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Comments 51 to 59 out of 59:

51. muoncounter at 11:45 AM on 22 July, 2011
    pixeldust#49: "it means scientists are being "censored" and "gagged"" Wow, things must be really slow in deniersville. Since when is the very reasonable request made by Heuer, asking a colleague to be 'clear,' rise to the level of 'censorship'? Why not focus on science questions that arise from these supposed 'results'? For example, the PhysicsWorld article dropped what I consider a rather shocking bit: ... the researchers found that this effect also took place when they used a radioactive sodium source, which produces gamma rays, and as such claim that similar measurements in the future will not require expensive accelerators. -- emphasis added Great news! No accelerator needed. But what does it really mean if the 580 MeV (see PhysicsWorld cited above) accelerated electrons that CLOUD used to simulate GCRs and gamma rays from radioactive sodium produce the same effect? It's supposed to require the higher energy of a GCR (100s of MeV to GeVs) to seed clouds. But Na22 produces 0.5 and 1.27 MeV gamma rays; Na24 (formed by neutron bombardment of stable Na23) produces 1.37 and 2.75 MeV gamma rays. What isotope did they use and what energy gammas resulted? If they used low energy gammas from these sodium isotopes, it means that all cosmic radiation, not just the higher energy GCR component should be making clouds! Solar cosmic rays (mostly protons in the solar wind), which give rise to the ubiquitous muon flux we see at the surface should also produce the same effect. Or it means that the whole concept is total bunk. Bet deniers wouldn't like to hear that. Once again, my apologies to Sondheim: But where are the clouds? Send in the clouds. Well, maybe next year.
52. Rob Honeycutt at 00:36 AM on 23 July, 2011
    Given Musch 2005 I think these GCR guys have an uphill battle. Not only do they have to explain a highly complex mechanism they are going to have to explain why their theory works other times but didn't work in this case. The deck is pretty well stacked against them.
53. Rob Honeycutt at 00:37 AM on 23 July, 2011
    Oh, that slide comes from Alley's AGU A23A lecture. [Source]
54. muoncounter at 09:06 AM on 9 August, 2011
    Oh no! A new denial meme about to be born: Adriani et al 2011 THE DISCOVERY OF GEOMAGNETICALLY TRAPPED COSMIC-RAY ANTIPROTONS This Letter reports the discovery of an antiproton radiation belt around the Earth. The trapped antiproton energy spectrum in the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) region has been measured by the PAMELA experiment for the kinetic energy range 60-750 MeV. So it's anti-matter that's been causing global warming all along. The anti-water that forms from these anti-protons (and those evil positrons) will destroy us all -- anti-rain is clearly the cause of the drought (which could also be called an anti-flood). Be afraid, be very afraid. Bet Svensmark wishes he'd found this.
    Response:

    [DB] Ah, the Bridge of the Gods has been found!  All that is left is for one to project one's atman into it, then return as the Avatar of Tathagatha, with both raised Aspect and Attributes...

    Of course, that will probably be denied, too.
    

55. Dikran Marsupial at 04:46 AM on 25 August, 2011
    CERN CLOUD project results are published, discussion @ RC. I suspect they are not all that was hoped for, but I need to read the article.
56. Eric the Red at 22:48 PM on 25 August, 2011
    Dikran, Their experiments produced between ten and a thousand times fewer aerosol particles than found in nature, which basically means that they have not determined the cause of the aerosol formation in our atmosphere. The results were not what they hoped for in that no climatic conclusions could be drawn from their work. But as any good scientists will tell you, this study will inspire more research in the area.
57. Bob Lacatena at 23:06 PM on 25 August, 2011
    54, muoncounter, Really, I find your anti-denial of such science to be the antithesis of all that science represents. As Dorothy would tell you, anti-Em may not be the Wicked Witch of the West, but she's no Glinda the Good Witch, either. That, my friend, makes this entire topic a horse of a different anti-color. Or would that be an anti-horse? I suppose I should visit WUWT to be set straight on such issues.
58. Dikran Marsupial at 23:08 PM on 25 August, 2011
    Eric, I completely agree (I try to be a good scientist, but I try to avoid talking to myself as much as possible ;o) as do the RC chaps. The really interesting thing about the CLOUD project as far as the climate debate is concerned is that it is a good example of how science and science funding actually works. Skeptic often say that government agencies will not fund their work, but CLOUD is a big project (see the number of authors) with big funding (about 12MECU IIRC), that aims to investigate the very most basic physical underpinnings of an alternative hypothesis (for which there is only the most circumstantial evidence). It also shows that skeptical hypotheses can and do result in good basic science of general interest to the research community. It also shows that the outcome of an experiment can be very interesting and useful, even if it doesn't provide much support for the working hypothesis (and hence suggest new lines of enquiry or provide support for an existing line etc). A really good experiment is one that has a 50-50 chance of corroborating or refuting an hypothesis as these are the ones that provide the most information about science (in an information theoretic sense). This means we should expect experiments to reject the working hypothesis on a regular basis (a significant minority of experiments); it shows that the research is "sharp".
59. Bob Lacatena at 23:28 PM on 25 August, 2011
    58, Dikran, Well said. The only thing that I would add would be that anyone should look at that study and its conclusions and from it recognize that such research is absolutely in its infancy. It is going to develop and progress as it should, but it needs to build its very foundations before it can progress to making many meaningful conclusions about effects on climate. It is not going to challenge current climate science anytime soon (which says nothing about whether it ever will or won't), and skeptics need to avoid trying to use such research, and every resulting paper which will merely represent another baby step in the process, as a debate tool to be used to provide one more "let's wait and see, we don't know enough about clouds and GCRs yet" excuse. Let it just be good science at work.
60. Dikran Marsupial at 23:38 PM on 25 August, 2011
    Sphaerica Indeed, a good example of how not to communicate is Svensmark and Calders book "The Chilling Stars", which essentially attempts to explain every change in (paleo) climate to GCR (slight over-statement there, but only slight) before the fundamental work demosntrating that GCRs actually could affect climate (nevermind whether they did). As a scientist (of sorts) I cringed reading the book, not because the theory is bad, but the lack of perspective which is potentially maximising the height of the fall they are setting themselves up for. I am always very suspicious of any paper that comes with a press release suggesting its findings are contraversial; most often such a paper either (a) doesn't actually support the message of the press release or (b) turns out to be wrong or (c) both. It is much easier to think of examples where this is true than it is for papers that actually did merit controversy.
61. muoncounter at 05:59 AM on 26 August, 2011
    First it was 'cosmic rays cause clouds;' now its 'Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays ...' Have the goal posts shifted? And why does the NatureNews headline read Cloud formation may be linked to cosmic rays, which is not at all a justifiable conclusion of the paper? From the Kirkby abstract, We find that atmospherically relevant ammonia mixing ratios of 100 parts per trillion by volume, or less, increase the nucleation rate of sulphuric acid particles more than 100–1,000-fold. Hmm, 100 parts per trillion NH4 is significant now, yet 395 CO2 parts per million is not? Sphaerica#57: You open an interesting possibility. If there is a good witch (helpful to Munchkins everywhere), surely an evil witch (very destructive) could be referred to as an anti-good witch. And the abbreviation for that is AGW!!!
62. bill at 19:23 PM on 25 April, 2012
    According to Watts, Svensmark has now unveiled a GCR Theory of Everything! There's no need for a link, he's tethered to piece to the homepage so the gang all know the world as we knew it is now over (think I'm exaggerating? Read Watts' piece!) I'm sure you're probably already aware of it, but I thought I'd point it out!...
63. Robert Murphy at 20:18 PM on 25 April, 2012
    Sounds like Svensmark has decided to go full Climastrology.
64. bill at 20:51 PM on 25 April, 2012
    Well, my first thought upon reading Watts' rapturous acclaim was 'so the Astrologers were right, after all'! ;-) If this thing holds up I'd expect triumphalism from that quarter, too, and not just our contrarian friends. (Just think of the woooo impact of Quantum Mechanics. As Terry Pratchett says 'It's Quantum'!) Let's face it, if it doesn't hold up, we'll get triumphalism anyway (in fact, that's what Watts comments thread is full of, with the occasional brave soul pointing out that he/she thought they were all supposed to be, um, 'skeptical'!) Yet again: hundreds of papers arising from years of hard-won science that builds on findings dating back over a century - it's all BS mate, crap! Particularly all that dodgy paleo crap and expecting us to believe minute trace gases make any difference. But give 'em one paper based on paleo reconstructions of the impact of rays from the outer reaches of the universe - doubts, who has doubts? Hypocrisy and just plain silliness I can identify; but me, I make no claims to being able to assess the science, hence my bringing it up here.
65. muoncounter at 22:42 PM on 25 April, 2012
    Svensmark must have read 'Star-Begotten' by HG Wells. However, Watts can in no way take the role of the 'quiet little man'. ‘Those cosmic rays of yours,’ he said. ‘They are the most difficult part of your story. They aren’t radiations. They aren’t protons. What are they? They go sleeting through the universe incessantly, day and night, going from nowhere to nowhere. For the life of me I find that hard to imagine.’ ‘They must come from somewhere,’ said a quiet little man with an air of producing a very special contribution to the discussion. And when all other arguments against AGW have failed, they invoke a mystery. ‘And so, having eliminated everything else,’ said the barrister, ‘you lay the burden of change and mutation — and in fact all the responsibility for evolution — on those little cosmic rays! Countless myriads fly by and miss. Then one hits — Ping! Ping!— and we get a double-headed calf or a superman.’
66. renewable guy at 16:03 PM on 28 April, 2012

    My first censorship and I give credit to the great work you have been doing at Skeptical Science. I thought the view that SKS are propagandists might interest the group. Attempting to show GSR's would actually have been a cooling effect I believe is what did not go well with him. •http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2012/04/24/did-exploding-stars-help-life-on-earth-to-thrive/ Jonathan_Duhamel Note to renewableguy: I have deleted your comment on GCR because it is irrelevant and misleading, and shows that neither you nor the propagandists at skeptical science have read the paper. Had you read the paper you would see the explanation. renewableguy Jon I doubt very much there is a connection between life thriving on earth and galactic cosmic rays. Misleading is actually wrong and it shouldn't be your opinion alone to determine that. I presented an article based on several data sources explaining their point on GCR's. Proganda would be based on countering the truth with possibly false information. You are showing yourself to be using strong arm tactics unnecessarily. If you are interested in a fair presentation of both sides then put my article back up. If you only want to present one side, then by all means keep my post off. Skeptical science bases their postings on the current science.And yet you base your articles on the latest denial of AGW in the right wing circulation of entirely wrong and false media hype. http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryhe... The scientist refuted this false information very quickly. Your conclusion of medieval warming period was refuted by the very scientist that wrote it. This a true account of what has happened. Unless you would like to use your editorial power to rewrite that history.

67. muoncounter at 01:16 AM on 29 April, 2012
    A couple of notes on Svensmark's latest. Let's start with the worst news: Origin of Cosmic Rays Not What Was Thought Results announced at nearly the same time as Svensmark's paper show that gamma ray bursts from supernovae are not associated with the expected neutrino flux. This calls into question the entire mechanism of cosmic ray origin underlying Svensmark's paper - as GRBs are clearly connected with supernovae. From the MNRAS announcement of Svensmark's paper: To obtain this result on the variety of life, or biodiversity, [Svensmark] followed the changing fortunes of the best-recorded fossils. These are from invertebrate animals in the sea, such as shrimps and octopuses, or the extinct trilobites and ammonites. So from the start, its clear that we're talking about life in the oceans only. They tended to be richest in their variety when continents were drifting apart and sea levels were high and less varied when the land masses gathered 250 million years ago into the supercontinent called Pangaea and the sea-level was lower. It's been known for quite some time that biodiversity diminished as shallow seas dried up during the formation of Pangaea. But this geophysical effect was not the whole story. When it is removed from the record of biodiversity, what remains corresponds closely to the changing rate of nearby stellar explosions, with the variety of life being greatest when supernovae are plentiful. When the primary driver is removed, what remains is a residual. Any detectable signal from this point forward is thus no more than a secondary mechanism and may in fact be contaminated with unexplained residuals from the primary. A likely reason, according to Prof. Svensmark, is that the cold climate associated with high supernova rates brings a greater variety of habitats between polar and equatorial regions, while the associated stresses of life prevent the ecosystems becoming too set in their ways. Svensmark's self-described 'innovation' is that cosmic rays from close supernovae cool so extensively that they cause glaciation and the associated sea level drop. This speculative leap requires acceptance of his as yet unsubstantiated model (cosmic ray ionization -> clouds -> observable cooling). However, there's a hidden contradiction here: supernovae (and the resulting colder climates) did not 'help life to thrive' (as claimed); colder climates produced greater environmental stress, resulting in higher extinction rates. The highest supernova frequency shown by Svensmark is a broad band from 300-250 million years bp, during the Permian. At the end of this period (252 MYBP), the greatest mass extinction event known on Earth occurred. Does 'thriving' equate to mass extinction? Or was it the end of the 50 million years of stressful cosmic ray-induced cold climate that caused the extinction? Is it chicken or egg? It is interesting to note as well that Svensmark is the sole author on this paper. But they laughed at Galileo... BTW, one aspect of propaganda is that it is "repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the desired result in audience attitudes." Searching "svensmark cosmic rays life" returns a 'wide variety of media' indeed: WUWT, Nigel Calder, The Register, The Daily Mail, etc.
    Response: [Riccardo] link fixed
68. John Hartz at 01:46 AM on 29 April, 2012
    muoncounter: But what about the Battlestar Gallactica effect?
69. muoncounter at 22:57 PM on 16 May, 2012
    Move over, galactic cosmic rays! Bring on the 'blazars:' ... black holes can emit high-energy gamma rays and are then called blazars. ... This particular radiation interacts with the optical light that is emitted by galaxies, transforming it into the elementary particles electrons and positrons. Initially, these elementary particles move almost at the speed of light. But as they are slowed down by the ambient diffuse gas, their energy is converted into heat, just like in other braking processes. The process of converting electron/positron kinetic energy into heat by 'braking' seems a bit mysterious. But have no doubt, the 'ABC' crowd will spin this into their next version of 'the answer.'
70. jdixon1980 at 04:55 AM on 15 December, 2012
    Rawls writes on WUWT: "In effect they are claiming that you can’t heat a pot of water by turning the burner to maximum and leaving it there, that you have to keep turning the flame up to get continued warming, an un-scientific absurdity that I have been writing about for several years (most recently in my post about Isaac Held’s bogus 2-box model of ocean equilibration)." Does someone have a precise explanation of what Rawls apparently misunderstands about the science when making this analogy? My impressions are as follows (I have a mechanical engineering degree with a loose focus on the thermal side of things, so I have better than a layman's understanding of heat transfer, but I am no more than a casual student of climate science): 1) When you heat a pot of water, it DOES stop getting hotter when the water reaches 100 deg C, as the temperature of liquid water cannot physically go above that. More importantly, the reason why the water can keep absorbing heat without any increase in temperature is that it is giving up thermal energy at the same rate that it is being absorbed, in the form of the latent heat of vaporization of the water vapor that escapes the pot! When that vapor touches something cooler and condenses, it will pass that latent heat of vaporization back to whatever it touches. If you do happen to increase the flame level, one thing that you will notice is that the steam escapes more quickly, to account for the fact that the water temperature can't go up any more, and a thermal energy balance must nonetheless be maintained. 2) Even if Rawls had picked an simpler example without physical phase change, like heating an empty pot, that too would eventually reach an equilibrium temperature for a given flame level. This would happen because the higher the temperature of the pot, the more heat it gives off by convection. Thus, when the rate of convection of heat from the surfaces of the pot into the surrounding air became equal to the forced rate of heat transfer into the pot from the flame, the temperature of the pot would stop rising. So his basic premise, that it would be absurd to think you have to keep increasing the flame level to raise the temperature of something you are heating, is false: eventually the object stops getting hotter, and you DO have to raise the flame level! 3) Giving Rawls the benefit of the doubt that he understands the law of conservation of thermal energy within a control volume, he seems to be implying that climate scientists have failed to account for the Earth's ability to respond relatively quickly (i.e., in significantly less time than 50 years) to whatever amount of forcing resulted from the increase in TSI that occurred before it remained generally flat 50 years ago, and reaching an equilibrium vis-a-vis that forcing long before now, so that effects of that forcing delayed by 50 years cannot explain the current warming. Rawls' attack doesn't pass my smell test, and I trust that climate scientists are in fact very familiar with and have accounted for the lag between a step or ramp up in TSI and its observed effects on global temperatures. Can somebody address that succinctly, in a way that would help somebody who is not necessarily so scientifically inclined to understand why they should trust that scientists have taken any "lag" effect into account?
71. jdixon1980 at 05:17 AM on 15 December, 2012
    For those interested, I looked back and now see that comment 12 above addresses the denier argument that the effects of TSI could be lagging, and includes a hyperlink to a more detailed explanation.
72. Tom Dayton at 00:07 AM on 26 December, 2012
    Update 2012: RealClimate posted "A review of cosmic rays and climate: a cluttered story of little success."
73. logisch at 03:21 AM on 15 April, 2013

    There are quite visible correlations (link to image) between the two curves. The cycle duration is 11 years. This is the solar spot observation periodicity as known for several hundreds of years already. Even the well known fact that the solar cycle that should have started at about the millenium change came a bit late is seemingly reflected in the curves.

74. JRT256 at 07:57 AM on 25 May, 2013

    IIUC, you are denying the scientific hypothesis that there is a correlation between sunspot numbers and climate on earth.  Your argument appears to be that because this hypothesis doesn't account for all global warming, that it doesn't account for any global warming.  That is both unscientific and fallacious reasoning.
    
    We have history that provides strong evidence that this hypothesis is correct.  The Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age being most significant.  Still, it is true that we do not completely understand the action mechiism.
    
    You are correct to point out that this correlation broke in the second half of the 20th century.  However, since it has been so strong historically, it is more reasonable from a scientific point of view to try to figure out why the correlation broke than to use this fact to try to prove that the hypothesis is false.
    
    Might I suggest one possible cause which is CFCs.  It is now belived that CFCs had a stronger effect on global warming than was once thought and their concentration in the atmosphere, taken as a factor (possibly with a delay in time) allong with the sunspot number as a proxy for solar activity in factor analysis might yield a reasonable answer to the question.

75. Dikran Marsupial at 08:33 AM on 25 May, 2013

    JRT256: Firstly sun-spot numbers are correlated with total solar irradiance (TSI) as well as cosmic rays.  So a correllation between sunspot numbers and climate does not necessarily involve cosmic rays as the causal mechanism.

    Secondly, a link was provided to the "body of scientific research has determined that GCRs are actually not very effective at seeding clouds."  (i.e. the advanced version of the article).  The cosmic ray theory is not unlikely to be correct because it doesn't explain all warming, but because of the scientific research that has been performed has identified several problems with the causal mechanism,  If you want to discuss the details of any of the papers mentioned, I'm sure there will be plenty of contributors willing to discuss them with you.

    "it is more reasonable from a scientific point of view to try to figure out why the correlation broke than to use this fact to try to prove that the hypothesis is false."

    Actually, the most plausible theory is that there is more than one forcing that affects climate; changes in total solar irradiance and the rise in greenhouse gasses explains the breakdown in the correlation pretty well.  However, proving hypotheses to be incorrect is a fundamental part of scientific method.  Ruling out hypotheses is a good a way of finding out why the correllation broke down as any.

    Lastly, as a word of advice, if you want to have a discussion of science, starting by using phrases such as "That is both unscientific and fallacious reasoning." when you yourself obviously have not understand the argument put forward in the article is unlikely to be conducive to constructive dialogue.  Note I have taken pains to reply in a rather more civil manner.

76. DMCarey at 04:00 AM on 1 June, 2013

    I was wondering if someone with a stronger background in physics than I could help place this new discovery into the broader context of the scientific knowledge of climate change. I can't say I agree with Dr. Lu's assertion that CFCs are the sole cause, and that CO2 can be ruled out, but that degree of correlation within Antarctica certainly does present a strong argument.

    Could it be possible that the link between CFCs and cosmic rays does indeed play a strong role in determining Antarctic temperatures, even if the role in the global climate system is less pronounced?

    https://uwaterloo.ca/news/news/global-warming-caused-cfcs-not-carbon-dioxide-study-says

77. Tom Dayton at 06:22 AM on 1 June, 2013

    DMCarey, as I was trying to answer that same question, I discovered other commenters in other threads here at Skeptical Science already had answered.  (What a team!) 

    This is merely Lu recycling the same claims he has been making for years. His claims have been proven wrong repeatedly. RealClimate has a short critique with a link to a peer-reviewed critique.

    And see the It's CFCs entry here at Skeptical Science.

78. DMCarey at 10:52 AM on 1 June, 2013

    Tom,

    Thanks for the quick reply! The answer is much appreciated.

    uWaterloo is my alma mater, making it kind of disappointing to realize there is a professor there continuing to assert claims when faced with evidence that it's incorrect

79. jsmith at 15:23 PM on 23 February, 2014

    I am a bit confused by this page, as the basic and advanced versions seem to contradict each other. From the former:

    "Cosmic ray counts have increased over the past 50 years, so if they do influence global temperatures, they are having a cooling effect."

    And from the latter:

    "Cosmic ray flux on Earth has been monitored since the mid-20th century, and has shown no significant trend over that period."

    So my questions are whether this is, as it appears, a contradiction, and if so, which one's correct and can the one that's incorrect be changed?

80. Tom Curtis at 19:02 PM on 23 February, 2014

    jsmith @79, if you read further into the advanced version, you will find it later refers to a record high GCR flux; after which it shows the same diagram used in the basic version, showing the same decline in inverted neutrino flux.  The key point is that while GCRs have increased over time, the increase is not statistically significant.  Consequently there is no contradiction between the advanced version and the basic version, nor internal inconsistency in the advanced version. 

81. ideatremor at 04:39 AM on 15 April, 2014

    Here's the latest "knock down evidence" against AGW theory from the skeptic camp. Have you guys seen this one yet? I fail to see this as overwhelming evidence that cosmic rays are the main driver of the recent warming, but I'm just a layperson so maybe I'm missing something. Anyone care to comment on this? Thanks!

    http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/4/045004

82. qikplay at 05:22 AM on 31 August, 2015

    I like the way you write this, "The body of scientific research has determined that GCRs are actually not very effective at seeding clouds."

    
    'not very effective'  so it's not a 'myth'

    
    don't say it's a myth and then admit that it's not a myth in the first paragraph of your editorial!  That's called a fallacy of logic, something you people seem to excel at.

    Response:

    [Rob P] - All caps edited out - please note the comments policy that you agreed to adhere to when commenting here.

    As for logic: note that the rebuttal points out that GCR's have increased in recent decades -which should have seeded more clouds and induced a cooling effect. Instead the Earth has warmed dramatically. The bottom graphic is very unintuitive though.

83. Rob Honeycutt at 06:45 AM on 31 August, 2015

    qikplay... The myth would be that GCR are responsible for warming of the past 50 years. That GCR are "not very effective" at seeding clouds suggests that they are, in fact, not responsible for recent warming.

84. qikplay at 06:53 AM on 31 August, 2015

    OK, sorry for the rude all caps shit..

    BUT (whoops) You don't say something is a 'myth' then admit that it's not a myth in the first paragraph of your commentary! what are you thinking.. it's not a myth, rather its extent a bone of contension between you and other scientists, pundits etc..

    you don't say something doesn't exist, oh but actually it exists just not that much.. big difference there and talk about being misleading perhaps you should take this off your 'myths' section lol feeling stupid?

     

    and the reason its not responsible for the recent warming is that there is recent cooling like snow in calgary in august, snow in hawaii in july, polar vortex in 2014..how long do you think you can keep up this sham that the mini-ice age isn't really happening? (snip)

    Response:

    [RH] Please be more careful. I'm going to drop out of commenting here and just moderate. You really need to go carefully read through the commenting policy before continuing to post. 

85. PhilippeChantreau at 06:58 AM on 31 August, 2015

    It's even worse than Rob suggests. The hypothesis is that GCRs seed clouds and that the resulting cloud cover modulation is a forcing, i.e. responsible for the current warming. Not only there is still no clear evidence for GCRs actually being a significant factor in nebulosity, but the recent GCR count shows an increase, which would mean more cloud and a cooling effect. This whole idea that GCRs influence the climate is a joke, coming from people so desperate to distract attention that they will grasp at the most feeble of straws. It does not deserve any attention whatsoever.

86. qikplay at 07:11 AM on 31 August, 2015

    no clear evidence for GCRs actually being a significant factor

    Yes, but that's a far cry from 'doesn't exist' dont you think? 

    Response:

    [RH] Your concern has been addressed already, saying that GCRs are responsible for global warming is the myth. You're going to have to find a way to accept that and move on. Repeating the same error is considered sloganeering is not allowed here.

87. PhilippeChantreau at 07:16 AM on 31 August, 2015

    Qikplay, your lists of anecdotal blurbs is not even funny. Have you even tried to figure what the global temperatures have been so far this year? And last year, the warmest on record? With the immense majority of glaciers receding and loosing mass all over the world? It seems that your participation here is another thing not deserving of any attention. It seems the snow in Calgary has not prevented the region from enacting a fire ban. And what was the wildfire season like this year in Canada again? Do you honestly think that, on a website where scientific evidence is discussed, you rantings would have a chance to sway anyone? An ice age eh? Illustrated by a Arctic sea ice once again below average by more than 2 standard deviations? Makes perfect sense right?

    Per environement Canada, the long term trend 1948-2013 for winter temperatures is +3.2 degrees C. The annual average has increased by 1.6 degrees over the past 67 years. Some ice age that is. Personally I think that moderators summarily delete such obvious nonsense as your last post.

88. qikplay at 07:33 AM on 31 August, 2015

      wtach from 30minutes

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-m09lKtYT4

    Response:

    [RH] I think you need to watch this video that shows how Durkin fraudulently altered the materials, to the point where even skeptics complained.

    [TD] Also watch the video by Peter Sinclair, on that Durkin's fake documentary and in particular his fakery regarding the Sun and cosmic rays.

89. qikplay at 07:34 AM on 31 August, 2015

    can you comment on the correlation between the sun and climate and the graph they show that shows the correlation.

    Response:

    [RH] The correlation was faked by Durkin.

    [TD] Also, read the SkS post "It's the Sun"--the Basic tabbed pane, then watch the video lower on that page, then read the Intermediate one, then the Advanced one. If you want to comment further on the Sun, do so on that thread, not this one.

90. PhilippeChantreau at 08:10 AM on 31 August, 2015

    That's it already? Down with GCRs and jumping to the next thing? How boringly typical. Two suggestions, if you want to discuss the role of the Sun:

    1-go to the appropriate thread

    2- drop the YouTube horse puckey and start with published scientific litterature.

91. Tom Curtis at 08:13 AM on 31 August, 2015

    Quikplay, if you read carefully, you will see that the myth is that "It is cosmic rays" that is causing the current warming, or more correctly, it is a paucity of cosmic rays that cause the warming.  There is no claim that it is a myth that cosmic rays exist.  Nor is there any claim that it is a myth that cloud extent effects global temperatures.  Nor is there any claim that it is a myth that cosmic rays seed clouds.

    As to your anecdotes, yes it snowed in July on Hawaii at 13,000 feet.  At that altitude, with the normal lapse rates temperatures are 26 C less than surface temperatures due to altitude.  As it happens, the temperature in Hawaii at sea level on the day of the snow (July 17th) was a 90 F (32 C) maximum, and 79 F (26 C) minimum, 2 and 5 F above average respectively.  Noting the average July minimum temperature, it is evident that snow in July on the mountain peaks is a rarity primarilly due to lack of thunderstorms early in the day to lift the humidity that high.

    As to Calgary, on average it snows in August in Calgary every ten years or so.  And you want to count that as evidence of a "mini-ice age"?  As somebody just said, "lol feeling stupid [much]?" 

    Meanwhile you are ignoring the massive, and extended heat wave in the state of Washington, the heat wave in  the heat wave in Pakistan that killed 2000 people, and the heat wave in India which caused the deaths of 2,500 people, as well as the heat waves in Europe, and China.  In fact, you ignore all the evidence that show 2015 to be the hottest year todate by a large margin, which along with a significant El Nino is causing predictions 2015 will be the warmest year on record:

    

    So please, no more demonstrations of your complete lack of reading comprehension (ie, your persistent and obtuse misidentification of the myth); and no more cherry picking.

92. Tom Curtis at 21:12 PM on 24 October, 2015

    Elsewhere Bi5h0p presents an argument that is off topic there, and on topic here.  Specifically they say:

    "So, if the Sun has such a major impact on the Earth's weather, how much more does our own galactic weather have on our Sun and it's solar system? It's reasonable to hypothesize that galactic weather could have a much greater effect on the solar system, as a whole, during certain galactic weather events. Our solar system is travelling through an interstellar medium, the density and energy of which may vary greatly - and for extended periods of time. This could also explain any other planetary changes which have been, or may have been observed as every object in our solar system could be impacted by such events."

    In support of this, they link to a conservative "news" site that is stong on pseudoscience, and in particular to a 2012 article that claims that:

    1)  Two professors have discovered new particles reaching Earth from galactic center; and

    2)  That some unknown particle from the Sun causes variations in the rate of nuclear decay.

    With regard to (1) it is hard to comment.  At the time of publication of the article, the professor's work has been "submitted to the peer-reviewed American Physical Society journal Physical Review" as of 2012, but of which I can find no sign three years later.  Because I cannot find a source paper, all I an say is that nothing in the report from "beforeitsnews" implies either new particles, or new energy intensities.  Indeed, at most it seems to imply that the professors have better localized the source of already observed cosmic rays.

    With regard to (2), the report is of actual peer reviewed papers that have not been consistently confirmed by later observations.  That is, it is still possible that there is no such effect.  Further, it is presently conjectured that if the effect is real, it is caused by neutrinos rather than as yet unobserved (and untheorized) mystery particles.

    With regard to climate, if real, the effect only applies to beta particle decay (ie, the conversion of protons to neutrons by the emission of a neutrino and an electron, or of neutrons to protons by the emission of a neutrino and a positron).  As such, it has minimal imact, if any, on geophysical heat, which is primarilly based on alpha particle decay.  Further, even if it did, any such impact would be long delayed and difuse due to the time it takes for heat to rise through the mantle and crust.  Finally, and most importantly, newly discovered does not mean recently started.  If the ambiguous support for this phenomenon turns out to be accurate, that only means that an effect that has been in existence for the enirety of the Earth's existence will have been newly discovered.  Ergo, it implies no change in heatflow, and hence no change in climate.  

    You will notice that neither (1) nor (2) have any bearing on "galactic weather".  Nevertheless I did find websites discussing the above phenomenon which also drew attention to a NASA press release drawing attention to a newly discovered interstellar magnetic field.  The magnetic field is associated with the local interstellar cloud, and when the Sun exits the local interstellar cloud, this could result in a different strength of the interstellar magnetic field, and hence a change in the number of galactic cosmic rays reaching the Earth.  As the news release says:

    "The fact that the Fluff is strongly magnetized means that other clouds in the galactic neighborhood could be, too. Eventually, the solar system will run into some of them, and their strong magnetic fields could compress the heliosphere even more than it is compressed now. Additional compression could allow more cosmic rays to reach the inner solar system, possibly affecting terrestrial climate and the ability of astronauts to travel safely through space. On the other hand, astronauts wouldn't have to travel so far because interstellar space would be closer than ever. These events would play out on time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years, which is how long it takes for the solar system to move from one cloud to the next."

    (My emphasis)

    Completely ignoring the highlighted statement, the pseudoscientific sites trying to sell this phenomenon as a cause of recent climate change suggest the Sun has only just recently entered the local cloud, perhaps encouraged by the illustration below.

    

    They have paid not attention, however, to the relative distances involved.  A recent mapping of the structure and velocities of the local cloud shows that the most recent time in which the Sun could have entered the local cloud (based on relative velocity and the lower bound estimate of the closest cloud surface) was ten thousand years ago.  Even if we allow that cosmic rays effect climate (and it is very dubious that they have a major effect, as detailed in the OP above), this change occured 10 or more thousand years ago, and is certainly not the cause of the rise in temperature in the 20th century.

    In sum, the evidence Bi5h0p relies upon is (at best) a beat up of far more mundane facts, presented breathlessly, inaccurately, and treated as certainties despite the highly qualified nature of the actual reports.  This tissue of distortion, misrepresentations on uncertain basis is then presented as better than the very well established facts of climate science.

93. Ceist8 at 12:50 PM on 14 August, 2016

    A new paper published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics in August 2016 finds:

    "There is a significant correlation only between cosmic ray (CR) intensity (and sunspot number (SSN)) and the cloud cover of the types cirrus and stratus. This effect is mainly confined to the CR intensity minimum during the epoch around 1990, when the SSN was at its maximum.This fact, together with the present study of the correlation of LSCC with our measured CR intensity, shows that there is no firm evidence for a significant contribution of CR induced ionization to the local (or, indeed, Global) cloud cover.

    Pressure effects are the preferred cause of the cloud cover changes. A consequence is that [b]there is no evidence favouring a contribution of CR to the Global Warming problem.[/b] Our analysis shows that the LS data are consistent with the Gas Laws for a stable mass of atmosphere."

    Relevance of long term time – Series of atmospheric parameters at a mountain observatory to models for climate change

94. Tom Curtis at 21:21 PM on 7 January, 2017

    Elsewhere Echo_Alpha_Zulu is arguing that cosmic rays "...play more of a role in climate than anything else".  He attributes that view to unnamed "CERN scientists", and provides no links or citations so we can confirm that that is indeed what "CERN scientists" are saying.  Curiously Echo_Alpha_Zulu says, "I am a real scientist I study the data itself. I dont rely on some 'Expert' to interpret the data for me".  Despite this claim, he provided no relevant evidence with regard to cosmic rays, instead rellying on the authority of "experts" who are carefully kept of page and uncited.

    Echo_Alpha_Zulu may consider that characterization unfair, given that he linked to this graph, which is a truncated version of Figure 1 from Kirkby (2008):

     

    However, that graph shows nothing interesting because, the temperature proxies do not agree among themselves about the temperature pattern over the last 1000 years, let alone with the cosmic ray proxies.

    That lack of correlation can be seen in modern records where, if the theory had any substance, the more accurate records should make the connection obvious.  Instead, taking the montly values of the  OULU neutron record and the Berkeley Earth Land Ocean Temperature Index, a regression analysis shows a positive trend of 7.4 (+/- 6) x 10^-5 C/(Count/Min).  That is the opposite of the negative trend predicted by the theory.  Worse, the correlation is just 0.097 with an R^2 of 0.009 indicating cosmic rays to be a negligible causal factor with regard to global temperatures, if relevant at all.

    It becomes a little more interesting when we look at the timeseries of the BEST LOTI and the inverted OULU Neutron count:

      Here we see that where there may have been some slight justification for the theory in data up to circa1995 (Regression: -1.9 (+/-0.47) x 10^-4; correlation: -0.388; R^2: 0.15), thereafter temperature continues to increase steadilly while the inverted cosmic ray count plummets.  The complete breakdown of the relationship post 1995 shows the weak statistical relationship apparent beforehand to have been largely coincidental.

    A simple linear regression is not the only test that could be applied to the data, but no theory which claims cosmic rays "...play more of a role in climate than anything else" survives the data shown.  At best, the relationship is that found by Tsonis et al (2015), who write:

    "Our results suggest weak to moderate coupling between CR and year-to-year changes of GT. They resonate with the physical and chemical evidence emerging from laboratory studies suggesting a theoretical dynamic link between galactic CR and GT. However, we find that the realized effect is modest at best, and only recoverable when the secular trend in GT is removed (by first-differencing). Thus, it is important to stress that they do not suggest that CR influences can explain global warming and should not be misinterpreted as being in conflict with the IPCC. Indeed, the opposite is true: we show specifically that CR cannot explain secular warming, a trend that the consensus attributes to anthropogenic forcing. Nonetheless, the results verify the presence of a nontraditional forcing in the climate system, an effect that represents another interesting piece of the puzzle in our understanding of factors influencing climate variability." 

    (My emphasis)

95. gws at 02:13 AM on 8 January, 2017

    It may be useful to add that the CERN group has long since dropped the argument that cosmic rays affect climate. Their latest paper (with Kirkby a co-author) in Science summarizes (abstract):

    "... A considerable fraction of nucleation involves ions, but the relatively weak dependence on ion concentrations indicates that for the processes studied, variations in cosmic ray intensity do not appreciably affect climate through nucleation in the present-day atmosphere."

    ... and that position has been in place for some time.
    

96. Tom Dayton at 11:02 AM on 19 February, 2017

    December 2016 paper in Science: "Nearly all nucleation involves either ammonia or biogenic organic compounds. Furthermore, in the present-day atmosphere, cosmic ray intensity cannot meaningfully affect climate via nucleation."

97. barry at 13:30 PM on 24 February, 2017

    Reviewing some of the papers linked in the advanced version of this article, I could not find the quote attributed. Quoting the article:

    In the CERN CLOUD experiments, Almeida et al. (2013) found

    "ionising radiation such as the cosmic radiation that bombards the atmosphere from space has negligible influence on the formation rates of these particular aerosols [that form clouds]"

    That quote appears nowhere in the paper at the link provided (which is the full version of the paper). Rather, the paper concludes that there are significant uncertainties regarding the matter assessed.

    If I've read it right, it would be well to correct the OP.

    Response:

    [PS] Looks to me like the quote came from the press release accompanying the paper. However the abstract "The ion-induced contribution is generally small, reflecting the high stability of sulphuric acid–dimethylamine clusters and indicating that galactic cosmic rays exert only a small influence on their formation, except at low overall formation rates." hardly contradicts that.

98. barry at 16:46 PM on 24 February, 2017

    Thanks for the reply PS.

    If the quote is not at the source linked, then an additional link should be added to lead interested readers in the right direction.

    I read the paper. It's discussing a sub-component of cloud formation. These remarks are in the concluding paragraphs:

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers that the increased amount of aerosol in the atmosphere from human activities constitutes the largest present uncertainty in climate radiative forcing2 and projected climate change this century. The results reported here show that the uncertainty is even greater than previously thought, because extremely low amine emissions—which have substantial anthropogenic sources and have not hitherto been considered by the IPCC—have a large influence on the nucleation of sulphuric acid particles.

    The study is focussed on amines in cloud nucleation. It does not quantify whether low concentrations are abundant or not, but it does point out significant uncertainty regarding their influence.

    I'm not sure that this paper corroborates the general contentions made here about GCR/cloud formation after reading the whole paper for comprehension.

99. barry at 16:55 PM on 24 February, 2017

    From the article you linked:

    The CLOUD result adds another significant measurement in understanding the climate. But it does not rule out a role for cosmic radiation, not does it offer a quick fix for global warming.

100. sunshine confetti bomb at 17:28 PM on 12 September, 2017

     "However, the hypothesis is also disproven just by examining the data."

     how is Mr. Svensmark's cloud driven climate change a hypothesis when he tested, concluded with results to back his theory...

     Response:

     [JH] Please read the Advanced version of the rebuttal article.

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