Cosmoclimatology theory of climate change

[RegGuheert]

A scientist in Denmark named Henrik Svensmark has developed a very interesting theory about the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation and hence global temperatures. In short, it seems that cosmic rays produce aerosols in the atmosphere which result in the formation of clouds. Further, it seems that solar storms may disrupt the flow of cosmic rays into our atmosphere and hence reduce the amount of cloud cover, thus resulting in additional heating of the earth.

This theory apparently came about after Henrik's manager noticed a strong correlation between solar activity and global temperature:


For those interested in this theory, here is a 53-minute documentary about it:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANMTPF1blpQ[/youtube]

 

[Zythryn]

That was suggested quite some time ago. One problem is the correlation falls apart after about 1980.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For full information complete with references.

 

[RegGuheert]

I've read it.

Here is a response, which is more of a tit-for-tat:

http://www.londonbookreview.com/interviews/nigelcalder.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[Alric]

No correlation between cosmic rays and warming as delineated here with references

http://www.skepticalscience.com/cosmic-rays-and-global-warming-advanced.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[AndyH]

This is a profoundly sad turn of events.

At the very least, Denial Squad, review the currently known lies and see if you can come up with a new one.

Global Warming and Climate Change Myths

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

http://grist.org/series/skeptics/

 

[RegGuheert]

That was suggested quite some time ago. One problem is the correlation falls apart after about 1980.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For full information complete with references.

No correlation between cosmic rays and warming as delineated here with references

http://www.skepticalscience.com/cosmic-rays-and-global-warming-advanced.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There is a bit of cherry-picking going on here, on both sides. But the important point is that there are several different measurements of global temperature available. The rebuttals to the cosmoclimatology theory have focused on surface temperature. For reference, here is the plot of surface temperature and cosmic rays from Alric's link:

It's clear there is a low correlation found with these surface temperatures. As an aside, I will also point out the fact that the global surface temperature is completely unchanged for the past ten years. As has been reported in the press, the global surface temperature is about to go below the lower 95% confidence band of the 1990 predictions used by the IPCC. Let's just hope it stays within the 100% confidence band! :lol:

But Svensmark and Friis-Christensen note in their rebuttal that while the correlation to surface temperature is not seen, there is a strong correlation to both ocean temperatures and tropospheric temperatures over the past 50 years. Here are the plots from their rebuttal:

Temperature is blue and inverse of cosmic rays are red.

Note that rather than showing very little correlation, as seen with surface temperatures, both tropospheric and ocean temperatures have a very high degree of correlation. While they did not give the correlation constant for the ocean temperatures, they noted a correlation coefficient of -0.31 for the tropospheric data. They were able to show even higher correlations when they removed the effects of volcanoes, El Nino and a 0.14K/decade slope from the tropospheric data.

Note that this theory is over twenty years old and in that time they have demonstrated in the laboratory the generation of aerosols using high-energy particles. In other words, the proposed causal link now has an excellent scientific basis to go along with the high correlations to temperature measurements.

Finally, here is a quote of part of the conclusion in Svensmark and Friis-Christensen's rebuttal:

The continuing rapid increase in carbon dioxide concentrations during the past 10-15 years has apparently been unable to overrule the flattening of the temperature trend as a result of the Sun settling at a high, but no longer increasing, level of magnetic activity. Contrary to the argument of Lockwood and FrÄohlich, the Sun still appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change.

 

[mendenmh]

Unfortunately for this theory, we are going into a deep solar activity minimum since the 1980s, with temperatures continuing to increase.

Here is a link to a graph of solar activity since the 1700s, less smoothed than the one at the top of this discussion.

Note that although we should be at solar max right now, this solar cycle is turning out to be a serious dud. The last cycle, which peaked around 2000, wasn't exactly a doozy, either. We may be heading into a repeat of the dropout that occurred around 1900, or maybe even the much bigger Maunder minimum which was in the late 1600s. Note that the Maunder minimum did coincide with a serious cold spell (the 'Little Ice Age') on the planet, and they may be correlated, so I would not rule out some correlation between solar activity and climate,
but it doesn't seem to follow very well, and recently the trend is seriously in the wrong direction.

This should actually be fairly scary, since we should be in a deep solar-climate cooling period right now, which means that the global warming trend we are seeing is actually being attenuated by the sunspot-climate coupling. When we come back out of the current minimum (in a few decades or maybe a century, if it is like the Maunder minimum), it might get MUCH hotter.

 

[electrifeyed]

Unfortunately for this theory, we are going into a deep solar activity minimum since the 1980s, with temperatures continuing to increase.

Here is a link to a graph of solar activity since the 1700s, less smoothed than the one at the top of this discussion.

Note that although we should be at solar max right now, this solar cycle is turning out to be a serious dud. The last cycle, which peaked around 2000, wasn't exactly a doozy, either. We may be heading into a repeat of the dropout that occurred around 1900, or maybe even the much bigger Maunder minimum which was in the late 1600s. Note that the Maunder minimum did coincide with a serious cold spell (the 'Little Ice Age') on the planet, and they may be correlated, so I would not rule out some correlation between solar activity and climate,
but it doesn't seem to follow very well, and recently the trend is seriously in the wrong direction.

This should actually be fairly scary, since we should be in a deep solar-climate cooling period right now, which means that the global warming trend we are seeing is actually being attenuated by the sunspot-climate coupling. When we come back out of the current minimum (in a few decades or maybe a century, if it is like the Maunder minimum), it might get MUCH hotter.

Your image got lost; try re-posting it as an attachment.

Also, here is a thought: the solar cycle (where we are approaching the maximum "solar max") generally refers to the sunspot cycle, from my experience. Higher sunspot activity means more charged particles (good news for people who like a thick ionosphere, like ham radio operators), but I wouldn't think this would make a major contribution to global temperature. We should consider a cycle of the sun's infrared output; is that tied to the sunspot cycle in some way?

 

[RegGuheert]

Higher sunspot activity means more charged particles (good news for people who like a thick ionosphere, like ham radio operators), but I wouldn't think this would make a major contribution to global temperature.

Nor do I. That is not what is being posited here.

This is mainly a theory for how some clouds are formed. The researchers posit that cosmic rays bombarding the Earth create aerosols in the atmosphere, which are the seeds upon which clouds are formed. The solar activity of the sun comes into play because the magnetic fields related to the solar activity modulate the influx of cosmic rays to Earth, thus modulating the amount of clouds formed through the activity of cosmic activity.

 

[RegGuheert]

Unfortunately for this theory, we are going into a deep solar activity minimum since the 1980s, with temperatures continuing to increase.

Agreed for surface temperatures, but, as noted, the correlation for ocean and water temperatures was quite good into the last decade.

Here is a link to a graph of solar activity since the 1700s, less smoothed than the one at the top of this discussion.

Thanks! Here is your link. (It didn't show because the link is to a PDF rather than an image.)

Note that although we should be at solar max right now, this solar cycle is turning out to be a serious dud. The last cycle, which peaked around 2000, wasn't exactly a doozy, either. We may be heading into a repeat of the dropout that occurred around 1900, or maybe even the much bigger Maunder minimum which was in the late 1600s. Note that the Maunder minimum did coincide with a serious cold spell (the 'Little Ice Age') on the planet, and they may be correlated, so I would not rule out some correlation between solar activity and climate, but it doesn't seem to follow very well, and recently the trend is seriously in the wrong direction.

And at the same time, the surface temperatures have stopped rising, contrary to the IPCC model predictions. Without the ability to predict cloud cover effects, the climate scientists are forced to model all variations as coming from increases in greenhouse gases alone. It seems clear that both effects are in play, but the relationship between greenhouse gases and temperature rise appears to have a MUCH lower slope than has been predicted by data fitting that as the only contributor. Svensmark's rebuttal paper puts the slope related to all other global warming effects at around 0.14K/decade. If that is accurate (or close), then we have a bit more time to work out better ways to power our world. (Edit: I need to be careful here. That slope is for all global warming effects in the troposphere, NOT at the surface.)

This should actually be fairly scary, since we should be in a deep solar-climate cooling period right now, which means that the global warming trend we are seeing is actually being attenuated by the sunspot-climate coupling. When we come back out of the current minimum (in a few decades or maybe a century, if it is like the Maunder minimum), it might get MUCH hotter.

Agreed.

Until we can incorporate cloud cover modelling into predictions, however, we likely are using way too high of a slope for greenhouse gas effects. Perhaps once that can be corrected, we can get a better picture of what is in store for us in the coming decades.

 

[Stoaty]

And at the same time, the surface temperatures have stopped rising, contrary to the IPCC model predictions.

If the surface temperatures have stopped rising, why is 2000-2010 the hottest decade on record? Oh, I forgot... let's cherry pick the hottest year (1998) in a noisy data set and measure from there.

 

[RegGuheert]

If the surface temperatures have stopped rising, why is 2000-2010 the hottest decade on record?

Because it was rising until then.

Oh, I forgot... let's cherry pick the hottest year (1998) in a noisy data set and measure from there.

2013 minus 1998 is 15. I specifically and intentionally said ten years to exclude 1998:

As an aside, I will also point out the fact that the global surface temperature is completely unchanged for the past ten years.

Please show me ANY prediction from ANY climate scientist that the global temperatures would stop rising for ten years from 2002 through 2012 while CO2 levels continued their steady rise.

BTW, predictions of ocean level increases have also been grossly overestimated.

If the IPCC models are not corrected to incorporate the proper changes to global cloud cover, they will never be able to do an accurate job predicting global temperatures, even if they get CO2 close.

 

[AndyH]

Debating myths: Useless wastes of time. In my opinion, of course.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvztL9r47MI[/youtube]

 

[AndyH]

2013 minus 1998 is 15. I specifically and intentionally said ten years to exclude 1998...

10 Input "Timespan in question", X
20 If X < 30 print "That's weather, not climate. Bzzt - thanks for playin'"
30 If x >= 30 print "Now you're using your noggin"
40 End

Please show me ANY prediction from ANY climate scientist that the global temperatures would stop rising for ten years from 2002 through 2012 while CO2 levels continued their steady rise.

Again - climate scientists generally will not declare with >95% confidence a WEATHER effect (IE less than 30 years). However - it appears that a limitation in some current climate models (using a shallow-ocean model because there's not yet a good deep-ocean model, if I recall correctly) has reared its head.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...nticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=

But when ocean heat capacity is included, the 1°C warming is delayed until 2006–2012, this range of times corresponding to no land-ocean advective coupling (2006) and complete land-ocean coupling (2012). By 2025, when the assumed atmospheric CO2 content is twice the 1860 value, the model predicts global warming of 1.5°–1.8°C, in contrast to 3.1°C when ocean heat capacity is neglected.

BTW, predictions of ocean level increases have also been grossly overestimated.

Seriously? Yet another politically-motivated site devoid of science? How much of this garbage is on the web, anyway?!

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/20...n-projected-planet-keeps-warming-as-expected/
Yes - click the links - the science is referenced...

The rate of sea-level rise of the past few decades, on the other hand, is greater than projected by the IPCC models. This suggests that IPCC sea-level projections for the future may also be biased low.

Why are the predictions biased low? Because science doesn't yet know exactly how to model all of the ice loss factors.

Here's a real-live oceanographer talking about sea level in the real world:

http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/03/30/sea-level-potholes-and-speedbumps/
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT0KiC-km9w[/youtube]