Saturday
Sep102011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill New paper supports Svensmark hypothesis
Sep 10, 2011 Climate: solar Nigel Calder reports on a paper by Dragić et al.. The paper considers the effects of Forbush decreases - when solar flares cause reductions in the number of galactic cosmic rays reaching the Earth. According to the Svensmark hypothesis, this should cause a reduction in cloudiness.
Dragić and his co-authors have looked at the diurnal temperature range - the difference between daytime maxima and nighttime minima after Forbush increases. If clouds are indeed reduced, then the diurnal temperature range should increase, ie colder nights and warmer days.
The results look good for Svensmark's ideas.
The results [are] hard (impossible?) to explain by any mechanism except an influence of cosmic rays on cloud formation.
(H/T Pharos in Unthreaded)
Reader Comments (33)
I like the Svensmark paper and the proverbial stick it throws in the chicken shed, and it's only, you know, 10y+ old this paper and ideas.
I'm sure its all coverd by one or more of the 100s of parameters in GCMs ..
who ARE we to dAre to think this was all not pal reviewed before, and appropriately taken into account by realclimate brainees? We haven't even publishd yet.
clouds, what i do not understand is that once you read they warm the earth another time you read they cool the earth. Is probably dependent on their height ??
The results [are] hard (impossible?) to explain by any mechanism except an influence of cosmic rays on cloud formation.
I hold judgement, sounds too similar to 'It must be CO2 as we can't think of anything else' but thats what CERN is for ie to show causation by independent experiment.
An extra jigsaw piece which is welcome.
I think, allowing for Calder's natural enthusiasm for this — this after all one of his pet hypotheses — this is another piece in the overall jigsaw. He does admit that the results are better than he expected so perhaps they do need to be taken with a pinch of salt but in a world of honest science this + Svensmark + CLOUD ought to lead to some very serious further research.
Always assuming, that is, that the scientists and the politicians do actually want an honest answer.
Mike Jackson, when they work out how to tax cosmic rays and clouds, expect developments
Breath of Fresh Air:
I think the main difference here is that Forbush increases are of relatively short duration. Therefore the chance of the witnessed effect being caused by something else independent of these events but which occur simultaneously must be vanishingly small.
When we consider CO2, the proposed cause is of much longer duration, the correlation almost certainly much less and there is a much higher possibility of the CO2 having been confounded with another factor.
I think this is a superb result - but it only shows that there is a diurnal effect without proving any average change in temperature. Still, it makes it much harder to discount cosmic rays altogether as not having any effect.
"Clouds determine the Earth’s radiation balance. They play an important role in the hydrological cycle, the transport of heat and moisture. If confirmed, a CR-cloud connection would have profound consequences on our understanding of climate forcing."
Has anyone alterted Kevin Trenberth? Presumably not, because the editor of ASST appears to be still in situ.
"The result strongly supports the idea that cosmic rays influence the atmospheric processes and climate."
"Acknowledgements. The support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Serbia through project number 141002 is gratefully acknowledged."
Well, Serbia was only a potential candidate for admission to the EU anyway. Don't see that happening anytime soon.
I think I've never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
===================
Expect a rapid dismissal from the Team and sympathetic journos (Black, Harrabin et al). These papers MUST be kept out of AR5. The reaction to Spenser is proof of the desperation to keep anything off-message out of AR5. They think if they can just keep it together till AR5 comes out policy makers and parasite finance will have all the ammo they need to get the legislation fixed before any bad news comes down the line.
Wrong.
Svensmark proposes his theory, CERN has now conducted 2(?) experiments which seem to support it, and now a paper using real world observational data also comes out in support.
Climatologists will continue to ignore this, because their models can't cope with this sort of proper science
the CR thing is quite worrying: it seems we are continuous been bombarded with rubbish out of the all.
Not only that, but it varies a lot on day by day basis.
Maybe we should start to live indoors? Me for starters has moved to a few branches more down
Kev to Serbia: I expect your token resignation(s) on my desk in the morning.
@kim
Perhaps by now you might be saying:
I think I've never heard so loud
The insistent message in a cloud.
Re: matthu
"Acknowledgements. The support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Serbia through project number 141002 is gratefully acknowledged."
Everybody knows that the Minister of Science and Technology once got a free gift when buying petrol and is therefore in the pay of Big Oil. That means the entire project is tainted and serious climate scientists can ignore the results
Svensmark has a very interesting theory but keep in mind, all the recent experiments simply show is that the mechanism is plausible. I am certainly in the camp that clouds make a huge difference in the overall climate, that they vary over time and that the GCR's may affect the amount of clouds. But I am also convinced that there are other solar affects on the atmosphere. If you recall, in late 2008 or 2009, NASA issued a press release indicating that the height of the atmoshpere was lower than they had ever measured. And while there are very small variances in the total solar irradiance or TSI, there is a 10% variation in UV and the strength of UV from the sun can have a big impact on the amount of ozone in the upper atmoshere and that can affect weather patterns. Historians have noted that periods of low solar activity are not just known for average cooling, they are distinct in having a great deal of extreme weather. I hope that the full spectrum of solar variability influences on the climate are looked at not just one mechanism that may explain a change in climate but also the ones that might explain changes in the weather.
The existence of the Standard Atmosphere as a long-term equilibrium state of the atmosphere stands against the Svensmark hypothesis that clouds can affect the climate, and my comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth definitively confirms the validity of the Standard Atmosphere, and the fact that clouds cannot affect the long-term climate. I'm sorry, but you all need to think of these dueling peer-reviewed papers as like weather events, of short duration and seeming importance, but no lasting effect on real scientific knowledge. And you should have been alert to this possibility, even without me to inform you, because you have learned that peer review is not to be trusted, period, haven't you?
Sean : "Svensmark has a very interesting theory but keep in mind, all the recent experiments simply show is that the mechanism is plausible."
That's all we ask the IPCC, the scientific consensus and governments to face up to. Because once you accept that there possible IS another plausible explanation, then there must surely be some onus of prrof before you spend hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide without doing any cost enefit analysis? The science is NOT settled.
Hammer away at it, matthu, because all we are seeking is an open mind.
If there are other credible hypotheses that may account for only a small part of the present warming then that is enough to put some restraint on the "science is settled" crowd.
We're not even asking them to give up their favourite prejudices — yet! Just admit that they are not the keepers of some sacred climate flame and that those who don't buy into the whole dogma might just have a useful contibution to make.
Don't they want to get it right?
Mike, I couldn't put it any better than Terry:
If Henrik Svensmark is right, then we are going down the wrong path of taking all these expensive measures to cut carbon emissions; if he is right, we could carry on with carbon emissions as normal.— Terry Sloan, BBC News 3 April 2008
I guess Terry must have been pretty confident that Svensmark was wrong back then.
I notice neither Sloan nore Wolfendale has passed any comment on Dragic's paper yet (as far as I am aware). Yet if I remember it was they who first looked at Forbush decreases and tried to use them to discredit Svensmark's hypothesis.
Svensmark was unimpressed. "Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds," he told BBC News.
.
Sean said:
I didn't remember that so went a-googling. Is this what you mean? 15th July 2010: A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere
From the article:
Wait for it ...
Wait for it ...
Hurrah!
In all fairness it is quite an even handed article making plain that there is much science doesn't know about the thermosphere and how limited the records are.
Back in January, an interesting exchange took place between a commenter Peter and Nigel on the following Nigel Calder posting
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/whoosh-not-missing-just-busy/
I have my own view of the interpretation of this, but perhaps we need to watch this 'space'.
Extract quote:
Peter says:
28/01/2011 at 20:58
Hello Nigel
I feel like I’m waiting for a baby.
I check your website all the time. I’ve even emailed CERN. The CERN press office passed on a quote from Jasper Kirkby:
“We have a draft manuscript of the first CLOUD results under consideration for journal publication but we do not yet have a firm date for publication I’m afraid.
Best regards, Jasper”
Do you have any good news?
Thanks
calderup says:
30/01/2011 at 15:26
All I can say, Peter, is that the baby I have in mind won’t come from CERN. The news will be good but not any day soon, I’m afraid. My main deadline was met on 30 Dec and now another has appeared. Everything is in the scientific pipeline.
Nigel
Peter says:
30/01/2011 at 23:37
Thanks for your reply. I will continue to hope that science prevails and look forward to some good news, hopefully in 2011, but I suspect it may take longer though.
Keep up the good work.
Unquote
The science is settled claim increasingly looks like the albatross around climate science neck.
You can well image years from now and people looking back and wonder how this claims was ever made in the first when the very nature of it was so anti-science given the great range of things not know or poorly understood. The answer is simply is not a science issue which brought the need for this about, but a political one that needed 'settled science '
You're confusing different things here sean. A mechanism has been observed through physical experiments (its real). The question is significance in terms of how that mechanism affects the climate. Svensmark hypothesis that it has a strong influence and is a significant factor in the Earth's climate is made more plausible as a result of the experimental data.
So where does this put the IPCC claim that it is only man's addition of CO2 that could have changed the balance of energy entering and leaving the Earth’s atmosphere?
Jim (Hansen): "Give the AGW scare all you've got, Scotty!"
Scotty: "Captain. She just cannae take any more -- she'll blow up!"
Let us not make the same mistakes as AGW proponents. This is a potential contributer, we have a theory and several pieces of supporting evidence. These authors correctly suggest this is just the begining and furtehr work is required. Continue to study by all means but not hang hats on it. I'm sure it will be disregarded as much as feasible, such a shame the scientific playing field is uneven these days. .
Now in the meantime everyone put your best Danny Kay Voice on and sing together.
"Look at the King! Look at the the King! Look at the King, the King, the King!
The King is in the all together
But all together the all together
He's all together as naked as the day that he was born.
The King is in the all together
But all together the all together
It's all together the very least the King has ever worn."
Come on Nick (Stokes), we're waiting with baited breath for your take on this!
I think that should be "bated breath".
I applaud the efforts of H. Svensmark and the other scientists who have studied and supplied the scientific data that sheds light on the total global warming question and that the warming is not man made. If certainly confirms my belief. How can one not recognize that the world has experienced many changes in climate before man began burning fossil fuels? Do we need a science background to make that conclusion? Not always. Historical records can assist us. Did the ancient societies such as the Mayans and Hopi Indians recognize that change happens on a cyclical basis? It is time for our political leaders to use some common sense and to examine the Pro and Con science before making their decisions.
Joni Mitchell had the it all about right with Both Sides Now in 1969. At leas concerning the Climate Alarmists Models:
Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun they rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's cloud's illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all
And, after 42 years, the warmists still don't know.
"...my comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth definitively confirms the validity of the Standard Atmosphere..." HARRY DALE HUFFMAN
Harry, you have to be kidding! You studied Venus, so you are a perfect predictor of life on earth. Give us a break, you must think us layman are gullible, remember, we're the ones that don't even believe EARTH BOUND DATA FROM WARMISTS!!!
Harry, you're a scream! Tell us another funny story! You're killing us... Please stop!
"...my comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth definitively confirms the validity of the Standard Atmosphere..." HARRY DALE HUFFMAN
Harry, you have to be kidding! You studied Venus, so you are a perfect predictor of life on earth. Give us a break, you must think us layman are gullible, remember, we're the ones that don't even believe EARTH BOUND DATA FROM WARMISTS!!!
Harry, you're a scream! Tell us another funny story! You're killing us... Please stop!
GogogoStopSTOP:
A sterling example of anonymous peer review. Scientifically worthless, and even worse as an example of civilized dialog.