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.”
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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:
Alexander Feht says:
September 4, 2013 at 1:58 pm
Please. This information is hush-hush.
Would you agree that climate models are not really about the climate, but about how to convert the rise of co2 into extra warming?
Stephen Wilde says:
September 4, 2013 at 2:02 pm
We can’t resolve such issues, but we can discuss them.
The number of cloud condensation nuclei in the air ranges from around 100 to 1000 per cubic centimeter. The various types of possible CCNs also differ in hygroscopic quality. Therefore, I don’t think that the atmosphere today is everywhere saturated with potential CCNs.
So IMO the processes being studied by Dr. Svensmark could indeed influence cloudiness & climate.
Nor does it seem to me, in my inexpert, to say the least, opinion, that the cosmic ray hypothesis necessarily should vitiate your ozone idea.
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. Convective clouds can affect local temperature profiles by releasing latent heat of condensation but that is quickly eliminated by enhanced uplift. Most clouds are layer
That is correct Stephen, and Svensmark, is simply saying an increase in cosmic rays will faciltate what you are saying because there is more condensation nuclei available which can give rise to more clouds.
I do accept that an increase in clouds from more condensation nuclei, if it actually happens, could enhance the efficiency of the processes that I prefer but I don’t see how it could work without changing stratosphere temperatures first.
If the temperatures in the stratosphere stayed the same I think that pressure and humidity constraints would restrict if not suppress the increase in clouds from more nuclei alone.
Friends:
Please return to the nub of the present issue.
Assuming the experiment is replicated, then it does not accord with existing understanding of cloud nucleation. The next and vital step is to determine why the experiment provides the observed result. Or, as the above article reports Henrik says
If that theoretical understanding were achieved then – as I say above – Henrik’s work would be worthy of a Nobel (and that is not an exaggeration) because it would open up new areas of the physics of climate for study.
When – and only when – those new studies are conducted then it will be known how important the Svensmark Effect is and why.
On one hand, and as Leif keeps saying,
in the short term the effect seems to be too small for detection. However, this is debatable because of the analysis of Forbush Events.
On the other hand,
the work by Shaviv suggests the effect is very significant over millennial time scales. However, it is hard to understand why when the short-term effects are so small.
So, if the chemistry can be resolved then there is much physics to be investigated.
At this stage it is the chemistry that needs to be debated.
All the discussion about possible and conjectured effects on jet steams and ENSO is pointless at this stage. Until the chemistry is resolved nobody can know if this work is significant or not.
Unfortunately, there are ‘champions’ of various ideas concerning Sun/climate interactions and they want discussion (adoption?) of their ideas wherever they can get it. Recently we have had two WUWT threads on ENSO hijacked by solar discussions. In this thread – where solar discussion is appropriate – the needed and important discussion of possible chemical mechanisms in the atmosphere is being displaced.
Richard
Yeah, its the uplift that struck me.
I don’t see anything here that necessarily puts Svensmark in conflict with Wilde. They may well compliment each other.
It seems to fit so far.
And I look forward to S Wilde being ready to give us what he has, when he’s got his ducks in a row. Because it look like it will be very interesting. To me as a plebeian novice
I’ve liked the idea a lot because of an experiment done in 1912:
http://www.masc.ulg.ac.be/fiches/EN/wilsoncloudchamber.pdf
“Cloud chamber was first demonstrated in the early years of this century (1912) by the Scottish physicist (C. T. R.) Wilson. It was among the earliest means of making the tracks of ionising radiation visible (they formed streaks of clouds). The source of ions in the chamber is a combination of the normal background COSMIC RAYS and the NATURAL RADIATION of the local environment.”
So the Technical University of Denmark waited 101 years before they added the radiation to make the theory work. I trust that C.T.R Wilson is referenced prominently. I saw a demonstration of the phenomenon in a physics class in 1956 at Wesley College in Winnipeg. I note that CAGW proponents always mention Tyndall and Arhenius when it comes to CO2’s uptake of LWIR but, curiously, no mention of cosmic rays causing clouds as demonstrated by Wilson. Indeed, I haven’t seen much mention of Wilson and his cloud chamber anywhere.
“Until the chemistry is resolved nobody can know if this work is significant or not.”
Agreed.
How could this finding result in a change to the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere?
That is what must be achieved to produce the phenomena that we observe.
And if it can do it then how large is the effect relative to the changes in ozone chemistry that also appear to be involved when solar variations occur?
The paper doesn’t take us very far really does it?
Jim
I’m no scientist but I heard about this theory in a book by the science writer Nigel Calder called the ‘Manic Sun’ which was published in the mid nineties I believe. As I understood the mechanism then it was nothing to do with the suns brightness but rather it magnetic activity. So when the ever present at varying levels of cosmic rays are hitting the earth they form clouds that reflect the suns light thus cooling (like the little ice age when the sun apparently was inactive in terms of sunspots and solar wind and flares for several hundred years) and when the sun is magnetically active with lots of sunspots then it protects the earth from cosmic rays thus making it warmer due to less clouds.
Now this was all dismissed out of hand almost by the climate science world and only the sceptic and poor Henrik soldering on with PR by Nigel Calder with the internet and the growing sceptic movement acting like the cavalry arriving.
Just watching that documentary has just shown me very clearly how another even possible bigger player is the Milky Way. As its shown the earth orbiting the sun in our solar system and the solar system orbiting every 250 million years the Milky Way and how on that journey our solar system will pass through massively varying amounts of cosmic rays that the modulating effect by the sun can possibly be overwhelmed. So there’s the suns activity, and then the varying density of cosmic rays and then the Milancovitch theory of earth’s orbit and axis changes and one thinks Blimey !!!! there’s a lot going on a cosmic scale which seems to drown out any co2 level changes.
The hard donkey work for Svensmark has been proving that cosmic rays actually do increase low levl cloud formation.
“That is correct Stephen, and Svensmark, is simply saying an increase in cosmic rays will faciltate what you are saying because there is more condensation nuclei available which can give rise to more clouds.”
That is exactly correct. Recall cloud seeding efforts. Imagine the entire planet having a mechanism that increases clouds, More clouds, more reflection. If getting colder, then greater cooling…if getting warmer, then less warming. Given the flat or declining global temperatures, maybe one might consider the obvious affect of increasing GCRs.
M Courtney says:
September 4, 2013 at 2:25 pm
“Yeah, its the uplift that struck me.
I don’t see anything here that necessarily puts Svensmark in conflict with Wilde. They may well complement each other.
It seems to fit so far.
And I look forward to S Wilde being ready to give us what he has, when he’s got his ducks in a row. Because it look like it will be very interesting”
The ducks are coming into line slowly.
This is the latest version:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/new-climate-model/
In fact it could accommodate various people’s pet theories as supplemental additions including Svensmark’s hypothesis.
I have deliberately left gaps to be filled in by new data but what is most apparent is that the sequence of events which I set out fits observations better than any other hypotheses currently in play.
In reply to my father (RichardSCourtney),
I can’t discuss the chemistry without knowing the medium the chemistry is taking place in. For the atmosphere that means I need to know what is going on with the pressure and the temperature.
Stephen Wilde seems to think the interactions between pressure and temperature (and moisture carried or condensed out) will dominate cloud nucleation effects. But I don’t know enough about how the pressure and temperature vary in the atmosphere – especially in storms – to definitely agree with him.
A weather-forecast cell, which averages square miles, is of no relevance to the chemistry that could be pushed over the thermodynamic edge and dropped out of the system within a single hailstone or the shimmer on a raindrop.
That is why the weather patterns are important to understand how the chemical reactions are driven. We do not know where the chemical reactions balance so we can’t know why the clouds are formed or fizzle out.
Yet.
“That is why the weather patterns are important to understand how the chemical reactions are driven. We do not know where the chemical reactions balance so we can’t know why the clouds are formed or fizzle out.”
Actually, we do know how clouds are formed and fizzle out.
richardscourtney says:
September 4, 2013 at 2:22 pm
Friends:
[…]
At this stage it is the chemistry that needs to be debated.
All the discussion about possible and conjectured effects on jet steams and ENSO is pointless at this stage. Until the chemistry is resolved nobody can know if this work is significant or not.
[…]
Richard
————————————————————————————————————————-
That, sadly, seems to be an effect of the orthodoxy proclaiming “settled science” over a couple of decades, much of which has seen little more than either confirmatory (assumed from the start) studies or attempts to fudge the discrepancies between models and reality by questioning reality.
From the start we’ve been told that the basic theory is complete, and people on both sides have accepted the notion that any theory (or alternative) should be “born” complete; a scientific microwave dinner. Because of that, interesting work like this is expected to resolve all issues at a stroke.
Personally, I believe that’s the biggest single disservice that Climatology has inflicted on mankind. None of the economics will really matter over time (all that “wasted” money is only really getting moved elsewhere, after all!) but the belief that scientific advance should always involve instant gratification will take a long time to die!
M Courtney says:
September 4, 2013 at 2:25 pm
IMO the Svensmark & Wilde hypotheses may well be mutually reinforcing rather than mutually exclusive.
I recall that this link between sun activity, cosmic rays, cloud formation and temperatures was showcased in “The Great Global Warming Swindle” documentary.
Judging from the concentration of troll posts here, Svensmark’s work really has them scared silly. Sillier.
In the end ToA radiation balance has to be maintained long term if the atmosphere is to be retained.
Anything that seeks to disturb that radiative balance is countered by circulation changes.
The most basic position is that cloud formation and dissipation is governed overall by the configuration of the specific circulation required to maintain that ToA radiative balance.
If cosmic rays do form more clouds then the circulation must change to accommodate them but to achieve that change in the first place requires some sort of thermal effect as a precursor.
If there is no initial thermal effect then the creation of an extra cloud molecule in one place will be cancelled by the dissipation of another cloud molecule elsewhere.
To be convinced by the Svensmark hypothesis I would need to be shown how cosmic rays could effect the initial thermal change such that the system overall could retain the additional cloud molecules created.
As far as I know ,extra cosmic rays from low solar activity have no significant initial thermal impact do they?
For the non-scientific here who want to put what Svensmark has done in context, I urge you to watch Dr. Miyahara’s talk on Galactic Cosmic Rays (GRC) and the Sun that was featured on WUWT a few months ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/17/another-solar-to-climate-amplification-mechanism-found/
Dr. Miyahara’s talk was given at the The 2nd Nagoya Workshop on the Relationship between Solar Activity and Climate Changes in January, 2012 at Nagoya University (Nagoya, Japan).
If you have a large display, watch it on Vimeo. Direct link:
There’s a link on the WUWT page for her PDF’s as well, but here’s the direct link:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2011ScienceMeeting/docs/presentations/2k_Miyahara_SORCE_brief.pdf
Dr. Miyahara is difficult to understand sometimes. She has trouble with Rs, Ps, and Ls, but the talk is clear, and in my view, riveting. I’ve watched it three times because it answers so many questions.
Dr. Lief Svalgaard gave a talk at this same conference: “The Long-term Variation of Solar Activity.”
A WUWT link to the conference participants, which included Svensmark:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/interesting-presentations-from-the-nagoya-workshop-on-the-relationship-between-solar-activity-and-climate-changes/
I’d always assumed that the likeliest place to look for any relationship between the solar cycle and cloud cover would be in the ultraviolet wavelength, as this is the range which varies the most. We know that ultraviolet light is harmful to microbes (the traditional way of disinfecting buckets was to leave them to dry in the sun). And we know that microbes play a big role in seeding clouds, particularly those which result in precipitation and hence cooling. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_long_strange_journey_of_earths_traveling_microbes/2436/
So when ultraviolet radiation is at its peak, at solar maximum, there will be fewer airborne microbes surviving and hence less cloud and rain.
I know that the variation in UV over a solar cycle is small on the face of it (approx. 1.5%) and even the variation between now and the Maunder Minimum is estimated at just 3%. But then again, we’re only looking to explain temperature differences of fractions of a degree celcius.
Stephen Wilde says:
September 4, 2013 at 2:55 pm
The hypothesis is that water vapor in the air that otherwise wouldn’t have condensed onto a cloud nucleus will do so thanks to increased cosmic ray flux. There might be a feedback effect of some sort from a cooled surface & lower troposphere, but the process isn’t temperature-dependent to start, within normal bounds, if I understand the evolving hypothesis correctly.
You may find material of use to you in Calder’s discussion of Svensmark, et al:
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/yet-another-trick-of-cosmic-rays/
Svensmark also argues in favor of a role for a cosmic ray flux in the history of life on earth, including mass extinction events.
http://calderup.wordpress.com/category/3b-the-svensmark-hypothesis/
“To be convinced by the Svensmark hypothesis I would need to be shown how cosmic rays could effect the initial thermal change such that the system overall could retain the additional cloud molecules created. As far as I know ,extra cosmic rays from low solar activity have no significant initial thermal impact do they?”
The temperature is not the issue; condensation nuclei is the issue. In a given atmospheric condition where clouds could form except there exists a lack of condensation nuclei vs condensation nuclei by which to form those clouds is the difference. If an increase in GRCs produce an ion by which water vapor can cling to, then an increase is condensation nuclei provides a mechanism for more clouds, more reflection. Rising air = clouds can form. Descending air or atmospheric compression, fewer or no clouds. No condensation nuclei, no clouds. Read up on cloud formation and dew point.
Sun-Earth link is far stronger than many here assume, it is not well understood ; moreover it is sometime denied by those who should know better.
During 100 or so years the Earth rotation has slowly changed to an extent of about 5ms pp. To my surprise, I found that ~1,2ms pp or about 25% of it is synchronised with the sunspot magnetic cycle.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-LOD.htm
Neither of the known direct solar nor the solar controlled inputs do have enough energy variability to achieve such an effect.
One could speculate endlessly, but before we settle for the GCR, TSI, SCL or any other variable as a primary cause for the decadal global temperature change, it is of fundamental importance to understand all the causal or coincidental geo-solar, factual or apparent links.
Despite all pretence such understanding doesn’t exist.