There is a new paper in Environmental Research Letters that give additional support to Henrik Svensmark’s cosmic ray hypothesis of climate change on Earth. The idea is basically this: the suns changing magnetic field has an influence on galactic cosmic rays, with a stronger magnetic field deflecting more cosmic rays and a weaker one allowing more into the solar system. The cosmic rays affect cloud formation on Earth by creating condensation nuclei. Here is a simplified block flowchart diagram of the process:
The authors of the the new paper have a similar but more detailed flowchart:
The new paper suggest that changes in the quantity of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) are caused by changes in the cosmic ray flux:
The impact of solar variations on particle formation and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), a critical step for one of the possible solar indirect climate forcing pathways, is studied here with a global aerosol model optimized for simulating detailed particle formation and growth processes. The effect of temperature change in enhancing the solar cycle CCN signal is investigated for the first time. Our global simulations indicate that a decrease in ionization rate associated with galactic cosmic ray flux change from solar minimum to solar maximum reduces annual mean nucleation rates, number concentration of condensation nuclei larger than 10 nm (CN10), and number concentrations of CCN at water supersaturation ratio of 0.8% (CCN0.8) and 0.2% (CCN0.2) in the lower troposphere by 6.8%, 1.36%, 0.74%, and 0.43%, respectively. The inclusion of 0.2C temperature increase enhances the CCN solar cycle signals by around 50%. The annual mean solar cycle CCN signals have large spatial and seasonal variations: (1) stronger in the lower troposphere where warm clouds are formed, (2) about 50% larger in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere, and (3) about a factor of two larger during the corresponding hemispheric summer seasons. The effect of solar cycle perturbation on CCN0.2 based on present study is generally higher than those reported in several previous studies, up to around one order of magnitude.
The wider variation in CCNs makes the Svenmark’s hypothesis more plausible since the effect on clouds would also be proportionately larger.
They conclude:
The measured 0.1% level of the longterm TSI variations on Earth’s climate (i.e., solar direct climatic effect) is too small to account for the apparent correlation between observed historical solar variations and climate changes, and several mechanisms amplifying the solar variation impacts have been proposed in the literature.
Here we seek to assess how much solar variation may affect CCN abundance through the impacts of GCR and temperature changes on new particle formation, using a global aerosol model (GEOSChem/APM) optimized for simulating detailed particle formation and growth processes. Based on the GEOSChem/ APM simulations, a decrease in ionization rate associated with GCR flux change from solar minimum to solar maximum reduces global mean nucleation rates CN3, CN10, CCN0.8, CCN0.4, and CCN0.2 in the lower troposphere (0–3 km) by 6.8%, 1.91%, 1.36%, 0.74%, 0.54%, and 0.43%, respectively. The inclusion of the impact of 0.2 C temperature increase enhances the CCN solar cycle signals by around 50%.
The annual mean solar cycle CCN signals have large spatial and seasonal variations, about 50% larger than in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere and about a factor of two larger during the corresponding summer seasons. The average solar cycle signals are stronger in the lower troposphere where warm clouds are formed. The regions and seasons of stronger solar signals are associated with the higher concentrations of precursor gases which increase the growth rate of nucleated particles and the probability of these nucleated particles to become CCN. The effect of solar cycle perturbation on CCN0.2 based on the present study is generally higher than those reported in several previous studies, up to one order of magnitude. Clouds play a key role in the energy budget of Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere.
Small modifications of the amount, distribution, or radiative properties of clouds can have significant impacts on the climate. To study the impacts of a 0.5%–1% change in CCN during a solar cycle on cloud albedo, precipitation, cloud lifetime, and cloud cover, a global climate model considering robust aerosol–cloud interaction processes is needed. It should be noted that 0.5%–1% change in CCN during a solar cycle shown here only considers the effect of ionization rate and temperature change on new particle formation. During a solar cycle, changes of other parameters such as UV and TSI flux may also impact chemistry and microphysics, which may influence the magnitude of the solar indirect forcing. Further research is needed to better quantify the impact of solar activities on Earth’s climate.
Note the bold in the last paragraph.
WUWT readers may recall that Dr. Roy Spencer pointed out the issue of a slight change in cloud cover in his 2010 book intro of The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists. He writes:
“The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.”
The paper at ERL:
Effect of solar variations on particle formation and cloud condensation nuclei
Fangqun Yu and Gan Luo
The impact of solar variations on particle formation and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), a critical step for one of the possible solar indirect climate forcing pathways, is studied here with a global aerosol model optimized for simulating detailed particle formation and growth processes. The effect of temperature change in enhancing the solar cycle CCN signal is investigated for the first time. Our global simulations indicate that a decrease in ionization rate associated with galactic cosmic ray flux change from solar minimum to solar maximum reduces annual mean nucleation rates, number concentration of condensation nuclei larger than 10 nm (CN10), and number concentrations of CCN at water supersaturation ratio of 0.8% (CCN0.8) and 0.2% (CCN0.2) in the lower troposphere by 6.8%, 1.36%, 0.74%, and 0.43%, respectively. The inclusion of 0.2 °C temperature increase enhances the CCN [cloud condensation nuclei] solar cycle signals by around 50%. The annual mean solar cycle CCN signals have large spatial and seasonal variations: (1) stronger in the lower troposphere where warm clouds are formed, (2) about 50% larger in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere, and (3) about a factor of two larger during the corresponding hemispheric summer seasons. The effect of solar cycle perturbation on CCN0.2 [cloud condensation nuclei] based on present study is generally higher than those reported in several previous studies, up to around one order of magnitude.
The paper is open access and can be downloaded here: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/4/045004/pdf/1748-9326_9_4_045004.pdf
h/t to The Hockey Schtick and Bishop Hill
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Of course you’re correct that there should be little delay in cloud formation in the prompt response. However Svensmark does appear, on the basis of the linked graph comparison, to envision a lag on the scale of up to hundreds of millions of years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paleo-cosmic_flux.svg
milodonharlani says:
April 13, 2014 at 3:02 pm
Of course you’re correct that there should be little delay in cloud formation in the prompt response. However Svensmark does appear, on the basis of the linked graph comparison, to envision a lag on the scale of up to hundreds of millions of years.
A lag of hundreds of millions of years? you must be kidding. Anyway, the graph is so uncertain that nothing can be stated about lags of any lengths.
Leif Apr 12 6:12pm – What more to say? Not much. Just that “It covers the range of solar activity [and hence of cosmic ray modulation] seen over known 400 years ” is only fully relevant if what we are talking about is a linear effect.
Henryp Henryp Henryp – [Sorry, I couldn’t resist that. BTW I understand that WUWT is now passively moderated, so any delay in posting comes from an automated filter. Thus many comments show immediately while others, like yours, have to wait for a moderator.]. I have read your comments (one of each) and while I think your argument for the last century or so has some merit, it doesn’t cover the LIA, MWP, etc. Until we have a mechanism that causes those centennial changes, we can’t fully know what is causing our decadal changes.
milodonharlani Apr 13 3:0 pm – I see no “lag on the scale of up to hundreds of millions of years“. Just two curves that correlate reasonably well, given the obvious unknowns/inaccuracies in value and time.
In reply to:
Willis Eschenbach says:
April 13, 2014 at 11:09 am
Oh, my goodness. Another charming fellow who thinks we should all discuss what HE wants to discuss … sorry, William, I have no interest in “HOW the solar magnetic cycle modulates planetary climate”.
So here’s your big chance, William—bring in the facts. Find the dataset with the 11-year cycle, and I’ll be glad to discuss it.
William:
What we are experiencing now has happened again and again (see Davis and Taylor’s paper, 342 warming and cooling cycles in the last 240,000 years). What happened in the past happened for physical reasons. It is silly, irrational to ignore what has happened in the past and to ignore the fact that same regions of the planet warmed in the past as have warmed in recent times. Also it is relevant that signature of warming (regions that warmed in recent times) does not match CO2 forcing.
If you understood how the magnetic cycle modulates planetary climate you would understand why climate does not follow the solar 11-year magnetic cycle (parameters which you are plotting) for the period in which you are looking. You irrationally pick one approach to solve a problem (plotting different solar parameters for a short period) and then when that approach does not work, assert there is no solution to the problem or plead that someone else must pick the same irrational approach to solve the problem. I have solved the problem using Faraday’s method, I know what is happening and what will happen next.
There are four different mechanisms by which solar magnetic cycle changes modulate planetary climate.
The mechanism that inhibited all ion type modulation of clouds is abating. The planet will is now cooling, due to an increased of low level clouds at high latitudes and a reduction in cirrus clouds.
Obviously there is sudden and unexplained change in sea ice both poles. There must be a physical reason for the sudden increases in sea ice both poles. (See Davis and Taylor’s paper).
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
lsvalgaard says:
April 13, 2014 at 3:05 pm
The lag appears only to be on the orders of thousands to millions of years, with the cycles, if such they be, on tens to hundreds of millions. The whole graph covers ~500 million years, ie the Phanerozoic.
milodonharlani – I don’t think you can read anything at “thousands to millions of years” from that graph. It simply doesn’t have that accuracy. ie, the lag is unknown/indeterminate and it isn’t even clear that there is any lag at all.
Mike Jonas says:
April 13, 2014 at 4:15 pm
milodonharlani – I don’t think you can read anything at “thousands to millions of years” from that graph. It simply doesn’t have that accuracy. ie, the lag is unknown/indeterminate and it isn’t even clear that there is any lag at all.
Hey, don’t ruin the day of a true believer 🙂
lsvalgaard says:
April 13, 2014 at 4:27 pm
I’m not a true believer in Svensmark’s hypothesis. However, in the present state of the evidence, it looks to me that faith lies more on the side of its skeptics than its proponents. To me, you sound downright miffed that evidence in its support keeps accumulating.
Mike Jonas says:
April 13, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Since moves up & down by the red line precede those by the black line, it looks to me as if there’s a lag. You’re right that the resolution on the graph doesn’t allow for precise measurement of the lag (which is apparent to me if not to thee), but thousands to millions covers a lot of territory.
milodonharlani says:
April 13, 2014 at 5:12 pm
To me, you sound downright miffed that evidence in its support keeps accumulating.
The ‘evidence’ is not convincing, but it is a normal occurrence in science when it comes to dubious claims. Most scientists will see outright that the claim is weak and that there is little reason to keep pressing that point. In the meantime the claims keep coming, but who cares by now? Once in a blue moon compelling evidence shows up, and you find that most scientists will rapidly accept the [previously outrageous] hypothesis [plate tectonics is a good example, or dark matter, or evolution, or quantum mechanics, …], but these are VERY rare.
It is the same with the planetary hypothesis, homeopathy, etc.
lsvalgaard says:
April 13, 2014 at 5:24 pm
OTOH, virtually every established theory in science was once heterodox. Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler & Newton overthrew orthodoxies, & to some extent have since themselves been modified. The consensus of physicists, exemplified by Lord Kelvin, in the 19th century was that the earth could not be more than some tens of millions of years old. Then radioactivity was discovered.
IMO the odds of Svensmark’s being right are perhaps no better than 50/50, but important parts of his hypothesis have been confirmed in the laboratory, which is more than can be said for CACA.
milodonharlani says:
April 13, 2014 at 5:32 pm
OTOH, virtually every established theory in science was once heterodox.
for every theory that turned out to be right there are hundreds that didn’t. Those are hard odds to beat.
IMO the odds of Svensmark’s being right are perhaps no better than 50/50
applying same argument: odds that I win the lottery is 50/50, either I do or I don’t.
important parts of his hypothesis have been confirmed in the laboratory, which is more than can be said for CACA.
That CO2 is a greenhouse case is also confirmed in the laboratory. In both cases the question is “how much?”, and in both cases the answer seems to be “not much”.
and please, no more of the same old, tired arguments. We have all been there before.
What all of this post and comments show, regardless of the conclusions drawn, is that as we learn more, hoping to solve the puzzle, we learn that there is even the more we need to learn to solve the puzzle..
Here are a couple of references tying climate and the 11 year solar cycles.
http://hol.sagepub.com/content/23/3/447
http://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/faces/viewItemFullPage.jsp?itemId=escidoc:240535
Here is the abstract of the second paper
“Annually resolved terrestrial 10Be archives other than those in polar ice sheets are heretofore unexplored sources of information about past solar activity and climate. Until now, it has proven difficult to find natural archives that have captured and retained a 10Be production signal, and that allow for annual sampling and contain sufficient 10Be for AMS measurement. We report the first annually resolved record of 10Be in varved lake sediments. The record comes from Lake Lehmilampi, eastern Finland, which lies at 63°37′N, 29°06′E, 95.8 m a.s.l. The focus on the last 100 years provided an unprecedented opportunity to compare sediment 10Be data with annual ice core, neutron monitor and sunspot number data. Results indicate successful recovery of 10Be atoms from as little as 20 mg sediment. Sediment 10Be accumulation rates suggest control by solar activity, manifested as a reflection of the 11-year Schwabe solar cycle and its amplitude variations throughout the investigated period. These results open the possibility of using varved lake sediment 10Be records as a new proxy for solar activity, thus providing a new approach for synchronization of paleoclimate events worldwide.”
Here is another one tying climate changes reflected in the sedimentary record to longer term solar cycles including the 1000 year cycle which I use in my forecasts.
http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2012/eposters/eposter/pp33a-2077/
From the abstract.
” Based on an already established age model the study covers about two millennia of Late Miocene time with a resolution of ~13.7 years per sample. No major ecological turnovers are expected in respect to this very short interval. Thus, the pollen record suggests rather stable wetland vegetation with a forested hinterland. Shifts in the spectra can be mainly attributed to variations in transport mechanism, represented by few phases of fluvial input but mainly by changes in wind intensity and probably also wind direction. Even within this short time span, dinoflagellates document rapid changes between oligotrophic and eutrophic conditions, which are frequently coupled with lake stratification and dysoxic bottom waters. These phases prevented ostracods and molluscs from settling and fostered the activity of sulfur bacteria. Several of the studied proxies reveal iterative patterns. To compare and detect these repetitive signals REDFIT spectra were generated and Gaussian filters were applied. The resulting cycles correspond to the lower and upper Gleissberg, the de Vries/Suess, the unnamed 500-year, 1000-year 1,500-year and the Hallstatt cycles. To test the solar-forcing-hypothesis, our data have been compared with those from a Holocene isotope dataset. Our data represent a first unequivocal detection of solar cycles in pre-Pleistocene sediments.
Dr Page says (quoting 2nd paper)
The resulting cycles correspond to the lower and upper Gleissberg, the de Vries/Suess, the unnamed 500-year, 1000-year 1,500-year and the Hallstatt cycles. To test the solar-forcing-hypothesis, our data have been compared with those from a Holocene isotope dataset. Our data represent a first unequivocal detection of solar cycles in pre-Pleistocene sediments.
Henry@Mike Jonas
The moderator was there, making remarks to me, e.g. claiming there was no cue etc., causing me to post and re-post
We know what his name is….
Anyway, we only know from my results (on the development of maximum temps.) where we are in the Gleissberg.
We are two years away from reaching the bottom i.e. maximum speed of cooling.
I have no idea where we are in the other cycles.
My tables
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
clearly suggest that earth’s energy stores are getting to be depleted now,
therefore,
average temperatures on earth will probably fall by as much as what the maxima are falling now.
I estimate this is about -0.3K in the next 8 years and a further -0.2 or -0.3K from 2020 until 2038. By that time we will be back to where we were in 1950, more or less…
However, during my investigations I did find strange differences,
for example between Gibraltar and surrounding stations in Spain and Morocco
I hear (on WUWT) something similar happened in Seattle
These things made me start to avoid anglo saxon weather stations,
It seems there is large scale fiddling going on with the data
There is just too much money, even my own pension money, riding on this green (house) nonsense.
I only trust my own results!!
(we have already cooled -0.2 since 2000)
lsvalgaard says
HenryP says:
April 13, 2014 at 12:58 pm
You only have to worry abt that if you don’t want to sit at the table of grace?
I cannot imagine anything more boring than sitting at the table of grace [or any table for that matter] for eternity, so no thanks.
ol\e
Henry says
clearly your idea of eternity is limited
supposing you were asked to create a whole new universe, complete with new “beings”
the possibility (of a whole new universe in one brain), is there…
Svensmark’s Cosmic ray contentions have already been confirmed by the Cloud Project at CERN. This latest development is simply a addition to his overall thesis on the subject..