Space Sciences Transactions, 7, 315–318, 2011.
It was published on 31 August and the full text is available here http://www.astrophys-space-sci-trans.net/7/315/2011/astra-7-315-2011.pdf It’s typical of the pathetic state of science reporting that I still seem to have the story to myself ten days later.
The focus was on the “natural experiments” in which big puffs of gas from the Sun block some of the cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy towards the Earth. The resulting falls in cosmic ray influx, called Forbush decreases, last for a few days. The game is to look for observable reductions in cloudiness in the aftermath of these events. The results are most clearly favourable to the Svensmark hypothesis for the Forbush decreases with the largest percentage reductions in cosmic rays. Scientists keen to falsify the hypothesis have only to mix in some of the weaker events for the untidiness of the world’s weather to “hide the decline”.
The Serbs avoid that blunder by picking out the strongest Forbush decreases. And by using the simple, reliable and long-provided weather-station measurements of temperature by night and day, they avoid technical, interpretive and data-availability problems that surround more direct observations of clouds and their detailed properties. The temperatures come from 184 stations scattered all across Europe (actually, so I notice, from Greenland to Siberia). A compilation by the Mount Washington Observatory that spans four decades, from 1954 to 1995, supplies the catalogue of Forbush decreases.
The prime results are seen here in Dragić et al.‘s Figure 5. The graphs show the increase in the diurnal temperature range averaged across the continent in the days following the onset of cosmic ray decreases (day 0 on the horizontal scales). The upper panel is the result for 22 Forbush events in the range 7−10%, with a peak at roughly +0.35 oC in the diurnal temperature range. The lower panel is for 13 events greater than 10%. The peak goes to +0.6 oC and the influence lasts longer. It’s very satisfactory for the Svensmark hypothesis that the effect increases like this, with greater reductions in the cosmic rays. The results become hard (impossible?) to explain by any mechanism except an influence of cosmic rays on cloud formation.
To be candid, these results are much better than I’d have expected for observations from a densely populated continent with complex weather patterns, where air pollution and effects of vegetation confuse the picture of available cloud condensation nuclei. Svensmark’s team has emphasised the observable effects over the oceans. Now the approach taken by the Belgrade team opens the door to similar investigations in other continents. Let a march around the world’s land masses begin!
Physicist Luboš Motl also writes about the new paper:
What have they found? If they take all Forbush decreases, the effect is insignificant. However, if they compute the average of the largest Forbush decreases, they find a substantial increase of the day-night temperature difference by as much as a Fahrenheit degree around 3 days after the event [reference to Figure 5 above].
…
A higher day-night temperature difference indicates that the number of clouds is smaller – because clouds cool the days but heat up the nights a little bit, and thus reduce the temperature difference – which is in agreement with the cosmoclimatological expectation: the Forbush decreases makes the galactic cosmic rays disappear for some time (because of some massive, temporarily elevated activity of the Sun).
I think it’s both simple and clever to look at the day-night differences because the overall noise in the temperature is suppressed while the signal caused by the clouds is kept. Just to be sure, it’s obvious that clouds do reduce the day-time differences but that doesn’t mean that they preserve the day-night average. At typical places, they cool the days more than they heat up the nights.
For me, this paper begs replication and confirmation. The problem they have with the European data set is that it is noisy which required the averaging. Here in the USA though, there’s a dataset that may work even better, and that’s from the recently completed U.S. Climate Reference Network operated by the National Climatic Data Center. While that network is too new to be useful yet for long term climate studies, the care that was taken for station siting placement, accuracy of sensors, data resolution, and quality control make it a perfect candidate for use in replication of this effect.
These stations were designed with climate science in mind. Three independent measurements of temperature and precipitation are made at each station, insuring continuity of record and maintenance of well-calibrated and highly accurate observations. The stations are placed in pristine environments expected to be free of development for many decades. Stations are monitored and maintained to high standards, and are calibrated on an annual basis.
The data is of high quality, so any new study looking for this effect may not even need to do the DTR averaging done by Dragić et al. to see the effect if it is real.
The logged USCRN data is now available online here http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/observations.htm The February Forbush decrease event I highlighted at the beginning of this post might make a good starting point.
I see a paper on this in the near future, maybe even in Dessler record time.
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Ged:
I think I may be able to build a proxy for DF. Basically I need to identify days that are brighter than normal and less bright than normal… so I’m thinking I can use some code to generate the theoretical insolation for the points in the map and then compare the actual to that and have some sort of ratio.. It also may make more sense to correlate the gcr count with that..
For now, I’m just working on the software infrastructure so that others can play along..
There are also maps of insolation used for the solar industry that have long term normals…
thinking…
dangerous
David,
I have hourly insolation data and temperature data and precip data.
I just binned it into days as a first cut look.. basically is this effect large?
In anycase you need to define an optimal detection strategy.
In a couple days I will publish the R package to let anyone download and set up
there own study.. I just assemble the tools.
Bengt A says:
September 13, 2011 at 11:14 am
The paper by Jasa Calogovic and Frank Arnold you’re citing isn’t very impressive.
That Pierced is citing…
In my opinion, NONE of the papers, pro or con, are very impressive, or even a little bit impressive. Apparently, some people have a much lower bar.
“but I also think the Svensmark paper carries weight…”
All the papers carry some weight, it is just that it is mighty little. Discussing 5 or 13 or some small number like that of events when dealing with a system as variable as the weather is laughable in any case, UNLESS the result is VERY clear, that is that every event shows the effect and that the effect is never otherwise seen without a corresponding causative event.
Leif S
First you list five papers as rebuttal to the claim that FDs affect cloudiness, and then you state that those papers are unimpressive. So why did you list them in the first place? If this is your area of expertise, then why don’t you bring out some more impressive papers that seriously challenge the idea that FDs has an impact on clouds?
As for your comment that you would like to see a “VERY clear” result where “every event shows the effect “ I find it problematic in two aspects:
1. One has to consider the difference between an effect and a measurable effect. With a noisy background the effect you would like to measure could be live and kicking but the only ones you’ll detect are those big enough to rise above the noise level. Just like in Svensmark et al (2009) and Dragic et al (2011). Do you really think that a scientist should be able to detect a signal that is, let’s say, 50 % of the noise level?
2. Do you realize that you are disqualifying quite a number of scientific findings with your statement? If one tests a new medical drug and finds side effects in 6 cases out of 1000 would you consider that a scientific finding? Or do you think that one needs to see the side effect in all 1000 cases?
Okay I have re-run the analysis with 2003 data (some major sun events in October, a few minor throughout the year, 43 “pristine” stations data available) and my result is zero. When looking at individual stations some of they _seem_ to hold some signal but most have just noise.
There’s good chance I’m doing it wrong so rather than “disproved” I count it as “not confirmed” but I sure did my best.
R. Gates says:
September 11, 2011 at 11:40 am
“A global atmospheric water vapor levels have increased, plus the additional greenhouse gases, you’d expect more downwelling LW at night, when the minimum temperatures are usually recorded. More LW at night=higher night time (aka minimum) temperatures.”
Shallow and wrong. Maybe you should do more literature bluffing and fewer attempts at original thought.
There’s just as much increased LWIR during the day as there is at night. Non-condensing greenhouse gases don’t go away during the day and the ground doesn’t stop radiating LWIR upwards during the day either. Duh.
If you get a higher nightly low temperature then you should see a corresponding increase in daytime high temperature. That’s because you’re starting out a higher temperature in the morning when the sun starts to raise the surface temperature. The input from the sun (clear sky) doesn’t change. Ergo the greenhouse effect of non-condensing greenhouse gases should be a rise in nightly low temperature and commensurate rise in daytime high temperate.
Something else has to be a factor for nightly low to increase without a commensurate increase in daily high. That “something” is negative feedback from clouds during the day. Over the course of 24 hours they block more shortwave energy from the sun than they trap longwave energy from the ground. The lowered surface temperature during the day then becomes a negative feedback for cloud formation due to lowered evaporation rate so an equilibrium state develops where in the end non-condensing greenhouse gases raise nightly lows but do not change the daily high.
This is very important for agriculture where killer frosts, which occur at night, do considerable damage when they come along unexpectedly. This drastically lengthens growing seasons which are largely delineated by last killer frost in the spring and first killer frost in the fall. So long as daytime temperatures don’t rise commensurately with nightly temperature there’s no adverse consequence to the temperature increase.
The long and the short of it then becomes:
1) water vapor is self-regulating in so far as greenhouse effect is concerned
2) CO2 raises nightly low temperature without raising daytime high temperature
3) increased CO2 accelerates plant growth rate and at the same time reduces the amount of water the plant uses per unit of growth
4) increase CO2 provides a wider safety margin against the day when conditions are ripe for the Holocene interglacial to end and the next glacial age begins
I’m very hard pressed to find any downside in rising atmospheric CO2. A bit of inconvenience perhaps for foolish humans who built permanent structures near sea level and/or came to inhabit islands very near sea level. But sea level is rising so slowly there’s plenty of time to adapt.
Now if you want to talk about peak oil, reliance on imported oil, and things of that nature you can make some good points about why we should try to conserve and develop alternative forms of energy. Global warming simply isn’t among the list of things to be concerned about in relation to fossil fuel consumption. CO2 is a good thing and if it wasn’t rising from fossil fuel consumption we’d need to invent another way to make it go up because the positives simply far outweigh the negatives.
@Mosher,
That is a great idea. That gives something to really test observations against. Not sure about the solar industry data either, as it’s always possible one company or another would inflate the numbers in a region to try to sell more panels, heh!
Bengt A says:
September 14, 2011 at 2:13 am
First you list five papers as rebuttal to the claim that FDs affect cloudiness, and then you state that those papers are unimpressive. So why did you list them in the first place? If this is your area of expertise, then why don’t you bring out some more impressive papers that seriously challenge the idea that FDs has an impact on clouds?
They are all unimpressive. I mentioned the others as examples that you can get the opposite result as long as you just work with a few events. The most impressive paper [which I didn’t list] is Pierce and Adams demonstration that the cosmic ray effect is a hundred times to small to account for the observed changes.
As for your comment that you would like to see a “VERY clear” result where “every event shows the effect “ I find it problematic in two aspects:
1. One has to consider the difference between an effect and a measurable effect. With a noisy background
The general claim is that the cosmic ray effect is a MAJOR driver of weather and climate and as such fully explain ‘global warming’. Thus not down in the noise. I’m prepared to accept that there is an effect that is below the noise level and hence almost impossible to tease out.
2. Do you realize that you are disqualifying quite a number of scientific findings with your statement?
Most ‘findings’ are wrong to begin with, including some of mine, e.g. the one I referred to earlier.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/180/4082/185.short
“The solar magnetic sector structure appears to be related to the average area of high positive vorticity centers (low-pressure troughs) observed during winter in the Northern Hemisphere at the 300-millibar level. The average area of high vorticity decreases (low-pressure troughs become less intense) during a few days near the times at which sector boundaries are carried past the earth by the solar wind. The amplitude of the effect is about 10 percent.”
Progress happens when those are filtered out and discarded.
Bengt A says:
September 14, 2011 at 2:13 am
As for your comment that you would like to see a “VERY clear” result where “every event shows the effect “ I find it problematic in two aspects:
1. One has to consider the difference between an effect and a measurable effect. With a noisy background
The general claim is that the cosmic ray effect is a MAJOR driver of weather and climate and as such fully explain ‘global warming’. Thus not down in the noise. I’m prepared to accept that there is an effect that is below the noise level and hence almost impossible to tease out.
Leif S
Pierce & Adams paper is a modeling paper and the quality of the result can be no better than the model used. If the nucleation doesn’t work the way Pierce & Adams models their result goes down the bin, but of course, that remains to be seen. The first step in nucleation (CLOUD experiment) showed to happen somewhat different than thought. Eventually Kirkby and colleagues will investigate this matter so there is really no point in arguing about this. Time will (hopefully) tell.
Leif S
I still don’t understand why you state “…that every event shows the effect and that the effect is never otherwise seen without a corresponding causative event.”
I think you might have mixed different methods up. If this was about a simple experiment with an independent variable, a dependent variable and everything else kept constant, then I would agree, but we’re talking about real time studies of atmospheric processes. A complex system. No possibility to keep any variable constant. If the effect doesn’t show up it could be one or two extraneous variables canceling the effect out. Isn’t that kind of elementary?
In my opinion Dragic et al’s method is brilliant, and that could very well be my final word in this thread.
Bengt A says:
September 14, 2011 at 3:51 pm
If the effect doesn’t show up it could be one or two extraneous variables canceling the effect out. Isn’t that kind of elementary?
By the same elementary argument the purported effect could be the result of one or two random spikes that just happen to enhance each other. The only way to combat the complexity is to have LOTS of events, scores or hundreds. None of the papers have that, so the question remains in limbo.
In my opinion Dragic et al’s method is brilliant, and that could very well be my final word in this thread.
Their method is ordinary superposed epoch analysis first employed more than a century ago. And is, indeed, a powerful method when applied correctly. Suffice it to say that I don’t think there is much to celebrate or write home about in that paper. But for people wanting something to be true, confirmation bias works well.
Pierce & Adams paper is a modeling paper and the quality of the result can be no better than the model used
P&A construct their moldel based on what we know about the physics [or at least what they think they know]. Which element do you think they are wrong on? Perhaps you can ask Pierce where he thinks he failed.
Leif S
Dragic et al used 189 weather stations and studied 184 FDs. They found the effect for 35 FDs as shown in figure 5. Here’s your take on how that happened “…the purported effect could be the result of one or two random spikes that just happen to enhance each other. Well that’s finally an answer from your side, and an enlightening one as well!
Bengt A says:
September 15, 2011 at 12:17 am
Here’s your take on how that happened “…the purported effect could be the result of one or two random spikes that just happen to enhance each other.”
Your remark that one or two outliers could remove the effect works both ways, one would think.
The number of weather stations used is irrelevant as weather is correlated over wide regions. If there were a weather station every square mile or every square foot would not make the statistics any better. What is telling is that most of the FDs showed no effect, affirming the notion that cosmic rays are not a major driver. That the data stops in 1995 also mars the analysis. The superposed epoch analysis method can be tricky to apply correctly, see e.g. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6964/extref/nature02101-s1.doc
You seem to miss the point: that their analysis does not convince me, this is regardless of how brilliant you think it is and of how happy you are for confirmation of beliefs. The literature is replete with such low-event analyses that have led nowhere. I put this last one firmly in that category.
Bengt A says:
September 15, 2011 at 12:17 am
Well that’s finally an answer from your side, and an enlightening one as well!
I don’t have ‘a side’, just a higher standard of what I consider established. Apparently, I’m not alone: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682611000691