From the “science is still settling” department, the question still seems up in the air to me.
On one hand we have Dr. Jasper Kirkby, Head of the CLOUD Experiment, CERN Geneva giving a thorough review showing strong correlations between cosmic rays, solar cycles and earth’s climate. He projects a possible mini ice age by 2015 similar to the Dalton or Maunder minimum.
On the other hand, we have RealClimate fanboy Rasmus Benestad with a new paper that says “no, absolutely not, except maybe Northern Europe, but I don’t know why, more study is needed”.
First Jasper Kirkby:
Then we have Rasmus:
An analysis of more than 50 years’ worth of climate data has found scant evidence for a controversial theory that attempts to link cosmic rays and global warming. The theory suggests that solar variations can affect the number of cosmic rays reaching the Earth, which in turn influences climate by impacting on cloud formation. The latest study was done by Rasmus Benestad of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and he concludes that changes to the Sun cannot explain global warming.
Benestad compared variations in the 1951–2006 annual mean galactic cosmic-ray-flux data with annual variations in temperature, mean sea-level barometric pressure and precipitation. The cosmic-ray data were obtained using a high-altitude neutron monitor located in Climax, Colorado.
He looked for meteorological responses to cosmic rays over timescales of more than a year, and for “fingerprint” patterns in both time and space. He also checked for responses to greenhouse-gas concentrations and the El Niño Southern Oscillation.
Little evidence
“The significance of the findings was that the results were negative – I found little evidence of the cosmic rays having a discernible affect on a range of common meteorological elements: temperature, the barometric pressure or precipitation,” says Benestad. “Not for the global mean at least. One possible exception may have been for parts of Europe, however.”
The galactic cosmic-ray flux was associated with lower temperatures in parts of Eastern Europe. Benestad is intrigued whether these results were a coincidence or do indeed show a connection between cosmic rays and both temperature and sea-level pressure. He plans to investigate further. “Why would a solar effect be seen only in a limited region?” he wonders. “This region is affected by the North Atlantic Oscillation, and this phenomenon is a bit special – a variation in the sea-level pressure over timescales of up to several years. The persistence in these variations may match the variations in the Sun by accident, but it could also be sensitive to variations in the Sun.” If there is a real connection between changes to the Sun and the North Atlantic Oscillation, Benestad believes that this knowledge could benefit decadal predictions.
On a larger scale, the analysis indicated that the weak global mean-temperature response associated with cosmic-ray flux could easily be down to chance. What is more, there has been no long-term trend in cosmic-ray flux. “Hence, there is little empirical evidence that links galactic cosmic-ray flux to recent global warming,” wrote Benestad in Environmental Research Letters.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/nov/05/comprehensive-study-shows-cosmic-rays-are-not-causing-global-warming
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It is unfortunate that this was published by Rasmus Benestad, I’d give more credence to sombody not joined at the hip with James Hansen, Mick Mann, and Gavin Schmidt.
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“An analysis of more than 50 years’ worth of climate data has found scant evidence for a controversial theory that attempts to link cosmic rays and global warming.”
50 years worth of climate data? You looked at 50 whole years worth of climate data? Well that settles it. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? There can’t be any link between cosmic rays and global warming, if it only turns up ‘scant evidence’ in 50 whole years off climate data.
Same with that “Milankovich theory” BS. Haven’t seen any evidence of that in 50 years of climate data, either. Better toss that right out.
In the history of the world, the only determinant of climate is CO2, and that will definitely be evident in only 10 … uh, 15 …. uh, 17, … uh … well certainly by 50 years worth of climate data, we’ll have it.
/sarc
Someone help me out here, please. Why would Benestad be looking at barometric pressure related to cosmic rays?
Has anyone posited that cosmic rays should effect barometric pressure?
Right now, the land, soil, ice and atmosphere is accumulating 0.048 10^22 joules of energy per year (which originated as solar radiation from the Sun).
If this continued for 100 years, the Land surface would warm about 0.6C.
All one needs is more solar energy than “normal” for a sustained period to increase the temperature.
I calculated that if solar radiation was 2.0 W/m2 less than it currently is, the energy accumulation rates would fall to zero and this would then be a “normal” solar radiation level for the Earth – one where energy in equals energy out on a sustained long-long-term basis.
If solar radiation fell by 4.0 W/m2 from where it is now (the levels that at one time were thought to be the levels of the Maunder Minimum), the Earth surface would cool about -0.6C in 100 years, -1.4C in 250 years and the ocean would cool -0.22C in 100 years, -0.6C in 250 years.
So, there you go. The solar radiation needs to be over a sustained period of time in which the Earth will slowly accumulate/drawdown energy levels and we get something like the temperature history of the Maunder Minimum and the slow rise out of the Little Ice Age assuming the Sun was responsible for all of it rather than GHGs. (I’m assuming Benestad did none of these calculations).
Periodically the global warmers publish a poorly done study that claims to “disprove” the growing evidence of dozens of studies of a solar/cosmic ray temperature link whether the time scale is decades or hundreds of millions of years.
Mike Borgelt says:
November 6, 2013 at 1:55 pm
Right there is Benestad’s problem – the high altitude neutron monitor.
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“The cosmic-ray data were obtained using a high-altitude neutron monitor located in Climax, Colorado.”
———————-
FYI, for those not in the know the elevation at Climax is at roughly 11,600 ft ASL
Google lat-long : 39.370502,-106.171746
To disprove a hypothesis it is necessary to first understand the hypothesis, the mechanisms in the case of this problem by which solar magnetic cycle changes modulate planetary climate.
The modulation of planetary clouds by cosmic ray flux is inhibited if there are solar wind bursts.
Solar wind bursts create a space charge differential in the earth’s ionosphere which removes cloud forming ions by a process that is called electroscavening. One of the changes to the sun that caused warming was the occurrence of long lasting large coronal holes in an equatorial position late in the solar cycle that caused an increase in solar winds bursts. The solar wind burst remove ions from both high latitude regions of the earth and equatorial regions. In equatorial regions the reduction ions caused by electroscavenging changes the droplet size in the clouds which reduces or increases the H20 greenhouse effect for the cloud. In the Northern Hemisphere there is an increase in cloud cover.
“Early in the 20th century it was noticed that many geomagnetic storms occur without any visible solar disturbance. Such storms tend to recur every 27 days – the period of solar rotation, therefore they originate from long-living regions on the Sun which come back into geo-effective position rotation after rotation.”
http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MSAIt760405/PDF/2005MmSAI..76..969G.pdf
Once again about global warming and solar activity K. Georgieva, C. Bianchi, and B. Kirov
We show that the index commonly used for quantifying long-term changes in solar activity, the sunspot number, accounts for only one part of solar activity and using this index leads to the underestimation of the role of solar activity in the global warming in the recent decades. A more suitable index is the geomagnetic activity which reflects all solar activity, and it is highly correlated to global temperature variations in the whole period for which we have data.
In Figure 6 the long-term variations in global temperature are compared to the long-term variations in geomagnetic activity as expressed by the ak-index (Nevanlinna and Kataja 2003). The correlation between the two quantities is 0.85 with p<0.01 for the whole period studied.It could therefore be concluded that both the decreasing correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity, and the deviation of the global temperature long-term trend from solar activity as expressed by sunspot index are due to the increased number of high-speed streams of solar wind on the declining phase and in the minimum of sunspot cycle in the last decades.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JA014342.shtml
If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals.
Observations from the recent Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI) solar minimum campaign are compared to last cycle's Whole Sun Month (WSM) to demonstrate that sunspot numbers, while providing a good measure of solar activity, do not provide sufficient information to gauge solar and heliospheric magnetic complexity and its effect at the Earth. The present solar minimum is exceptionally quiet, with sunspot numbers at their lowest in 75 years and solar wind magnetic field strength lower than ever observed. Despite, or perhaps because of, a global weakness in the heliospheric magnetic field, large near-equatorial coronal holes lingered even as the sunspots disappeared. Consequently, for the months surrounding the WHI campaign, strong, long, and recurring high-speed streams in the solar wind intercepted the Earth in contrast to the weaker and more sporadic streams that occurred around the time of last cycle's WSM campaign.
See section 5a) Modulation of the global electric circuit by solar wind bursts in this review paper which is called electroscavenging where by increases in the global electric circuit remove cloud forming ions. The same review paper summarizes the data that does show correlation between low level clouds and GCR.
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/pdf/Atmos_060302.pdf
Political Junkie says:
November 6, 2013 at 2:27 pm
Doug Proctor, 2:00 p.m.
Do you have a citation for the Hansen quote?
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Whoosh!!
“Why would a solar effect be seen only in a limited region?” he wonders.
Isn’t it obvious? Where there are plenty of CCNs then adding or subtracting a few due to cosmic ray changes will make little difference. Where CCNs are more of a limiting factor to cloud creation then cosmic rays are more likely to have more of an influence.
So one could more closely at the factors in cloud creation in those regions for a better understanding if its a consistent effect. Give that man a grant. No, I’m serious.
Totally. Should have been obvious that neither Hansen nor McKibben would ever say anything remotely as sensible as that.
Benestad compared variations in the 1951–2006 annual mean galactic cosmic-ray-flux data with annual variations in temperature, mean sea-level barometric pressure and precipitation
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The correlation is between cosmic rays and clouds. Nothing else.
P.S. mid level clouds only.
I don’t see the point to checking a bunch of claims that were never made.
[SNIP – A valid email address is required here, fake ones don’t cut it – mod]
I’ll have to add this to my long list of supposed scientists who claim that it is the rate of change of a forcing that drives climate, not the level of the forcing:
Of course Benestad is already on that list. He is first in fact. But I want to be comprehensive, and the abstract of his paper includes a similar beauty:
Ignore that late 20th century solar activity was some of the highest on record, Benestad is saying. It was steadily high so that couldn’t have caused warming. I believe this is a self-conscious deception. Nobody could be that stupid.
Bill Illis (November 6, 2013 at 4:22 pm) wrote:
“(I’m assuming Benestad did none of these calculations)”
His whole exploration is based on severe misconceptions that are strictly ruled out. Let me explain succinctly where he is with his whole take on the solar-terrestrial-climate file: f**king lost.
P.P.S.
Just to be clear, the only time I’ve seen claims that cosmic rays match temperatures is at very long time scales. At scales of months, years, and decades, the only claim I’ve seen is cosmic ratch match the global average of mid level cloud cover.
Misinterpreting what the cosmic ray record tells us about terrestrial mass distribution & circulation isn’t helpful.
I see a fault with using global average sea-level barometric pressure as a statistic of weather changes from changes of amount of cosmic rays. That statistic is supposed to only vary with the mass of air and airborne objects.
A correlation is seen in Europe. How interesting that Europe is the part of the world where we have the most accurate records. The only way a correlation can be avoided elsewhere would be if the climate variations measured in Europe were atypical. We’ve seen such attempts to downplay climatic events measured in Europe by asserting that they were purely local before, with the claims that the LIA and MWP were Europe only phenomena. Isn’t this just more of the same.
There is actually quite a lot of evidence that the climatic events measured in Europe were indeed global in scope. I tend to distrust those who want to argue that this was not the case, especially where, as here, the argument seems to be being made in service of “the cause”. Those who want to claim that the historical measurements made in precisely the part of the world where we have the most accurate measurements are atypical and should be disregarded need to meet a very high burden of proof in my opinion.
Clearly the motivated followers of the cause find the European temperature record most inconvenient. Outside Europe you get to play “pick the proxy” to make the temperatures whatever you want. But those pesky Europeans used thermometers and wrote things down. How extremely annoying!
Eyeballed the problem. Solar influence. Limited to Eastern Europe. Magnetic influence because of the Mediterranean Sea maybe?
Some thoughts:
1. A small cause (solar) can be buried by a larger cause (oceans).
2. A small effect (mathematical) can be buried in a larger effect (noisy observations).
3. The small effect can be related to, or not, the larger effect.
In the present discussion, we have a small cause, IE extrinsic solar, versus a larger cause, IE intrinsic oceans. We also have in the present discussion a small cause-known solar effect, IE mathematical changes to temperature that are not actually measurable because the data is so noisy, and we have a large cause-unknown effect, IE measurable changes to temperature that can be seen.
So the issue here is whether or not a small cause can explain a large effect (which means it has to have the necessary energy and nexus to cause a large effect). To even be having this discussion of a small cause leading to a large effect means that you could be ignoring the larger cause at your peril. Always go with a match. In my opinion, cosmic rays just don’t have the energy and nexus necessary to cause weather/climate sustained variation trends and regime shifts.
Don’t cosmic rays form Carbon 14? Wouldn’t that make a CO2 molecule that has Carbon 14 in it “Super CO2”?
You’d think the warmist would jump on cosmic rays.
“a possible mini ice age by 2015 similar to the Dalton or Maunder minimum”
A descent towards a LIA could start around 2015, but there wouldn’t be a LIA yet then, as the transition time would be a number of years as in prior history.
Descent into a LIA existing in future decades will occur, though, if a lengthy Grand Minimum of solar activity develops. As Dergachev et al 2004 noted, where the GCR effect is primarily solar-modulated (plus some geomagnetic modulation) on relevant timescales due to varying shielding of the inner solar system:
“Svensmark [1998] proved that a temperature change produced by the GCR effect on the clouds from 1975 to 1989 was 3-5 times greater than the temperature change caused by changes in the total solar irradiation.”
Being of the Russian Academy of Science, they were able to get published without modern Western environmentalist political correctness and bluntly conclude:
[Other data] “proves that cosmic rays were the main factor affecting the weather and climate during tens of thousand years.”
When cosmic ray flux is compared to the actual history of temperature (relatively more a double-peak in the 20th century than a hockey stick if not using common versions rewritten by CRU of Climategate or activist Hansen’s GISS) as well as to the derivative of sea level rise, humidity, cloud cover, and glacial extent, the relationship is blatant as illustrated in http://img176.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=81829_expanded_overview_122_424lo.jpg
Recognizing as the top threat, the CAGW movement has paid the effect of the sun/cosmic-rays their highest compliment, for individuals as extremely dishonest as they are, by putting max effort towards fudging relevant data and propaganda spam against it, but, as illustrated, there are other sources.
————
Benestad particularly reveals his bias with the following:
““Some scholars have implied a false dichotomy between galactic cosmic rays and greenhouse gases, arguing that global warming caused by galactic cosmic-ray flux would be at the expense of an effect from rising concentrations of greenhouse gases,” Benestad explains. “Such propositions have resulted in public controversy.””
That is BS. In contrast, as Shaviv 2005 notes:
“Increased solar luminosity and reduced CRF [cosmic ray flux] over the previous century should have contributed a warming of 0.47 +/- 0.19K which contrasts to how solar irradiance change alone would have been a factor of just 0.16 +/- 0.04K”
And Dr. Shaviv further notes on his site:
“This [natural] contribution comes out to be 0.5 +/- 0.2K out of the observed 0.6 +/- 0.2K global warming”
Such implies no room left for blaming any large amount of net warming on humans.
Although I emphasize the image link earlier in this comment because it shows so much concisely, one might as well add paper links too:
Dergachev et al 2004 is online at http://rjes.wdcb.ru/v06/tje04163/tje04163.htm
Shaviv 2005 is at http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/sensitivity.pdf
EDIT: In the above post, by “that is BS,” the “that” referred to is the “false dichotomy” labeling. Around 0.5 K warming from solar activity increase over the past century, including the effect on cosmic rays, truly does leave only around 0.1 K or less (very little) for net warming from other sources (including CO2 emissions).
“Only Northern Europe” is a crazy understatement because it’s well-known that the Arctic Circle is the key region that starts and ends the ice ages – it was the case in the Milankovitch cycles. So what the German alarmist says may very well be just a detailed explanation why the mechanism does work.
I think cosmic rays are just a useful proxy for other solar changes that affect global cloudiness and albedo.
We have observed that when cloudiness decreases the jets become more zonal and when cloudiness increases the jets are more meridional.
Thus we don’t just need cosmic rays to create more clouds in situ, we need them to shift the entire global air circulation.
To do that needs effects in the stratosphere where there are no clouds.
We have observed that the stratosphere cooled when the sun was active and stopped cooling when the sun became less active and may now be warming.
I do not see how cosmic rays could achieve that.