Note: Between flaccid climate sensitivity, ENSO driving “the pause”, and now this, it looks like the upcoming IPCC AR5 report will be obsolete the day it is released.
From a Technical University of Denmark press release comes what looks to be a significant confirmation of Svensmark’s theory of temperature modulation on Earth by cosmic ray interactions. The process is that when there are more cosmic rays, they help create more microscopic cloud nuclei, which in turn form more clouds, which reflect more solar radiation back into space, making Earth cooler than what it normally might be. Conversely, less cosmic rays mean less cloud cover and a warmer planet as indicated here. The sun’s magnetic field is said to deflect cosmic rays when its solar magnetic dynamo is more active, and right around the last solar max, we were at an 8000 year high, suggesting more deflected cosmic rays, and warmer temperatures. Now the sun has gone into a record slump, and there are predictions of cooler temperatures ahead This new and important paper is published in Physics Letters A. – Anthony
Danish experiment suggests unexpected magic by cosmic rays in cloud formation
Researchers in the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) are hard on the trail of a previously unknown molecular process that helps commonplace clouds to form. Tests in a large and highly instrumented reaction chamber in Lyngby, called SKY2, demonstrate that an existing chemical theory is misleading.
Back in 1996 Danish physicists suggested that cosmic rays, energetic particles from space, are important in the formation of clouds. Since then, experiments in Copenhagen and elsewhere have demonstrated that cosmic rays actually help small clusters of molecules to form. But the cosmic-ray/cloud hypothesis seemed to run into a problem when numerical simulations of the prevailing chemical theory pointed to a failure of growth.
Fortunately the chemical theory could also be tested experimentally, as was done with SKY2, the chamber of which holds 8 cubic metres of air and traces of other gases. One series of experiments confirmed the unfavourable prediction that the new clusters would fail to grow sufficiently to be influential for clouds. But another series of experiments, using ionizing rays, gave a very different result, as can be seen in the accompanying figure.
The reactions going on in the air over our heads mostly involve commonplace molecules. During daylight hours, ultraviolet rays from the Sun encourage sulphur dioxide to react with ozone and water vapour to make sulphuric acid. The clusters of interest for cloud formation consist mainly of sulphuric acid and water molecules clumped together in very large numbers and they grow with the aid of other molecules.
Atmospheric chemists have assumed that when the clusters have gathered up the day’s yield, they stop growing, and only a small fraction can become large enough to be meteorologically relevant. Yet in the SKY2 experiment, with natural cosmic rays and gamma-rays keeping the air in the chamber ionized, no such interruption occurs. This result suggests that another chemical process seems to be supplying the extra molecules needed to keep the clusters growing.
“The result boosts our theory that cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy are directly involved in the Earth’s weather and climate,” says Henrik Svensmark, lead author of the new report. “In experiments over many years, we have shown that ionizing rays help to form small molecular clusters. Critics have argued that the clusters cannot grow large enough to affect cloud formation significantly. But our current research, of which the reported SKY2 experiment forms just one part, contradicts their conventional view. Now we want to close in on the details of the unexpected chemistry occurring in the air, at the end of the long journey that brought the cosmic rays here from exploded stars.”
###
The new paper is:
Response of cloud condensation nuclei (>50 nm) to changes in ion-nucleation” H. Svensmark, Martin B. Enghoff, Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen, Physics Letters A 377 (2013) 2343–2347.
In experiments where ultraviolet light produces aerosols from trace amounts of ozone, sulfur dioxide,and water vapor, the relative increase in aerosols produced by ionization by gamma sources is constant from nucleation to diameters larger than 50 nm, appropriate for cloud condensation nuclei. This resultcontradicts both ion-free control experiments and also theoretical models that predict a decline in the response at larger particle sizes. This unpredicted experimental finding points to a process not included in current theoretical models, possibly an ion-induced formation of sulfuric acid in small clusters.
FULL PAPER LINK PROVIDED IN THE PRESS RERLEASE: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51188502/PLA22068.pdf (open access PDF)
LOCAL COPY: (for those having trouble with link above): Svensmark_PLA22068 (PDF)
(h/t to “me” in WUWT Tips and Notes)
Related articles
- EcoAlert: “Milky Way’s Cosmic Rays Have Direct Impact on Earth’s Weather & Climate” (dailygalaxy.com)
- Unexpected magic by cosmic rays in cloud formation (sciencedaily.com)
- Danish experiment suggests unexpected magic by cosmic rays in cloud formation (phys.org)
- Svensmark Effect Attacked: Study claims cosmic rays don’t effect clouds (junkscience.com)
- Ten Year Anniversary of the Climate Change Paradigm Shift (americanthinker.com)
- Spencer’s posited 1-2% cloud cover variation found (wattsupwiththat.com)
Added: an explanatory video from John Coleman –
And this documentary:
When we consider cosmic ray influences on clouds, lets consider just how much clouds vary of their own accord. Do changes in cosmic rays affect such a large entity in measurable ways? My hunch is that no, the variance is not enough to overcome internal sources of variation in cloud cover.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/role.html#TOP
Sedron wittered:
“Whether the radiative impact of clouds can account for observed climate variations (many, like Andrew Dessler, think they do not),”
Oh dear. with an almost sunless summer last year did Britain overall seem warmer or colder?
“whether the the cloud feedback is net positive or net negative, ”
Oh dear. with an almost sunless summer last year did Britain overall seem warmer or colder?
Are cloudless deserts hotter or colder than places where cloud and rainfall is higher at similar or lower latitudes?
“and whether there is an underlying trend in cosmic rays of sufficient magnitude to explain post-1975 warming”
Well actually that’s what got Svensmark started in the first place.
“the upcoming IPCC AR5 report will be obsolete the day it is released.”
IPCC AR5 is not science it is social politics.
Stepohen wilde mumbles:
“Clouds are a consequence of the vertical and horizontal temperature profiles as air masses of different qualities mix and mingle so that one or other of them falls to a temperature below the dew point”
That is only the first condition. air well below the dew point will not form clods without condensation nuclei, and that is the whole point of Svensmark, in a nutshell.
The experimental data shows that overall, global temperature correlates with LOW cloud formation. Low cloud is overall temperature reducing, high thin cloud which somewhat reflects heat back at night time is overall slightly warming.
But what really counts in the end is the earth’s albedo. You don’t have to be a genius (or perhaps you do) to see that white fluffy clouds as seen from space are brighter, at lest in the visible spectrum, than land or sea with no cloud cover.
And any photographer will tell you that cloud reduces light intensity by 4-8 times depending on how thick is is. Only takes a few percent of modulation of total global cloud cover to have drastic impacts.
So it cant be temperatures driving clouds – has to be the other way around. And we know that the oceans are so big that the air over them is always practically at the dew point all the time.
Ahem!
“Conversely, fewer cosmic rays mean less cloud cover …”
“””””””…….Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 4, 2013 at 1:17 pm
There is going to be no correlation over an 11 year period, it takes years of a prolonged solar minimum to get any solar/climate correlation. Further the degree of magnitude change and duration of time have to reach certain levels, levels that never get reached during the so called 11 year sunspot cycle……..”””””””
Salvatore, I didn’t lay out the concept very well.
Over a full 22 year solar magnetic cycle, evidently the sun’s magnetic field spends 11 years in one polarity direction and the next 11 years in the opposite direction. Now you add in the earth’s own magnetic field, which does not reverse on the same time scale, and you should get a net vector sum magnetic field in the sun earth region that shows a 22 year cyclic variation . Charged particles moving through the region, either from sun-earth or GCRs, will travel in paths that depend somewhat on the net magnetic field, about which they tend to spiral. Since the earth magnetic poles are in the geographic polar regions, many of these charged particles end up colliding with the earth in the vicinity of the earth magnetic poles, so this alters what otherwise might be expected to be a uniform flux of charged particles incident on earth. A 22 year cyclic variation in the net magnetic field of sun and earth, ought to shift the distribution of charged particles relative to the tropical moist areas or the dry polar areas, so the distribution of charged particle nucleated clouds, from pole to equator should have a 22 year cyclic change, with more clouds, when the magnetic steering towards the poles, is reduced.
Like I said, I don’t know enough about the solar fields vis a vis the earth field to estimate such effects, but Such a cyclic variation should be observable, if Svensmark is correct.
Having studied the Wilson Cloud chamber in the past, I find the Svensmark thesis to be compelling.
Evidently we will soon know more about it.
Thank you, as always, for your insight, Pamela! I’ve pondered this long & hard, and discussed this a bit with Prof. Joel Norris from the Scripps Institution who presented an excellent colloquium on cloud physics to Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory.
http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS_Site_03/Lectures/Colloquium/100512Norris/f.htm
It is not that cosmic rays (GCR) affect existing clouds, but rather, they stimulate the formation of nuclei which will eventually form new clouds. Svensmark believes that the most important cloud formation is in the troposphere, but I’ve pondered if GCR might also stimulate very high clouds consisting of ice, rather than water, particles. Such phenomena as noctilucent clouds may result from both ionizing GCR and airborne, complex chemicals resulting from industrial processes.
Could such very high altitude ice-crystal clouds produce a negative, rather than positive, forcing on climate? NASA and others seem to think that high-altitude clouds act to trap infrared, but I’m not sure that they don’t block more incoming radiation, especially over the poles and land.
Damned if I know, I’m an environmental biologist.
Leo Smith says:
September 4, 2013 at 9:01 pm
Stepohen wilde mumbles:………..
=================
Glad you cleared that up for us.
Specially the photographer part.
It is so much clearer now.
From ferd berple on September 4, 2013 at 7:35 pm (quoted out of order):
Per Livingston & Penn, sunspots are becoming less visible, soon might not be visible at all, as seen in the decreasing sunspot counts.
So sunspots are not the measure that will properly show solar activity. Got another?
That’s strange. Wikipedia lists several factors that must be aligned for worldwide High Frequency propagation. Sunspot Cycle and Solar Activity are separate items.
In the Ionosphere proper, where those HF transmissions are bounced off of certain layers, the lowest layer, the D layer, is charged up by solar activity. It eats HF transmissions, thus when sunlight during the day fires up the D layer the possible usable transmission range gets drastically shorter.
Since “solar max” sure sounds like when the Sun’s emissions are most energetic thus when the D layer is stronger, and “solar min” when it’s weaker, “min” would have further possible HF transmissions than “max”. Which is exactly the reverse of what you said.
Any clarifications about that?
I’m late to this thread, but there have been a couple of papers recently that indicate there is a great deal we don’t know about atmospheric chemistry. Hence any theoretical predictions should be treated with caution until empirically supported. Mind you that would be a first for climate science.
It is good to see additional study further ironing out the specifics (while attempts to pretend all correlations were sheer coincidence were already revealed as transparently-biased professional propaganda, if contrasting to viewing the rarely-shown following for the many matches in the *derivative* of sea level rise, humidity, average cloud cover, and temperature patterns with cosmic ray history over recent decades and centuries: http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif )
Philip Bradley says:
September 4, 2013 at 10:37 pm
“…Hence any theoretical predictions should be treated with caution until empirically supported.”..
================
There are no predictions here, the data is barely understood.
“Caution”, understates the uncertainty of the conditions.
Leif’s post on another board on this paper:
“The paper has this to say “It is proposed that an ion-mechanism exists which provides a second significant pathway for making additional H2SO4, as a possible explanation of the present experimental findings”. They injected sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the chamber and managed to convert some of that [using UV-lamps] to sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and found that adding ions to the mix made that process more efficient. This does not seem to be much of a confirmation of a correlation that has not held up over time in the first place.
A sober assessment of the available evidence http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-Cosmic-Rays-Climate.pdf [see also http://www.leif.org/EOS/Cloud%20Cover%20and%20Cosmic%20Rays.pdf ] concludes “In this paper we have examined the evidence of a CR-cloud relationship from direct and indirect observations of cloud recorded from satellite- and ground-based measurement techniques. Overall, the current satellite cloud datasets do not provide evidence supporting the existence of a solar-cloud link”
”
Since he knows about this post and has chosen not to respond in the thread, maybe we should not post this, and use this is just an FYI to Anthony.
I was referring to this,
But the cosmic-ray/cloud hypothesis seemed to run into a problem when numerical simulations of the prevailing chemical theory pointed to a failure of growth.
Philip Bradley, I understand that is referring to the state of play leading up to the SKY2 experiment. This is something new…
Physics Letters A.
Pfui.
Why not publish it on toilet paper.
Would have the same value.
alex:
Your post at September 5, 2013 at 1:02 am says in total
Thankyou for demonstrating the normal warmunist excuse for ignoring science that contradicts your belief; i.e.
Proclaim
1.
The paper must be peer reviewed to be considered unless it supports the cause and – in that case – it can be included in IPCC Reports
2.
If the paper is peer reviewed then it must be disregarded because of a perceived and irrelevant flaw in its author(s); e.g. he is a religious believer, he is not a Lord, he … etc.
3.
If the paper is peer reviewed and its author(s) cannot be smeared then the paper can be disregarded because it is not published in a ‘leading’ journal (i.e. make the claim which you have here).
All these proclamations are demonstrated to be falsehoods by countless examples.
For example, the seminal work on aeronautics was authored by two bicycle salesmen who published it in a magazine about bee keeping.
The value of that paper
is not affected by its authors not being scientists who developed their invention in attempt to make money,
is not affected by its not having been peer reviewed,
and is not affected by having been published in a small-circulation magazine.
The value of that paper is demonstrated by e.g. my recent flights to and from Indonesia.
Richard
Sedron L says:
September 4, 2013 at 10:45 am
“And, even *if* Svensmark et al is true, CO2 is still a greenhouse gas, whose effects are seen throughout paleoclimate and whose radiative properties are probably the *best* known part of climate science (both theoretically and observationally).”
Oh, really? Then how do you explain the lack of global warming in this century, despite rising CO2 levels?
How do you explain the lack of evidence in the ice core records? Without exception they show that CO2 followed the temperature, so temperature change caused the CO2 changes and not the other way around.
You refer to observations. Please give me a paleoclimate example where a change in CO2 was followed by a corresponding change in temperature? The key word is ‘followed’.
Of course, if CO2 didn’t drive climate change, what did? I suspect Svensmark has the answer.
CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas. Greenhouses don’t work by trapping radiation, they work by trapping warm air. But CO2 is definitely a green gas, it’s probably why the world is getting greener.
Chris
My father proposed this particle mechanism to me in 1965 when they started setting up one of the first cosmic ray counters in the world in Chacaltaya Bolivia for the WMO
Bill H says:
September 4, 2013 at 5:58 pm
I cannot make the slightest sense out of what you write, but if you expect an Arctic ice rebound, that will take more positive AO/NAO conditions (which is why there is more ice this summer than last summer). Read this, and the following comments of mine for further evidence:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/23/the-medieval-warm-period-in-the-arctic/#comment-1398577
I note criticisms (Pamela Gray and others) that the effect would be small in any case relative to other factors.
Pamela Gray says:
September 4, 2013 at 8:17 pm
“The leap made too far.”
However, I’ve been struck by the surprising effect of small changes- two examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Tanzania
“Seasonal rainfall is driven mainly by the migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. It migrates southwards through Tanzania in October to December, reaching the south of the country in January and February, and returning northwards in March, April, and May. This causes the north and east of Tanzania to experience two distinct wet periods – the short rains (or “Vuli”) in October to December and the long rains (or “Masika”) from March to May”
Northern Tanzania is at ~4 degrees N. The phenomenon is entirely due to changes in the sun’s angle which is quite small a change between the end of the winter rain and the onset of the spring rain period.
The second example is part of the Eschenbach Effect in which a half hour change in the onset of cumulus cloud development makes a significant difference in the heating (or cooling) effect on SST. Little things may mean a lot.
Needless to ask here, please correct me if I’m wrong: The real significance of the Svensmark experiment is that it provides a possible physical cause, a mechanism, for explaining an otherwise undoubted, unexplained close correlation of CFR with the geological and paleontological temperature record, is it not? As we all know, correlation is not causation, and the warmists ostensibly challenge this correlation because of no known possible mechanism. Although a lot remains to be worked out about the chain from CCN formation to weather, it seems to me that Svensmark has made a lot more convincing case for a cosmic ray mechanism than the warmists have been able to show for CO2. I mean where is THEIR experiment?
Excuse me, CRF (cosmic ray flux), not CFR.
Mosher said:
Svensmark is trying to explain the mechanism more GCR = More clouds.
The problem is that if you look at events like Forbush events, where the amount of GCR changes dramatically, you dont see more clouds. Thats the real world. So, basically he’s trying to explain a phenomena that doesnt happen. And if he is able to show it in a lab he has the problem of explaining why it doesnt actually happen outside the lab.
That’s fine Stephen. In my view, this is just one piece of the cloud puzzle. Clouds (in all their different types and altitudes) are not well understood. If this mechanism is relevant and yet in the real world this effect turns out to not be important, it will be because there are other effects operating that ameliorate it. Dan Murphy had some good points above in this vein as well.
Clouds have two mechanisms for increasing albedo. One is fractional cover increase or decrease = more or less cloud cover. The second is the reflectivity which seems to be determined by the size of the cloud nucleation particles. An increased reflectivity can achieve greater albedo and less incoming power without a change in cloud cover. And that might be very hard to detect because there is a backscattering component that is angular dependent. Can anyone say L1 satellite for albedo measurements?