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You are here: Home / Archives for Climate Science / Sun-earth connections

Sun-earth connections

Aerosol effects and climate, Part II: the role of nucleation and cosmic rays

15 Apr 2009 by group

Translations: (Italian) (English)

Guest post by Bart Verheggen, Department of Air Quality and Climate Change , Energy research Institute of the Netherlands (ECN)

In Part I, I discussed how aerosols nucleate and grow. In this post I’ll discuss how changes in nucleation and ionization might impact the net effects.

Cosmic rays

Galactic cosmic rays (GCR) are energetic particles originating from space entering Earth’s atmosphere. They are an important source of ionization in the atmosphere, besides terrestrial radioactivity from e.g. radon (naturally emitted by the Earth’s surface). Over the oceans and above 5 km altitude, GCR are the dominant source. Their intensity varies over the 11 year solar cycle, with a maximum near solar minimum. Carslaw et al. give a nice overview of potential relations between cosmic rays, clouds and climate. Over the first half of the 20th century solar irradiance has slightly increased, and cosmic rays have subsequently decreased. RC has had many previous posts on the purported links between GCR and climate, e.g. here, here and here.

[Read more…] about Aerosol effects and climate, Part II: the role of nucleation and cosmic rays

Filed Under: Aerosols, Climate Science, Sun-earth connections

The Younger Dryas comet-impact hypothesis: gem of an idea or fool’s gold?

7 Jan 2009 by eric

There was a paper in Science last week that has gotten quite a bit of press. It reports further evidence in support of the idea that the Younger Dryas — a distinct period towards the end of the last ice age when the deglaciation in the Northern Hemisphere was interrupted for a period of about 1300 years — was caused by a barrage of comets hitting North America.

When the first papers on this came out last year, we expressed skepticism. We remain skeptical and our reasons remain unchanged. But we think it is worth saying a bit more on this, because the reporting on this issue has largely ignored just how big an idea this is, and therefore how much more work would need to be done before it could be taken very seriously.
[Read more…] about The Younger Dryas comet-impact hypothesis: gem of an idea or fool’s gold?

Filed Under: Climate Science, Paleoclimate, Reporting on climate, Sun-earth connections

Ozone holes and cosmic rays

14 Dec 2008 by Gavin

Translations: (Italian) (English)

ozone hole sept 2007Browsing through the blogosphere recently, I came across an interesting little story about the scientific method, scientific progress, and un-scientific spin (h/t Hank Roberts). The subject concerns the polar ozone hole in Antarctica and a possible role for cosmic rays in its variability on solar cycle timescales. The proponents of this link are a small research group at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, who find themselves up against the mainstream stratospheric chemistry community and whose ideas are twisted out of all recognition by the more foolish of the usual suspects.

[Read more…] about Ozone holes and cosmic rays

Filed Under: Climate Science, Sun-earth connections

A Galactic glitch

10 Mar 2008 by rasmus

Knud Jahnke and Rasmus Benestad

After having watched a new documentary called the ‘Cloud Mystery’ – and especially the bit about the galaxy (approximately 2 – 4 minutes into the linked video clip) – we realised that a very interesting point has been missed in earlier discussions about ‘climate, galactic cosmic rays and the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy.

It is claimed in ‘The Cloud Mystery’, the book ‘The Chilling Stars’, and related articles that our solar system takes about 250 million years to circle the Milky Way galaxy and that our solar system crosses one of the spiral arms about every ~150 million years (Shaviv 2003).

But is this true? Most likely not. As we will discuss below, this claim is seriously at odds with astrophysical data.
[Read more…] about A Galactic glitch

Filed Under: Climate Science, skeptics, Sun-earth connections

A phenomenological sequel

27 Nov 2007 by rasmus

Grading

Does climate sensitivity depend on the cause of the change?
Can a response to a forcing wait and then bounce up after a period of inertness?
Does the existence of an 11-year time-scale prove the existence of solar forcing?
Why does the amplitude of the secular response drop when a long-term trend is added?
[Read more…] about A phenomenological sequel

Filed Under: Climate modelling, Climate Science, Paleoclimate, Sun-earth connections

Cosmic rays don’t die so easily

4 Oct 2007 by rasmus

Cover picture of Solar Activity and Earth's Climate Last week, a Norwegian official-looking – and in my view – climatesceptic website praised Eigil Friis-Christensen from the Danish space center (featuring in the Great Global Warming Swindle) and hailed him for having given the best speech ever in the annual Birkeland seminar organized by Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (NASL). There were rumours of controversy behind the scene before the seminar, as the NASL is regarded as a prestigious body in Norway.

Furthermore, Svensmark and Friis-Christensen have written a response (title ‘Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich – The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing’; DNSC Scientific Report Series 3/2007) to a recent paper by Lockwood and Frohlich (LF2007). In this response, they state ’… [LF2007] argue that this historical link between the Sun and climate came to an end about 20 years ago‘. Another quote from their response is ‘Here we rebut their argument comprehensively’. So the cosmic ray theory isn’t quite dead after all?

[Read more…] about Cosmic rays don’t die so easily

Filed Under: Climate Science, Sun-earth connections

Fun with correlations!

9 May 2007 by Gavin

Translations: (Türkçe) (English)

We are forever being bombarded with apparently incredible correlations of various solar indices and climate. A number of them came up in the excoriable TGGWS mockumentary last month where they were mysteriously ‘improved’ in a number of underhand ways. But even without those improvements (which variously involved changing the axes, drawing in non-existent data, taking out data that would contradict the point etc.), the as-published correlations were superficially quite impressive. Why then are we not impressed?

To give you an idea, I’m going to go through the motions of constructing a new theory of political change using techniques that have been pioneered by a small subset of solar-climate researchers (references will of course be given). And to make it even more relevant, I’m going to take as my starting point research that Richard Lindzen has highlighted on his office door for many years:
[Read more…] about Fun with correlations!

Filed Under: Climate Science, Sun-earth connections

Swindled!

9 Mar 2007 by group

Translations: (Türkçe) (English)

By William and Gavin

On Thursday March 8th, the UK TV Channel 4 aired a programme titled “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. We were hoping for important revelations and final proof that we have all been hornswoggled by the climate Illuminati, but it just repeated the usual specious claims we hear all the time. We feel swindled. Indeed we are not the only ones: Carl Wunsch (who was a surprise addition to the cast) was apparently misled into thinking this was going to be a balanced look at the issues (the producers have a history of doing this), but who found himself put into a very different context indeed [Update: a full letter from Wunsch appears as comment 109 on this post]

So what did they have to say for themselves?
[Read more…] about Swindled!

Filed Under: Climate Science, Extras, Paleoclimate, Reporting on climate, Reviews, Sun-earth connections

‘Cosmoclimatology’ – tired old arguments in new clothes

9 Mar 2007 by rasmus

Translations: (Português) (English)

Image from cosmosIn a recent issue of the journal Astronomy and Geophysics (A&G), Henrik Svensmark coined a new term: ‘cosmoclimatology’ . I think ‘cosmoclimatology’ is a good and refreshing name for anything combining our cosmos with our climate. However, all other aspects of the article I found very disappointing. We have already covered most of these topics before, but the A&G articles provides us with some new aspects to discuss. Furthermore, Svensmark is the Director for Center for Sun-Climate Research, Danish National Space Center, and therefore influential. He is also the co-author of a recent book with Nigel Calder that received some attention. Furthermore, a laboratory experiment of his also managed to make some headlines. It seems that solar forcing is one of the sceptics’ last trenches in the debate about climate change. In my view the A&G paper therefore merits a comment as long as the same old and worn arguments resurface without discussing misgivings from the critics.

[Read more…] about ‘Cosmoclimatology’ – tired old arguments in new clothes

Filed Under: Climate Science, Sun-earth connections

Nigel Calder in the Times

12 Feb 2007 by group

As a prelude to a new book, Nigel Calder (who was the editor of New Scientist for four years in the 1960s) has written an op-ed for the Times (UK) basically recapitulating the hype over the Svensmark cosmic ray/climate experiments we reported on a couple of month ago (see Taking Cosmic Rays for a spin). At the time we pointed out that while the experiments were potentially of interest, they are a long way from actually demonstrating an influence of cosmic rays on the real world climate, and in no way justify the hyperbole that Svensmark and colleagues put into their press releases and more ‘popular’ pieces. Even if the evidence for solar forcing were legitimate, any bizarre calculus that takes evidence for solar forcing of climate as evidence against greenhouse gases for current climate change is simply wrong. Whether cosmic rays are correlated with climate or not, they have been regularly measured by the neutron monitor at Climax Station (Colorado) since 1953 and show no long term trend. No trend = no explanation for current changes.

Filed Under: Climate Science, RC Forum, Sun-earth connections

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