You mean that the big, glowing ball in the sky can actually affect the climate?
With the new results just published in the recognised journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists have succeeded for the first time in directly observing that the electrically charged particles coming from space and hitting the atmosphere at high speed contribute to creating the aerosols that are the prerequisites for cloud formation.
The more cloud cover occurring around the world, the lower the global temperature – and vice versa when there are fewer clouds. The number of particles from space vary from year to year – partly controlled by solar activity. An understanding of the impact of cosmic particles – consisting of electrons, protons and other charged particles – on cloud formation and thereby the number of clouds, is therefore very important as regards climate models.
Via John D. who writes – …it confirms the research of Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark. A few years ago he postulated that cosmic radiation hitting earth from space encouraged cloud formation and cooler temperatures. An active sun with lots of sunspots shot out magnetic particles that batted a lot of the cosmic particles away from the earth, thereby resulting in less cloud cover and warmer temperatures. Svensmark set up a lab experiment to illustrate this effect and it appears this latest research, described at the link, confirms the validity of his work.
The Svensmark Effect will be embargoed by the MSM and ignored by politicians, just like Climategate was.
Thanks Dr. Kate!
Apparently you had to be a rocket surgeon to guznita that one
Rather obvious if you ask me. After all, didn’t every kid make a cloud chamber to observe cosmic rays when they were 14 years old? Talk about boring but so neat when you see a track form.
Sounds somewhat akin to a hypothesis my brother was on a team researching in atmospheric science.
Let’s see . . .
propose a theory, invent a test, conduct the test, publish your methods and test results.
Poor man, he’ll never qualify as a Climate Scientologist or a Climate Data Change expert doing such old fashioned “science”
Great work.
The sun is the universe’s biggest nuclear reactor and now people are surprised.
But … how can we use this to con people into handing over money and other good stuff?
I’ll wait for Fat Gore’s opinion on this.
How dare this; this scientist contradict the opinions of statesmen ( career political hacks ) and the enlightened class ( Stalinists cloaked in the camouflage of environmentalism ) the world over!
Bravo Prof. Svensmark for sacrificing the rich grants available to AGW ” researchers “, to pursue science, instead.
It’s the sun, son.
Just say no to solar warming denial.
Osumashi Kinyobe
‘The sun is the universe’s biggest nuclear reactor and now people are surprised.”
At the risk of being picky….I am certain you mean…”in this solar system…” not the universe.
The Universe is a big place and our sun is a little guy….especially compared to Canis Major (The dog star).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_known_stars
What sucks about this is we have for-real global cooling until the sunspots come back. Whenever that happens.
I could use some global warming right now. Middle of May and it looks like first of April outside. April is CR@P in Ontario. I skipped April! Spent it in Arizona. Only to come home to… more frickin’ April! WTF!!!
More importantly, its so freaking soggy nobody can get on the land yet. Seeding should have been 2-3 weeks ago, I can’t even cut the lawn due to standing water. Corn harvest in December? Bad!
Sasquatch wrote:
“At the risk of being picky….I am certain you mean…”in this solar system…” not the universe.”
D’oh…
Can’t be the sun. We are still paying a carbon tax in BC. Government is never wrong.
If you’d like to have great fun with the Leftist mindset, the next time you hear someone espousing that anyone who doesn’t believe in man-made is in denial and/or stupid, just say this to them:
“With the anthropogenic global warming theory that you subscribe to, please explain how much of a factor the sun was determined to be.”
– 98% of the people won’t even get past the 3rd word
– 1% will lie and try to bluff their way through an explanation
– The last 1% will admit that the sun was not factored into the calculations but be in denial that it matters.
Not settled yet. Several steps to go —
// to prove the link between cosmic rays and cloud formation, the experiment will need to be carried out for longer in a bigger vessel. This would determine whether the clusters grow to about 100 nm, at which point they would be large enough to act as cloud-condensing nuclei. He says that the chamber being used in the CLOUD experiment at CERN, which has a volume of some 26 m3, might be large enough.
Clouded science
According to Pedersen, if it can be shown that the clusters reach the scale of micrometres, Svensmark’s hypothesis will have been proven. Then, he explains, it would be a question of finding out the significance of the effect. “There is so much that is not known about cloud formation, so it is possible that it could be an important component of global warming,” he says.
However, there are problems with the cosmic-ray hypothesis. One is that although there was a clear correlation between global temperatures and the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the Earth’s surface (as measured by neutron counters) prior to 1970, that correlation has broken down over the last 40 years. Another problem is that a claimed correlation between cosmic rays and global low cloud cover – as revealed in satellite observations – that was put forward by Svensmark to support his theory has been questioned by a number of researchers, who have found that the correlation only holds over specific regions of time and space.
Indeed, Chris Folland, a climate researcher at the UK’s Met Office, says it is not clear to what extent cosmic rays could really enhance cloud formation, given the vast numbers of naturally occurring particulates within the atmosphere that could act as cloud-condensing nuclei. He also says that even if there is a noticeable effect on cloudiness, this effect could be either positive or negative, arguing that cosmic rays might be expected to have a larger affect on higher-altitude clouds, which tend to warm the planet by preventing radiation from escaping into space. “Low-level clouds generally cool the surface climate, but it’s not clear why they should be preferentially affected by cosmic rays,” he adds, “given that there is some effect on overall cloudiness.” //
An interesting note in the comments about stratospheric cooling —
// I wonder how much we can really ascertain about CR influence on climate. Much of the theory is dependent on secondary CR, namely the short lived muons, and their ionising influences on the lower atmosphere. But the fluxes of these particles are themselves strongly controlled by temperature variations in the stratosphere (New Scientist). So surely then it simply becomes an issue of stratospheric control on tropospheric processes. If indeed these new processes are significant compared with all manner of grit and dust swirling about and creating CCN. //
And one of the effects of CO2-induced global warming is that the stratosphere does cool.
Still, these are real scientists, not loons like Watts & McIntyre. And this is an example of the scientific method in action. Hypotheses are proposed; most are refuted or change in significance with new information. This could lead to the ability to better include aerosols in the climate models.
I might point out that this is toward an attempt to explain present global warming. To those who don’t believe the climate is warming, it’s no consolation.
[But the small boy in me would love it to be all down to cosmic rays.]
So….if Chris Folland is the standard for climate research, what he is really saying is “we don’t have a clue”.
Probably the only honest statement that could pass a peer review.