Cosmoclimatology

[pmaust]

Is this a gimick or is there something too it? I'd appreciate thoughtful feed back on this. Here is a link ==> Cosmoclimatology — Spacecenter

Thanks

Paul

[Zythryn]

How much and what type of effect cosmic rays have on our climate is a very valid question. There is a fair amount of study going into the findings found at your link.
So I wouldn't say this is crazy talk, or bunk. It is a very interesting question, but the correlations don't seem to be quite as tight as originally thought of.
You can find an interesting summary of the concept at Cosmic ray - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[ggoodknight]

It's real. The main CERN collaborator in the CLOUD experiment made the mistake 10 years ago of saying galactic cosmic rays might be the cause of most or even all of the measured global warming, then found the money for CLOUD had disappeared. It was the cheap and dirty (and successful) SKY experiment in a Copenhagen basement that provided the rationale for CLOUD to finally be funded last year.

I tried to post a number of links to interesting CERN documentation but spamming measures blocked the posting.

[ggoodknight]

This past weekend, on the USA National Public Radio network's Weekend Edition (Saturday), there was an interesting story a book regarding how quickly our works might crumble without our maintenance. There was a line at the end regarding the Permian Extinction and a coming "human caused extinction" that just begged to be responded to.

Since it may well go nowhere at NPR, I thought you guys might like to read it. Sorry, but cutting and pasting into the NPR "email" page stripped apostrophes and sundry other formattings:

(DEAR NPR WEEKEND EDITION)

"The World Without Us" segment with Alan Weisman was riveting, but his final comments regarding the Permian extinction and a future "human caused extinction" to be overcome bear closer examination. The Permian-Triassic extinction 251 million years ago did wipe out about 90% of all species, and is held up by some as an example of a greenhouse gas caused global warming catastrophe, with CO2 levels (and perhaps other greenhouse gases) rising dramatically in a positive feedback heating disaster that didnt even spare the insects.

However, there is another feature of the Permian-Triassic boundary and another theory for global climate change that deserve notice at NPR. Over the last 600 million years, it was during the time of the P-T extinction that our world was bombarded by the fewest galactic cosmic rays (or GCR) of that entire period. Is it only a curious coincidence that the hottest periods in the last 600 million years have been during periods of scarce GCR, and the coldest (with perhaps the whole planet freezing over) during times of GCR plenty?

Physicist Dr. Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center (who has coined the term cosmoclimatology) and a number of other scientists have been quietly building a case for over a decade that galactic cosmic rays help low level clouds to form, and when there are more GCR, there are more clouds, less sunlight reaches the land and seas and it gets colder and conversely when there are fewer GCR (and therefore fewer clouds) more sunlight reaches the surface of the planet and we get warmer.

The high energy charged particles arriving from beyond our solar system are deflected away from the earth with varying vigor by the solar wind and solar magnetic activity. In the latter part of the 20th century, galactic cosmic rays were as rare as they were during the Medieval Warming (or Medieval Climate Optimum) a thousand years ago, when the sun tended to shield our planet from them. Conversely, during the so-called Little Ice Age (think Breugels Hunters in the Snow and ice skating on the Thames), sunspots (indications of high solar magnetic activity) were rare and all but vanished at times.

In our time, the overall level of galactic cosmic rays bathing the earth is as low as it has been in 1000 years, and possibly as low as it has been in the last 8000 years. Should we be surprised we are as warm now as when the Vikings were farming Greenland? It may be warm now but we still have a cosmic ray bombardment perhaps three or four times as high as is was at the P-T event.

It is a shame when politics drives science, and it is global politics that has driven CO2-driven climate simulations to the forefront and done its best to bury Svensmark et al. Funding was killed in the late 90s for an experiment that could have settled the question, CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets). At Europes CERN particle accelerator, CLOUD was to investigate the role particle physics plays in the atmosphere, but that experiment was recently started in earnest after a low budget version using natural cosmic rays was performed in a basement science lab in Copenhagen and showed positive results. Dont be too surprised if CLOUD gets the results they expect.

Its about time NPR takes a serious look at the very real alternative to CO2 for the current warming that has taken place since the Little Ice Age waned. There are very good reasons to burn oil sparingly, but some smart folk have concluded that avoiding an imminent "human caused extinction" due to CO2 emissions is not one of them. If you can, do the story without giving the CO2 warming proponents the obligatory last word. One thing is clear, no one is sure right now what the temperature would be right now if no one was alive to complain about how hot it is.

(links to Svensmark papers, Discover interview and CLOUD papers deleted)

[Qfwfq]

Obviously cosmic rays have their part in determining atmospheric chemistry, but this isn't a reason to discredit the role of carbon dioxide in determining climate.

[Zohaar818]

Not sure where to post this on the forums..thought I saw a "future of earth" subheading somewhere here but can't find it in the search function.
If anyone knows where this post should be properly placed, besides here on Cosmoclimatology would you be so kind as to forward me the link? Thanks.
Meanwhile...let me preface this discussion with a a refresher for those who may not be familiar with the dynamics of electrical induction....

Instead of conducting heat from the cooking surface to the cookware, induction heating utilizes electromagnetism to actually create heat within the cookware. The idea is not that new, actually. Since the early ’90s, the technology has gained increasing acceptance in Japan and Europe. American markets are just warming up to the idea.In an induction stove, an electromagnet is placed underneath the cooking surface. When an alternating current runs through the electromagnet, a rapidly changing magnetic field is produced. An electric “eddy” current will be generated in large metal objects above this electromagnet, causing resistance heating. Unlike traditional electric stoves, this resistance heating takes place in the pot itself, not in a heating element underneath.

This type of heating has important implications for the cook. One of the most startling differences from traditional stoves is that the cooking surface doesn’t get hot! Because heat is only generated in the cookware, you can lay your hand right over the cooking surface and not burn yourself. This is a great advantage for children who don’t follow their parents’ advice. Because heat is generated right at the surface of the cookware, less heat is lost to the environment. In real-life terms, this means the ability to boil water in half the time.

Unfortunately, induction stoves do have a big disadvantage: only ferrous (iron-containing) cookware can be used.

The Tartan Online : How Things Work: Magnetic Induction Cooktops

I find this relevant in assessing the observed climate changes occurring not just here on planet earth, but on our sister planets, like Mars which is also undergoing a never before observed [or postulated] polar melt. And that is just one of dozens of examples which seem to suggest that:
1. ours is not the only planet undergoing climate change..and therefore
2. something other than greenhouse gas must be the causal factor.

Now we can discuss cosmic rays but I strongly doubt that they are anything but [possibly] mitigating or exacerbating factors in the grand scheme of things. More to the point...with respect to this mass 'Greenhouse Gas causes Global Warming 'hysteria...may I just say that it is a lot like blaming smoke for the fire.

So that leaves me to conclude that the cause of all of what is happening on planets throughout the system must be tied to a common, central point of focus..and that would be the sun. Need I remind anyone here that our planet's core..and that of most of the rest..is basically molten iron/nickel? Or that the sun, despite being a fission fused star..[in theory anyway] is also a powerful electro-magnetic engine....that we are all within it's plasma field?

That is why I included the refresher about induction above. For it is my contention that Global warming is being caused by electrical induction..we're the pot being warmed from within as a result of strong electro-magnetic shifts occurring within both the corona..and maybe even the "core" of the sun...and within the core of earth.

It would certainly explain the rise in frequency and intensity of earthquakes being reported. And the sudden coming to life of some of the more active..or long dormant volcanoes. And, BTW..the overwhelming majority of voclanoes here on Earth are to be found undersea. That speaks to me of a rather plausible probability that this more rapid than expected polar melt is being caused by heat rising from the bottom.

Anyway..I would appreciate your feedback and ..again..can soemone please direct me to the future of earth forum?
Thanks

Zohar

[ggoodknight]

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

Obviously cosmic rays have their part in determining atmospheric chemistry, but this isn't a reason to discredit the role of carbon dioxide in determining climate.

If GCR (galactic cosmic rays) are responsible for at least 67% of the warming, as one paper has found for a past time period, that certainly makes CO2 a maximum of 33% of what has been observed, quite a slashing, and certainly does discredit *ALL* of the computer climate models cited by the IPCC, none of which (to date) include GCR effects. *ALL* of said models apparently expect and assume cloud cover is the result of temperature, not the other way around.

By the way, I've been waving this flag for a few months. To begin with, it was met with condescension and a basic science lecture, then political name calling along the lines of right wing denier or tool of Big Oil. I think many AGW proponents are beginning to worry that there really might be something to it, and are just trying to ignore it hoping some failure (like CLOUD being inconclusive) will let GCR cosmoclimatology fade away. This is possible, but I am betting against it. This is simple, it is clean, it is supported by the geologic record, written history, even short term with a daily observation, and down to seconds, the time frame the SKY experiment found for generation of very small droplets, too small to be the actual cloud condensation nuclei but chances are very good they are a precursor.

[Qfwfq]

Any hint about how galactic cosmic rays could account for as much as 67%?

[ggoodknight]

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

Any hint about how galactic cosmic rays could account for as much as 67%?

Variations in albedo dwarf the 1.2W per sq.m posited for CO2 warming by the IPCC. Shaviv calculated something like 2/3 being a lower bound for GCR temperature change in one period studied in the geologic record. Jasper KIRKBY, the lead for the CERN CLOUD experiment was said to believe, when CLOUD was first proposed, that GCR were responsible for half to virtually all of the observed climate change since the end of the little ice age, which apparently helped kill the CLOUD funding the first time around.

Go to the Svensmark Cosmoclimatology paper in Astronomy and Geophyics (Feb '07). Look at Figure 8, the plot (after Shaviv) of temperature and GCR flux (derived from C14 and Be10 records, iirc) over the past 600 million years. Assuming GCR is causing the temperature change of the Earth and not the other way around, , if GCR can cause a swing from the heat at the Permian Triassic boundary to a virtual snowball Earth, it can easily be responsible for a half degree since the mid 1800's.

I'd be happy to give you links but this forum does not yet allow me to do so.

cheers
Greg

[Qfwfq]

Yes it would be interesting to see the data, and also if meteorologists have observed these changes in cloud formation.