Reblogged from Calder’s Updates
In the climax to the Danes’ experiments, cloud seeds flout the theories
Near to the end of the story that starts with stars exploding in the Galaxy and ends with extra clouds gathering, a small but important paragraph was missing till now. From experiments in Copenhagen reported in 2006 and reconfirmed in 2011 in Aarhus and Geneva (CERN, CLOUD), cosmic rays coming from old supernovas can indeed make molecular clusters a few millionths of a millimetre wide, floating in the air. But can these aerosols really grow nearly a million times in mass to be large enough to become “cloud condensation nuclei” on which water droplets can form – as required by Henrik Svensmark’s cosmic theory of climate change?
Opponents pointed out that theoretical models said No, the growth of additional aerosols would be blocked by a resulting shortage of condensable gases like sulphuric acid in the atmosphere.
Now for the first time, an unexpected trick that Mother Nature had up her sleeve is revealed by experiment. The discovery is elegantly explained by a new way in which sulphuric acid forms in the atmosphere, as announced in a paper by Svensmark and two of his colleagues in Denmark’s National Space Institute in Copenhagen, Martin Enghoff and Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen. They have submitted it to Physical Review Letters. A preprint is available on arXiv here http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5156v1
A brief history.
Last year’s attempts to dismiss the Aarhus and CERN results as inconsequential for climate change didn’t dismay the Danes. They knew there was something wrong with the current understanding because they had observational support for the whole chain from solar activity to cosmic rays to aerosols to clouds in the real atmosphere (Svensmark, Bondo and Svensmark 2009). In order to dig into the physics, they decided to rebuild, in the basement of the Space Institute, the 8 cubic metre experimental chamber SKYII which six years ago was used as the CLOUD prototype chamber at CERN,
In the limelight of the atmospheric drama, sulphuric acid is one of the commonest of trace gases and very important for both the formation and the growth of aerosols. When the Sun rises in the morning, its ultraviolet rays convert sulphur dioxide, ozone and water vapour in the air into sulphuric acid molecules. These are continuously lost as they club together with further water and a little ammonia into very small molecular clusters. Nevertheless, the concentration of sulphuric acid rises to a peak and then diminishes as the Sun goes down in the evening.
A clue that something more is going on comes from the persistence all through the night of sulphuric acid at about 10 per cent of the daytime maximum. If these molecules too are continuously lost, they must be replenished by a chemical reaction that doesn’t need ultraviolet light.
What did the new experiment called SKY2 show? Without going into technical details that you’ll find in the paper, let’s just say that the primary result flatly contradicts the theoretical prediction that the infant aerosols couldn’t grow up into cloud condensation nuclei. Here’s a figure from the paper.
Molecular clusters grow over time, in the SKY2 experiment in Copenhagen. The horizontal axis is scaled in nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) and each blue point shows the relative number of clusters of that size before and after the experimental runs. Anything over 1.0 means that growth has continued. In contrast, the red points illustrate a pessimistic prediction of previous theories, that growth should cease when the size passes 50 nanometres. On the other hand, the black curve running through the blue points shows what is to be expected if there is a continual supply of sulphuric acid. The persistent growth of clusters occurs only in the presence of gamma rays that simulate cosmic rays and set electrons free to influence the chemistry.
So what’s the explanation? What new pathway supplies the sulphuric acid needed to keep the growth going? The Danes recall a suggestion in their 2006 SKY report that electrons can act like catalysts, being used over and over again to promote chemical action. In the new paper they say: A possible explanation could be that the charged clusters are producing additional [sulphuric acid] molecules from reactions involving negative ion chemistry of [ozone, sulphur dioxide and water], where a negative ion can be reused in a catalytic production of several [sulphuric acid molecules].
Depending on the concentrations of trace gases, several may mean dozens. And where do the electrons come from? They are liberated by cosmic rays raining down by night as well as by day. If the results of the experiment and these ideas are confirmed, there’s an amazing pay-off. The cosmic rays help to make the extra sulphuric acid that allows (1) a number of additional aerosols to form and (2) a larger number of aerosols to grow into cloud condensation nuclei. Without this second effect the aerosols would grow slowly and most of the extra aerosols would be lost before becoming large enough to seed clouds.
That ions liberated by cosmic rays promote a second pathway for forming sulphuric acid was already known from an experiment performed in Copenhagen in a collaboration with the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Tokyo (see the Enghoff et al. reference below). Depending on whether the sulphuric acid comes from ultraviolet action or is ion-induced, it has different signatures in the relative abundances of isotopes of sulphur. What’s more, the number of molecules made by the ion route greatly surpassed the number of ions available, again implying reuse of the electrons in a catalytic fashion.
To summarize the latest paper, the Svensmark, Enghoff and Pepke Pedersen abstract reads:
In experiments where ultraviolet light produces aerosols from trace amounts of ozone, sulphur dioxide, and water vapour, the number of additional small particles produced by ionization by gamma sources all grow up to diameters larger than 50 nm, appropriate for cloud condensation nuclei. This result contradicts both ion-free control experiments and also theoretical models that predict a decline in the response of larger particles due to an insufficiency of condensable gases (which leads to slower growth) and to larger losses by coagulation between the particles. This unpredicted experimental finding points to a process not included in current theoretical models, possibly an ion-induced formation of sulphuric acid in small clusters.
Scandals of a political character engulf climate physics these days, but future historians may shake their heads more sadly over scientific negligence. Isn’t it amazing that such a fundamental activity of sulphuric acid, going on over your head right now, has passed unnoticed since 1875 when cloud seeding was discovered, since 1996 when Svensmark found the link between cosmic rays and cloud cover, and since 2006 when the Danes suggested the catalytic role of electrons? Perhaps the experts were confused by the ever-present dislike of the role of the Sun in climate change.
So Svensmark and the small team in Copenhagen have had nearly all of the breakthroughs to themselves. And the chain of experimental and observational evidence is now much more secure:
Supernova remnants → cosmic rays → solar modulation of cosmic rays → variations in cluster and sulphuric acid production → variation in cloud condensation nuclei → variation in low cloud formation → variation in climate.
Svensmark won’t comment publicly on the new paper until it’s accepted for publication. But I can report that, in conversation, he sounds like a man who has reached the end of a very long trek in defiance of continual opposition and mockery.
References
Henrik Svensmark, Martin B. Enghoff and Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen, “Response of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (> 50 nm) to changes in ion-nucleation”, submitted for publication 2012. Preprint available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5156v1
H. Svensmark, T. Bondo and J. Svensmark, “Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds”, Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L15101, 2009
Henrik Svensmark, Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen, Nigel Marsh, Martin Enghoff and Ulrik Uggerhøj, ‘Experimental Evidence for the Role of Ions in Particle Nucleation under Atmospheric Conditions’, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Vol. 463, pp. 385–96, 2007 (online release 2006). This was the original SKY experiment in a basement in Copenhagen.
M. B. Enghoff, N. Bork, S. Hattori, C. Meusinger, M. Nakagawa, J. O. P. Pedersen, S. Danielache, Y. Ueno, M. S. Johnson, N. Yoshida, and H. Svensmark, “An isotope view on ionising radiation as a source of sulphuric acid”, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 12, 5039–5064, 2012. See http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/12/5039/2012/acpd-12-5039-2012.html
Some relevant items on this blog
Aarhus experiment http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/accelerator-results-on-cloud-nucleation-2/
CERN CLOUD experiment http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-ray-action/
Observational evidence of aerosol growth http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/do-clouds-disappear/
Summary of Svensmark’s theory http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/nutshell/
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Books by Nigel Calder http://calderup.wordpress.com/category/4-buy-the-chilling-stars/
h/t to Matthew Pearce
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Good job Svensmark! Unfortunately your Nobel will be going to a politician.
It’s high time someone with credentials and cash created a scientific award with integrity. There is now a gap left where the irrelevant, discredited Nobel once stood.
I’m old enough to remember the plate tectonic-sea floor spreading debate. It took years, until the late 1960’s for it to be generally accepted but only after a bit of a bruising fight that was finally resolved by facts (observations of in the mid-Atlantic). I recall the first time I read the plate theory. It was a revelation with one feeling “Wow! But of course. How obvious” now that it’s explained. Relativity is like that as well. Things just drop into place. Reading Svensmark’s work on cloud formation was similar.
No doubt it’s a piece to the climate puzzle, We’ll not likely have a single theory, like tectonics or relativity, which resolve climate and ice age cycles but Svensmark’s work is a provable fact and a piece nontheless. It is the stuff of Nobels. Look out the window sometime at the clouds. Now you can tell grade schoolers where clouds come from.
How refreshing, in this age of cult warmists, dropped data, climategate gangs and the rest to actually see how science used to work.
Leif Svalgaard says: ‘The main problem with Svensmark’s ideas is that the climate does not follow the cosmic ray intensity.’
That’s strange. I thought the correlation with low level cloud (below 3000 m) was established as early as 2000 and was reanalysed by Marsh & Svensmark in 2004.
A public pdf explaining this link can be found at:
http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/06_projekter/isac/wp_103.pdf
Figures 10, 12, 13 and 14 seem to show pretty good evidence for a link. Unless you believe in the Hockey Stick and that there was no MWP/LIA.
If there is data, then a critical step seems to be to construct a time series and estimate a model that includes an interaction term for (cosmic rays)*(sulphuric acid). The correlation between climate and cosmic rays may not be obvious in the data if variation in the concentration of sulphuric acid causes variation in the influence of cosmic rays.
I suspect that a similar future awaits the study of electroscavenging. Note that the big bump up in the AMSU temperatures at the end of January was timed exactly with a major CME. And afterwards the temperatures went right back down.
Just another interesting correlation or something more …
Cosmic-ray cloud formation may very well have influence on cloud cover. Question is: is it a major player?
The Milankovitch cycles have been shown to be well-correlated (95%+) to the rate of glacial ice-growth (which is a pretty good proxy for climate). Those cycles are completely unrelated to cosmic-ray activity (or even intrinsic solar activity). So, if we’re interested in the major climate-players as I am, we can exclude pretty much everything else other than the Milankovitch-related effects — which is solar insolation on the far northern latitudes.
IMO, the ice-age variations in climate are caused by earth’s internal cycles, not from outside influences. The rate of ice change would not be so tightly correlated w/the Milankovitch orbital variations if this were not true.
Which explains why vulcanism affects the earth’s atmosphere in such a dramatic manner. Greater amounts of SO2 available for nucleation increases precipitation and cloud cover. Volcanos being natural sources of SO2 emissions. Since SO2 is a natural and essential part of the hydrological cycle we must conclude that current climate models are totally useless as they omit such a significant variable. Furthermore, since in the natural realm SO2 being supplied by vulcanism and observational evidence demonstrates cyclical climatic behavior we must conclude there is a cyclical component to vulcanism as well. What natural forces affect vulcanism in a cyclical manner?
Is there any correlation to the AP geomagnetic index?
This is cool! There’s something we didn’t know, I’m not surprised. Wrong definition for nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) Nanometres=Billionths of a meter.
Probably OT, but I recall a recent article about a particular bacteria that was perfect for a hailstone nucleus. It has an unusually hydrophilic surface and is commonly found in the center of hailstones.
In my crude understanding there may be many cloud-seeding processes.
Richard M!
Ive made the same observation and its worth diggin in to. according to AMSU the hole atmosphere contains less heat than ever meashured since at least 2002. Thats a big problem for CAGW to explain.With no heating of the Oceans either they are grasping after straws. CAGW is becomming an embarrasment.
Gary sez:
“If aerosol formation continues at night, then could cloud formation continue, too (presumably at a lower rate with less water vapor available from evaporation)?
++++++++
It increases the availablity of water because the relative humdity goes up when the temperature goes down (think: dew). The condensation possibilities increase with a drop in temperature so the CCN grows more rapidly at night.
The particles grow not only by condensing gases onto their surfaces. They grow by bumping into each other. When they are very small, it is easy for a tiny charge to keep them part because they steer out of each other’s way and bypass their initial potential collision point.
Once they get big enough this effect falls away and they grow rapidly. This happens more easily at night because the water is literally hanging in the air (almost fog) waiting to be conjoined. It will be interesting to see this effect quantified because although the availability of the H2SO4 is limited at night, droplet formation is far more likely because of the dropping temperature (= rising relative humidity).
Ken Hall wrote:
“There are two sides in the climate change debate. A debate which one side denied even existed for several recent years. . . . . . ”
Extremely well written and argued, sir!! Thanks!!!
I’m trying to figure out how to put that on my facebook page. . . . . .
Leif says that the climate does not follow the GCR intensity.
But how do we know? Reading Dr Browns excellent post in a previous thread made this all too clear. We only have really accurate temperature data for 30 years. Tree ring proxies are useless. We don’t really know what temperatures in the LIA prevailed globally. Some other proxies may be more usefull, but what level of precision are we talking about here? Half a K? 1K? Yet an actual change of 1k in global temperatures would be called a change in climate.
Maybe we simply don’t have the historical data to determine whether climate follows cosmic rays or not.
Leif Svalgaard says: ‘The main problem with Svensmark’s ideas is that the climate does not follow the cosmic ray intensity.’
Just a word of warning, your consistently stubborn position on this point is going to bite you one day.
You are making the false assumption that this “main problem” invalidates the utility of Svensmark’s ideas. The fact is that Svensmark is looking at physical mechanisms for seeding clouds. By performing experimental research, Svensmark is bringing us closer to an understanding of what is ACTUALLY going on. Whether his “hypothesis” proves correct is not nearly as important as the fact that he is performing ACTUAL REAL SCIENCE.
Don’t you get it?
Why are you, as a “scientist” not lauding Svensmark, Kirby and others for their approach and for actually doing something outside of a computer model in the domain of climate science?
Physical experiments are GROUND TRUTH. Of all people, you Sir should honor someone actually performing REAL SCIENCE in a field that is corrupt and almost totally devoid of honest, role-up-your-sleeves, meaningful research (despite the BILLIONS being spent) !.
“Wrong definition for nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) Nanometres=Billionths of a meter.”
You do realize that there is no difference between these definitions.
Dr. Svensmark, Dr. Calder,
Congratulations and thanks for reporting the good news!
“The discovery is elegantly explained by a new way in which sulphuric acid forms in the atmosphere,”
Sulphuric acid is forming in a new way? Or a newly discovered way? Huge difference. I think you meant the latter.
Pat Frank’s summary of the likely chemistry behind Svensmark et al data based discovery is right on the (Svens)mark. 🙂
Ken Hall’s comments on the state of CAGW today are the most succinct and clear that I have read on the CAGW political situation today. The sad thing is that the followers of the church of CAGW believe it is exactly the other way around and there are a lot more of them than us, though their behaviour is zombie like. These devout CAGW activists/followers behave exactly the same way as any fundamentalist religious sect members whether Christian based, Orthodox Judiasm, Islam, Marxist/collectivist/socialist of any stripe, radical environmentalist, et al. For them the end justifies any means and history teaches their end always leads to tyranny.
I appears to me that this war for the truth, and it is an all out war as exemplified by Gleick’s actions – the tip of the iceberg, is not unlike the actions leading up to our revolutionary war.
“T>PPPP”
Sorry if this is old known stuff to most of you guys but it seems like ozone is an ingredient for making clouds:
“When the Sun rises in the morning, its ultraviolet rays convert sulphur dioxide, ozone and water vapour in the air into sulphuric acid molecules.”
Back in the 80:s when the temperature started to rise up here in the northern part of scandinavia we also had a lot of warnings about holes in the ozone layer.
Now I read there’s a recurring ozone hole over the arctic with a size equal to antarctica.
Is the lack of ozone an important part of the recent warming?
Sweet.
Pat Frank, I found your little tutorial very interesting. That, combined with other stuff I’ve been looking at, makes me think we should call the layer of atmosphere currently given the drab name of “mesosphere” the “chemosphere“. The concentration of ions, that originally produced the name ionosphere, is really a fertile environment for significant chemistry. Extraordinary how the electric charges enable the rarefied mesosphere / chemosphere to act as a powerful sieve to catch and transform the cosmic rays, yet it lets through so much of the visible spectrum.
Well, that’s how it looks to me. But who am I to compete with the experts? 🙂
MarkW says:March 2, 2012 at 7:19 am
“Wrong definition for nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) Nanometres=Billionths of a meter.”
You do realize that there is no difference between these definitions.
Sorry, it was before coffee, and I thought it said “nanometres (millionths of a meter).
I’m reminded of a (very) old Chemistry rhyme, especially if H2SO4 turns out to have a heightened relevance, relative to the impact of increased water vapor:
Poor old Brown is dead and gone
His face you’ll see no more
For what he thought was H2O
was H2SO4.
I’m both sad and glad for Leif’s cantankerous comment. I say cantankerous, because he must have been pointed towards the evidence that the correlation has not stopped, soooooooo many times – yet in typical troll fashion he omits to mention this fact.
I’m sad because we all know that, within certain limits, Leif is brilliant, an expert, willing to generously give of his time and expertise here – yet he continues to make the unnecessary cantankerous comments which invite, what, 20 replies, all of which are knowledgeable.
Yet I’m also glad because, in those 20 comments, some useful remarks were made, that perhaps needed a Leif to get them said. Alec Rawls, thank you for your reference to “some two dozen” refutations to Lief. And thank you Thinking Scientist for the ref to that brilliant, beautiful paper of Svensmark.
Svensmark’s paper shows curve matching between global temperatures and integrated solar activity, but the spectral analysis shows no correspondence between the two around 11 year period; actually global temperatures are unduly suppressed at the exact peak of the sunspot cycle period. See the very last graph in this link:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7a.htm
However, there is a good response around magnetic (Hale) cycle period. This would indicate totally different mechanism in force, suggesting that the global temperature response depends on whether
– solar and the geomagnetic field are of the same polarity or
– solar and geomagnetic field are of the opposite polarity
I sent an email to Dr. Svensmark about two years ago referring to the above, but I assume that he was too busy to respond.
@Leif,
But… doesn’t follow which type of cosmic rays? Aren’t there many types of energetic particles (and gamma rays for this experiment) that make up “cosmic rays”? Which ones do we actually watch? What data indexes do we have for the different types? I only know of the neutron data set, which is utterly unrelated to gamma rays–both will promote different chemical reactions and one cannot substitute for the other.
Gamma rays would seem especially hard to track, to me, since they would be absorbed by the upper atmosphere (were aerosols would form, according to these theories). Regardless, Svensmark’s data says what it says.