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:
To the contrary you make the data fit the way you want it to be, not what it actually shows,(Maunder Minimum/Dalton Minimum) but if my solar parameters are reached going forward this time you will not be able to do that, and will have to deal with the reality of the solar/climate connection, or lack of it.
Stephen, you have to take into account Leif is mainly a solar scientist and not involved in climate as his area of study,and that accounts for why he reaches so many wrong or different conclusions.
Solar cycle 14 is not even close to solar cycle 24.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:16 am
You’re right, I should have specified I meant scales down to years, or at least subdecadal, as in my prior comments. How is that typical, though, since I was specific before?
I have been pointing to evidence in support of the hypothesis, at length, despite your denial that any exists. Clearly the hypothesis isn’t either confirmed or falsified yet, but surely (as I said) is not entirely without evidence, as you believe.
Solar Cycle Update: Twin Peaks?
March 1, 2013: Something unexpected is happening on the sun. 2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max, the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers are well below their values in 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent for many months.
The quiet has led some observers to wonder if forecasters missed the mark. Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center has a different explanation:
“This is solar maximum,” he suggests. “But it looks different from what we expected because it is double peaked.”
A new ScienceCast video explores the puzzling behavior of ongoing Solar Cycle 24. Play it
Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum. At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, Solar Max brings high sunspot numbers and solar storms. It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.
Reality, however, is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular. For one thing, the back-and-forth swing in sunspot counts can take anywhere from 10 to 13 years to complete; also, the amplitude of the cycle varies. Some solar maxima are very weak, others very strong.
Pesnell notes yet another complication: “The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.” Solar activity went up, dipped, then resumed, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years.
The same thing could be happening now. Sunspot counts jumped in 2011, dipped in 2012, and Pesnell expects them to rebound again in 2013: “I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014,” he predicts.
Another curiosity of the solar cycle is that the sun’s hemispheres do not always peak at the same time. In the current cycle, the south has been lagging behind the north. The second peak, if it occurs, will likely feature the southern hemisphere playing catch-up, with a surge in activity south of the sun’s equator.
Recent sunspot counts fall short of predictions. Credit: Dr. Tony Philips & NOAA/SWPC [full plot] Pesnell is a leading member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, a blue-ribbon group of solar physicists who assembled in 2006 and 2008 to forecast the next Solar Max. At the time, the sun was experiencing its deepest minimum in nearly a hundred years. Sunspot numbers were pegged near zero and x-ray flare activity flat-lined for months at a time. Recognizing that deep minima are often followed by weak maxima, and pulling together many other threads of predictive evidence, the panel issued this statement:
“The Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel has reached a consensus. The panel has decided that the next solar cycle (Cycle 24) will be below average in intensity, with a maximum sunspot number of 90. Given the date of solar minimum and the predicted maximum intensity, solar maximum is now expected to occur in May 2013. Note, this is not a unanimous decision, but a supermajority of the panel did agree.”
Given the tepid state of solar activity in Feb. 2013, a maximum in May now seems unlikely.
“We may be seeing what happens when you predict a single amplitude and the Sun responds with a double peak,” comments Pesnell.
Incidentally, Pesnell notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24, underway now, and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are in fact twins, “it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015.”
No one knows for sure what the sun will do next. It seems likely, though, that the end of 2013 could be a lot livelier than the beginning.
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
Science NewsScience@NASA Headline News2013A Whiff of Dark Matter on the ISSAmplified Greenhouse Effect Shifts North’s Growing SeasonsApproaching Asteroid Has Its Own MoonAsteroid Moon MovieBig Asteroid FlybyBig Weather on Hot JupitersCollision Course? A Comet Heads for MarsComet ISON Meteor ShowerComet of the Century?Curiosity Drills into MarsDon’t Let This Happen to Your PlanetGigantic Hurricane Spotted on SaturnHubble Finds a Cobalt Blue Planet Hubble Sees Comet ISONHubble Sees the Fireball from a “Kilonova”Kepler Discovers Smallest ‘Habitable Zone’ PlanetsMystery of the Missing Waves on TitanNASA Finds Long-Term Climate Warming TrendNASA Mission To Study Mysterious Lunar Twilight RaysNASA to Broadcast Asteroid Flyby of EarthNew Asteroid Families DiscoveredOpportunity’s Improbable AnniversaryPlanets Aligning in the Sunset SkyPossible Seismic Activity on Asteroid 2012 DA14Record Setting Asteroid FlybyRover: Conditions Once Suited for Life on MarsSee Saturn at its Best and BrightestSolar Cycle Update: Twin Peaks?Solar Variability and Terrestrial ClimateSolar Wind Energy Source DiscoveredSunset CometTen Thousandth Near-Earth Object DiscoveredThe UN Braces for Stormy Space WeatherUniverse Older Than Previously ThoughtVoyager 1 Approaches Interstellar SpaceWhat Exploded over Russia?20122011201020092008200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996Ciencia@NASAScienceCastsNews & FeaturesNASA Science PresentationsPress ReleasesRSS Feeds
This shows how they are being proven wrong on solar conditions going forward, as is AGW theory when it comes to the climate.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:24 am
To the contrary you make the data fit the way you want it to be, not what it actually shows
Nonsense, any revisions are made by a large group of sunspot observers…”
you will have to deal with the reality of the solar/climate connection, or lack of it.
I can deal with the lack, can you?
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:27 am
Stephen, you have to take into account Leif is mainly a solar scientist and not involved in climate as his area of study
Stephen is a lawyer…
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:28 am
Solar cycle 14 is not even close to solar cycle 24.
Perhaps you should take a look: http://www.leif.org/research/SC14-and-24.png
milodonharlani says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:30 am
You’re right, I should have specified I meant scales down to years, or at least subdecadal, as in my prior comments. How is that typical, though, since I was specific before?
Typical in the sense of looseness. You were also pushing Forbush decrease correlations which have a time scale of days, so how is one to know.
I have been pointing to evidence in support of the hypothesis, at length, despite your denial that any exists.
Evidence that is contradicted by other ‘evidence’ [or by failure to hold up with new data] is not longer ‘evidence’, but just claims of evidence, but, as I said, for some people, claims seem to be enough.
Salvatore
I have absolute respect for Leif as regards solar science and his efforts to explain it to those less specialised.
As regards solar interactions with the Earth’s atmosphere, not so much.
Once off his own ‘patch’ he is no better than the rest of us.
Leif’s methold is not the correct way to show a useful comparisome between solar cycle 14 and solar cycle 24.
The Layman sunspot count shows the true difference between the two sunspot cycles and counts sunspots in the exact same way, for each of the two cycles.
The modern way of counting sunspots is essentially of no use. It is ridiculous.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:41 am
Pesnell is a leading member of the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel
Well, I’m a member too and at my urging, the panel revised their prediction down [not enough IMO, but it is hard to win all battles].
Pesnell notes a similarity between Solar Cycle 24, underway now, and Solar Cycle 14,
He disagrees with your unsubstantiated claim that SC24 is not like SC14.
Leif said:
“Stephen is a lawyer…”
Yes, professionally, but into weather and climate long before that.
Law earns a living but weather and climate have been a passion since the age of 4 or 5.
Leif is a solar scientist, but not into weather and climate at all as far as I know.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:44 am
I wan’t pushing Forbush declines. In fact, in replying to Mr. Mosher’s comment about them, I specifically stated that I thought the time frame might be too short.
It isn’t clear that evidence counter to pro-Svensmark evidence outweighs it, IMO, although your opinion is to the contrary, & supported by two recent surveys to that effect.
I agree with what you said Stephen in regards to Leif. I might add he looks at data differently then many of us, not saying it is good or bad but it is different.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 6, 2013 at 10:49 am
“The solar conditions have to vary by a certain degree of magnitude over a certain duration of time, anything short of that WILL NOT BE ENOUGH ,to show a solar /climate connection.”
I’m not particularly in disagreement on the bigger picture, insofar as your threshold conditions would be an example of when effects would extra show up in the midst of weather. However, correlations are still rather blatant even without that, if looking at the right rarely-seen data. For example, about 100% of sea level history coverage is dishonest and/or misleading by never plotting the derivative, but that is what makes correlation blatant, as illustrated in the following along with other strong correlations (like with humidity at altitude, clouds, and even temperature in non-fudged or less-fudged data): http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif (enlarges upon further click)
An unfortunate aspect of an image buried in a text link is how typically only a tiny couple percent or so of readers will actually click and look (as I used to observe on another site using hit counters). But, if you think it is just presenting what you have already seen, you are mistaken (no offense) … for you wouldn’t be thinking correlations weren’t visible short of those thresholds if you had. Aside from the references in the image, I could, on request, provide any as easily clickable text links if there is any doubt on anything.
In the big picture, of cosmic rays having an effect, we’re already in agreement. Also I think you are honest (unlike the extreme postcount CAGW-movement propagandists I’ve encountered on multiple websites and on their Wikipedia team), and what your name links to, climatedepot.com, is a great site. Just what is in the image link is rather important to see as well.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:27 am
Stephen, you have to take into account Leif is mainly a solar scientist and not involved in climate as his area of study,and that accounts for why he reaches so many wrong or different conclusions.
——————-
This would apply to many commentators here, & sounds a lot like the attempts of “climate scientists” to denigrate skeptics with backgrounds in other disciplines. If Leif, a prominent solar scientist, is disqualified, then so am I, with degrees in biology & history.
I feel that this path leads to questioning “funding” & other ad hominems rather than responding based upon specific statements regarding science, evidence & analysis thereof.
Leif is an astronomer ,enough said.
LEIF ‘S contributions I welcome , but it is his insistence of him being so sure he is correct while all of us with a different opinion do not know what we are talking about, which makes me challenge him more then I would otherwise.
It is fascinating.
Henry has much to say, and I agree with much of what he has to say.
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:50 am
The Layman sunspot count shows the true difference between the two sunspot cycles and counts sunspots in the exact same way, for each of the two cycles.
Nonsense. The LSC is junk and BTW tries to [but fails] to count as Wolf did before he died in 1893.
Stephen Wilde says:
September 6, 2013 at 11:50 am
Leif is a solar scientist, but not into weather and climate at all as far as I know.
I was one of the scientists who revived the Sun-Weather-Climate connection back in the 1970s. Consult http://www.leif.org/EOS/Sun-Weather-Climate.pdf . [see page vii and several references throughout the book – at the time I was considered an expert on this by my peers] I have published many papers on this, e.g. see http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qFdb2fIAAAAJ One of my most cited papers on this was co-written with the founder of NCAR [if you know what that is].
Salvatore Del Prete says:
September 6, 2013 at 12:01 pm
Sometimes some of us don’t, including myself, which is how I learn things. Sometimes he’s wrong, too, when venturing outside his area of expertise. However I’m glad that he, RGB & the other distinguished, practicing scientists who do comment here, unlike too many of their cowed or cowardly colleagues, are willing, able & brave enough to do so.
There is no shortage of cocksure CACA skeptics, too, which combo should be oxymoronic, if not just plain moronic.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 6, 2013 at 12:05 pm
As previously noted here, you were indeed a collaborator with the late, great Eddy in the ’70s, even if you came to disagree with his conclusions:
Eddy J.A. (June 1976). “The Maunder Minimum”. Science 192 (4245): 1189–202. Bibcode:1976Sci…192.1189E. doi:10.1126/science.192.4245.1189. PMID 17771739. PDF Copy
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Svensmark’s theory of cloud formation and the Earth’s heating and cooling has been my preferred explanation for the Earth’s large-scale warming and cooling, and now it looks like its picked up some significant experimental backing. If this holds up, it’s a huge blow to the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
milodonharlani says:
September 6, 2013 at 12:07 pm
Sometimes he’s wrong, too, when venturing outside his area of expertise.
Sun-Weather-Climate is firmly within my field of expertise, as least so think [thought] my peers:
I was one of the scientists who revived the Sun-Weather-Climate connection back in the 1970s. Consult http://www.leif.org/EOS/Sun-Weather-Climate.pdf . [see page vii and several references throughout the book – at the time I was considered an expert on this by my peers] I have published many papers on this, e.g. see http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qFdb2fIAAAAJ One of my most cited papers on this was co-written with the founder of NCAR [if you know what that is].
The optimism we all had back then 40 years ago has since been doused by the failure of any and all of the avenues of research that we then thought promising to pan out. The field that we revived has pretty much died again by now; a fate the field has suffered before and will suffer again: a good example is http://www.leif.org/EOS/grl50846-Herschel.pdf
:
milodonharlani says:
September 6, 2013 at 12:13 pm
As previously noted here, you were indeed a collaborator with the late, great Eddy in the ’70s, even if you came to disagree with his conclusions
As he himself eventually did. You see, when new data become available, many hypothesis die. The believers usually carry on, as Winston churchill once remarked: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened”.
Leif, the Layman sunspot count, counts sunspots the SAME WAY for both cycle 14 and cycle 24 ,(right or wrong) and that is what matters when making a comparisome.
To compare solar cycles the count has to be done in the same exact manner and the LAYMAN COUNT accomplishes this and clearly shows solar cycle 14 much more ACTIVE then solar cycle 24.
It is not even close.