Cloud-building alien space rays altered Earth's climate – boffins

Interstellar particles alter Earth's climate by affecting cloud growth, scientists revealed on Tuesday. The research team, whose work was published in Nature Communications, sets out a direct link between how particles from space influences cloud growth and climate change. Henrik Svensmark, lead author of the study and a …

[lglethal]

Science is awesome...

I know I end up repeating myself on these science articles, but wow Science is awesome. Who would have thought, that the explosion of a supernova halfway across the galaxy, would have an effect (through those cosmic rays) on our planet and it's cloud formation.

Awesome! Beer for those boffins -->

[wolfetone]

Re: Science is awesome...

Not so fast, the beer needs to be put on ice for a moment.

I would like the scientists to tell me whether or not the space rays are more polluting to the atmosphere than my Corolla. If they are, then I'll give them a bottle of whiskey of their choice (as long as it's not Bells or Teachers, because they're shite).

[Rich 11]

Re: Science is awesome...

Than your Corolla alone? Yes, I expect that all those 'space rays' would have a greater effect. But than all the Corollas on the planet, over all the years they've been chugging away -- seems less likely.

(And I agree with you regarding Bells.)

[wolfetone]

Re: Science is awesome...

It'll be an icy cold day in hell before I ever refer to the bourbon Jack Daniels & co a "whiskey".

Although, granted, I used whiskey in reference to whisky made in Scotland, it should be noted that the "e" in whiskey identifies it as Irish.

Merry *hic* Christmas

*hic*

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: Science is awesome...

Jack Daniels is a Tennessee sour mash whiskey (it says so on the bottle). As I heard it, when whisky making in Scotland changed Irish and American distillers wanted to distinguish their product from what they saw as an inferior way of making whisky, by adding an 'e'. Personally, I all for single malt whisky, but that may just be me,

[wolfetone]

Re: Science is awesome...

"Jack Daniels is a Tennessee sour mash whiskey (it says so on the bottle). As I heard it, when whisky making in Scotland changed Irish and American distillers wanted to distinguish their product from what they saw as an inferior way of making whisky, by adding an 'e'. Personally, I all for single malt whisky, but that may just be me,"

I agree. Single malts are far superior. The only exception to that is Jamesons, Powers and Paddy whiskies. All blended yes but bloody lovely.

[Will Godfrey]

The bad news

... is that the anti man-made lot will jump on this as justification for doing nothing.

[Pompous Git]

Re: The bad news

the anti man-made lot will jump on this as justification for doing nothing.

So what are you proposing we do about cosmic rays?

[tony2heads]

Re: The bad news

EXPLODE MORE STARS (mwahahahaha)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The bad news

We don't need to jump. We've just been waiting for slow freights like you to get a clue.

[Rich 11]

Re: The bad news

We've just been waiting for slow freights like you to get a clue.

Says the clueless conspiracy-monger.

[Dan Paul]

Re: The bad news is that you can't stop cosmic rays!

Yeah, about "doing something", the fact is that YOU can't stop particles going the speed of light and nothing can. So you were blathering on about something?

[Pompous Git]

Old News?

The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change. Svensmark's book was published in 2003.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Old News?

Very old. The Warmists have been trying to suppress this for years but it just won't go away. Seems it provides a science-based, non-CO2-based explanation for climate changes (besides the Milankovitch cycles).

[strum]

Re: Old News?

>Seems it provides a science-based, non-CO2-based explanation for climate changes

John, if you think this interesting titbit gives aid to your anti-AGW ideology, you're even more deluded than usual.

These are changes (literally) on a cosmic scale, which may help explain long-term climate variations. They do nothing to explain the short-term warming we are observing. Is that clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Old News?

Strum, you really should understand a subject before commenting on it.

"These are changes (literally) on a cosmic scale, which may help explain long-term climate variations."

Yes, cosmic ray flux levels are a "cosmic scale" thing. But the theory in question says nothing about that. The theory says that what matters is the flux level that reaches the troposphere (where the clouds are) and actually generates more (or less) cloud cover, thus affecting the climate bigly by changing the Earth's albedo.

And what does change that flux level here on Earth? Obviously it's the magnetic fields of the Earth and the Sun. In particular, the Sun's magnetosphere matters a lot because it extends a long way out, giving the incoming charged particles more time to be steered away from the inner system. And that solar magnetosphere is strongly variable on rather short time scales, for reasons not yet fully understood. Probably has to do with chaotic turbulence within the Sun I suppose...

Basically the solar magnetic field is the proposed "control lever" for some climate changes, such as the Little Ice Age a couple centuries ago. And guess what? Astronomers of that time all reported a strange absence of sunspots, which happen to be direct manifestations of the Sun's magnetic field! Go figure.

In short, solar magnetic changes are not cosmic in their timing whatsoever. Solar magnetic changes can and do occur quite rapidly, and can account for short term climate changes.

Is that clear? ;-/

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Old News?

Seems it provides a science-based, non-CO2-based explanation for climate changes (besides the Milankovitch cycles).

But there are problems with Milankovitch cycles. Just as there are problems with CO2-driven climate change. It's all about quantifying effects. So the key CO2 one is sensitivity. That's generally X degrees per doubling of CO2. If X is high, more warming, low, less. And it's generally assumed the response is logarithmic.

That's where there's a lot of sensitivity. For a small value of X, CO2's not a problem, ie if X=1.2 we'll keep to the arbitary <2C warming. Then there's comparisons between models using different CO2 sensitivity values and measured temperatures. If the model says we should be 3C warmer, and observations show we're only 0.5C, then sensitivity is too high, or there are negative effects. If those negative effects counter CO2 warming, then there's no problem, and arguably benefits from higher CO2 levels, like the 'greening of the planet'.

Which is where Svensmark's theories, and also Milankovitch cyles come in. We know climate changes naturally. We know that can be extreme, ie an Ice Age, or less extreme, ie a Little Ice Age or Medieval Warming Period. Some try to deny the extent or magnitude, but there's evidence supporting them. CO2 driven climate can't really support natural cooling, especially not to Ice Age levels. Milankovitch cycles struggle with effect exceeding cause, ie a small change in insolation leading to a large change in temperature.

Where I think Svensmark's theory comes in is filling in some of the feedback or forcing gaps. So on it's own, it may not be enough to explain recorded climate changes, but we know there are solar cycles and variability in things that affect or attenuate cosmic rays.. But there are also issues with weak correlation, or effect exceeding cause. But we do know that clouds are notoriously difficult to model, and have a large impact on temperatures.

[Pompous Git]

Re: Old News?

So the key CO2 one is sensitivity. That's generally X degrees per doubling of CO2. If X is high, more warming, low, less. And it's generally assumed the response is logarithmic.

The response to additional CO2 on infra-red light absorption by Earth's atmosphere was characterised by Svante Arrhenius in the 19th C.

It is not "assumed" to be logarithmic. It is logarithmic on theoretical and empirical grounds. As an analogy, think of CO2's infra-red absorption to be characterised as a sheet of glass between a light source and light absorber. To keep it simple, our sheet of glass absorbs 50% of the light passing through. Adding a second sheet of glass blocks 50% of the remaining light thus total absorption is now 75%. Rinse and repeat.

Calculating the absorption of infra-red emitted by Earth's surface for entails dividing the atmosphere into an arbitrary number of layers and summing the result for each layer. This would be tedious except for MODTRAN:

The MODTRAN® (MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission) computer code is used worldwide by research scientists in government agencies, commercial organizations, and educational institutions for the prediction and analysis of optical measurements through the atmosphere. MODTRAN was developed and continues to be maintained through a longstanding collaboration between Spectral Sciences, Inc. (SSI) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

The high sensitivity to CO2 claimed by warmists is the result of an assumption. To wit, the so-called Enhanced Greenhouse Effect. This entails the belief that the slight increase in temperature caused by increased CO2 necessarily increases the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. As Paltridge, Rking and Pook revealed in their paper Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data there is no empirical evidence for this.

[Alex Read]

No such thing as climate change. none. This is fake news.

* The term "climate" was made up by the Obama administration to move attention away from <topic of the day here>. Fact.

[Anonymous Coward]

"No such thing as climate change" ,,,,,, You are demonstrably wrong there. Climate does change. There is a wealth of historical evidence to demonstrate that. What we haven't managed to do is work out the science of what makes it change well enough to know with any certainty what percentage of the change 0% to 100% is due to human activity.

Anyone who claims either 0% or 100% with religious fervour is almost certainly wrong.

[Rich 11]

Anyone who claims either 0% or 100% with religious fervour is almost certainly wrong.

Or was joking...

[Anonymous Coward]

> "The term "climate" was made up by the Obama administration..."

Yeah, I'd say it wasn't an honest comment. Just another inane attempt at a false flag operation, sigh.

Oh well, at least it does indicate the desperation among some of the CAGW crowd. Can't blame them tho. The stars just aren't aligning for their cause any more.

[Arthur the cat]

Anyone who claims either 0% or 100% with religious fervour is almost certainly wrong.

Anyone who types a sentence like that is almost certainly unaware of Poe's law.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Poe's Law" ...... you do realize that even if someone is making an extreme claim for fun and to wind up "believers" what they are saying still wrong.

[De Facto]

Climate change is real - every 24 hours

Not that humans can do anything about that, unless they:

- stop the planed Earth from rotation, that warms the Earth in day-time side, and cools it in night-time side, with dramatic temperature fluctuations of 10-20 degrees in most parts of our planet every 12 hours or so, that would have long caused catastrophic planetary and civilization failures by theories of warmists;

- install the giant termostat regulator on the Sun and stop our star from cyclic increase or decrease of its heat production in every 11, 40 and other know astrophysical cycle periods;

- build a giant shield around the Solar system protecting against the cloud-forming comic rays from the Universe;

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's alien chemtrails? I knew it and to think people laughed at my tin foil hat.

Just wait, when it comes out that Elvis shot JFK in the studio where they filmed the moon landings I will be fully vindicated.

If anything happens to me it was the lizard people.

On a side note, very interesting science, Would these cosmic rays have to be factored into weather modelling?

[Pompous Git]

Would these cosmic rays have to be factored into weather modelling?

No. Weather modelling is based on data no older than 7 days. The effects Svensmark describes occur over periods of weeks to millions of years, so they can be treated as a constant in weather models.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Weather modelling is based on data no older than 7 days."......... so how does that work with a 10 day forecast?

[Pompous Git]

so how does that work with a 10 day forecast?

Here in SE Australia we have 7 day forecasts that are 70% accurate. Presumably if you are getting 10 day forecasts they are based on 10 day old data.

Huonville Forecast

[Spacedinvader]

Sweet

Could someone tell Al Gore?

[Threlkeld]

In what universe is this hard science?

If scientific hypotheses have to be testable to be science (that is, it should be practically possible to prove them to be wrong), then this idea is only very tenuously scientific. To test it you have to irradiate the whole earth, or wait for the solar system to reach a different part of the galaxy. It's fair to say that the basic phenomenon can be demonstrated in a cloud chamber (that's what cloud chambers do), but quite a leap to go from that to the atmosphere of the whole Earth, with many other phenomena present. Nice idea, could be true, but like the man said the beer stays on ice for now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In what universe is this hard science?

Climate science is exempt from the scientific method.

[M. Poolman]

Re: In what universe is this hard science?

I think that that is a rather simplistic view of the way in which scientific ideas develop. The reality is more nuanced, and indeed the authors of the paper state that:

"The mechanism could therefore be a natural explanation for the observed correlations between past climate variations and cosmic rays, modulated by either solar activity or caused by supernova activity..."

Furthermore, there was a degree of hypothesis testing. The authors, after having used some nifty mathematical modelling, raised the hypothesis that cosmic rays could increase the size of cloud condensation nucleii, and tested this experimentally, and in doing so failed to disprove the hypothesis.

Very few things are absolutely (dis)provable in science: hypothesis are put forward, tested and evidence accumulated. This leads to a "best current view" of the world, although what "best" is is rarely uncontentious, and most scientists would anyway acknowledge that their "best current view" is a best incomplete, and very likely incorrect in some aspects.

[Threlkeld]

Re: In what universe is this hard science?

"Very few things are absolutely (dis)provable in science: hypothesis are put forward, tested and evidence accumulated."

No, it is fundamental that any hypothesis that cannot be tested (i.e. cannot in principle be disproved) cannot itself be scientific. It can be many other useful things, and (as in the present case) it can offer the challenge of working out the test that will make it scientific, but unless there is a way to test it, it's not a scientific hypothesis.

To say the moon is made of green cheese is not scientific unless there is a way of checking that it isn't. Once there is a way, then the hypothesis that the moon is made of green cheese is a valid part of science. (In case the incautious should be tempted to believe in lunar cheesism, I must add that that ship has sailed. The hypothesis happens to be wrong. But it's not just wrong, it's scientifically wrong).

One thing that we know about past climate is that all the ice core and deep-sea sediment data suggest rather strongly that changes tend to occur in steps. That is, it rather looks as if the total climate system response tends to be quite highly non-linear. Wise people don't mess with systems like that, especially when the system in question happens to be an important part of their own life-support. (Bits of that argument may not be completely scientific yet, but the common sense involved is undeniable).

[Mystic Megabyte]

Re: In what universe is this hard science?

"The team studied the effects of cosmic rays on a simulation of Earth’s atmosphere, recreated inside a cloud chamber, which mimics the planet’s upper atmosphere inside a controlled lab setting where these interactions can be studied up close."

http://www.ibtimes.com/cosmic-rays-trigger-climate-change-earth-increasing-cloud-cover-study-2630728

[Anonymous Coward]

The solar wind is currently "lower" than average and continuing to reduce, so more cosmic rays (sounds better than particles) are reaching Earth (*).

OTOH, if global temperatures change enough to cause problems then I'm not sure why we shouldn't consider reducing the inputs we can control just because there are others that we can't.

(*) this could also kill off any chance of a manned trip to Mars in the next decade or two

[Stoneshop]

The solar wind is currently "lower" than average and continuing to reduce,

So, building a wind generator with solar panels for blades is not going to be very worthwhile, is it?

[x 7]

So if the sun turns into a supernova, the extra cloud cover will stop global warming?

[Paul Kinsler]

[supernova ... ] the extra cloud cover will stop global warming?

Yeah - it's a sort of peril-sensitive cloud layer...

[Nick Kew]

Another dodgy headline

Extraterrestrial events didn't alter Earth's climate. They *are* an element in Earth's climate. And, like water vapour making the difference between sunny and cloudy, dry and wet, they make transient differences.

The key issue in climate change is a cumulative long-term imbalance in CO2. There are much more powerful greenhouse gases (headed by water vapour - clouds make a much bigger difference than CO2, methane, sunspots, or even volcanic ash), but they're in a natural cycle whose ultimate sources and sinks are in balance over at least the medium term.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Another dodgy headline

> "The key issue in climate change is a cumulative long-term imbalance in CO2."

Pray tell, what IS the correct balance point for atmospheric CO2 concentration? Has that bit of science been settled yet? ;-/

I seem to recall reading that our modern CO2 level is rather low as a function of the geological record, so low indeed that if it had gone much lower there would have been serious curtailment of photosynthesizing organisms everywhere.

[Nick Kew]

Re: Another dodgy headline

Who says there's any such thing as a "correct" level?

But it's the low levels of geologically-recent times that support high-metabolic-rate (warm-blooded) life forms. You'll suffocate in a stuffy room while there's still plenty of oxygen. Just like you'd suffocate on this planet's distant history, before most of the carbon was captured from the air and laid down as fossils over millions of years before we evolved.

[Semtex451]

Meh

If Interstellar particles alter Earth's climate, by extension so must our planets magnetic field, as it variably influences said particles reaching our atmosphere. As my compatriot Wolfetone points this out as miniscule 'Corolla Data', it presumably may, at some point be useful in modifying/improving climate models affecting distant points in time. But I even bore myself.

[TrumpSlurp the Troll]

Interesting, but in which direction?

At a dumb bunny level I can see that no clouds at all can allow more heating but also more heat loss. Desert regions are an example where it is blazingly hot during the day but freezing at night. So do you gain more heat than you lose or vice versa?

I can see that a very heavy cloud layer (think super volcano or nuclear winter) can shut off more incoming heat than it saves in radiated heat so temperature falls.

We seem to be in the half way house normally; enough sun gets through to warm the day up but cloudy nights keep the heat in. Different results in winter and summer.

So, in the tradition of the Scotsman who blew on his hands to warm them and blew on his porridge to cool it, does extra cosmic ray input and more clouds make us warmer or cooler?

[inmypjs]

Re: Interesting, but in which direction?

"which direction"

I would say it quite obvious that reflecting away high power radiation from a source at 15 million C is going to have more effect than reflecting back piss weak radiation from a source at a few tens of C.

[Pompous Git]

Re: Interesting, but in which direction?

does extra cosmic ray input and more clouds make us warmer or cooler?

Depends. High cloud cools at night and warms during the day. Low cloud warms at night and cools during the day. Cosmic rays affect the intensity of warming or cooling.

[Paul Smith]

Duh...

That was the plot of the movie "A Convenient Fiction", a so-called documentary response to the environmental Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth".

[x 7]

was all the computational work for this done in the cloud?

and should we be worried that this effect will damage cloud storage?

[Alistair]

Hrrrm

While I can accept the basic scientific principle expressed here (extra solar cosmic radiation events can precipitate changes in climactic behaviour of cloud building) I have a *REALLY* big problem with a scientist that says:

"Finally we have the last piece of the puzzle explaining how particles from space affect climate on Earth"

The one thing I suspect most intelligence scientists would change in that sentence would be "last" to "next".

That said, I'll go back to my corner on the climate change stuff. (and you can certainly find that in my posting history)

[Anonymous Coward]

All this is making me wonder what this alien race firing these cosmic rays at us has against Britain. They must also have multiple sources of these rays to be providing cloud cover 24-7. That makes it a somewhat large and scary operation, given the distances involved. The odd sunny days we get must be when the Cloud Cannon is down for maintenance.

Also, yay for Science. :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they'd shoot some my way. Here in the US Southwest deserts the clear skies are so regular that one might go mad staring into that bottomless blue abyss. I hike a lot, and cloudy days are particularly desirable for that, just to get some relief!

[DuncanLarge]

Will it change anything, nope

So a few years ago NASA get scared multiple times about the sun doing weird shit while we go crazy bigging ourselves up as the cause of climate change while ignoring the inconvenient truth that climate changes. NASA start thinking that the very late solar cycle and apparent stalling of the currents inside the sun indicate a cycle we have yet to properly monitor seeing as we have only been watching the sun for a brief blip of a few hundred years.

NASA then add to this, saying that the solar magnetic field is doing other weird shit which is affecting the amount of cosmic radiation we get exposed to from outside the solar system. Hmm so the engine that drives our entire climate, that is responsible for its entire existence does weird shit while we see the climate doing weird shit we didnt see before (in our very short blip of monitoring) and we dont seriously connect the two.

Then scientists who should know better about being proper scientists i.e unbiased and seeking truth above all else caused Climate Gate (TM). Tsk Tsk, what a nice example of the incorruptibility they claim to hold so dear. If one group of them can act that way, so can others. They are human after all.

Which makes me concerned if any of them have the balls to be basically out of a job should they suddenly turn around and say "Hey its not us, its this! We dont need to hurt the 3rd world now, we can understand the truth about our world". Considering that they are human and must pay bills they naturally would want to please those who pay them to produce models that can justify taxes... whoops did I just suggest a possible conspiracy or bias based on human greed and money? Hmm

Then the model that was used to justify political decisions that affect our lives, pensioners descision to heat or eat, the education of our children and so on gets thrown out of the scientific community for being so wildly inaccurate (due to increased understanding of climate science) as to be laughable. The model is basically reduced to toilet paper by its own creators overnight. So, those policies / laws / taxes etc all get revisited, changed or even mothballed? Nope. Nothing. Nobody applied any hindsight to the validity of those decisions. Why? Is it because they forgot? Or will it "un-justify" too much lovely money and spin?

Oops, suggested it again... Perhaps I dont trust humans I dont personally know?

Then people start screaming about polar bears being stranded on small icebergs, yet the observant will notice the bears are actually hunting. But the screaming continues. Nobody educates them about the clever hunting methods of polar bears.

Then we find the other planets are warming up a bit also and their weather patterns (great red spot anyone) are changing. Completely unconnected to our planet, because we are so special, because climate doesnt change, because the sun doesnt change.

Then we start screaming because the glaciers are melting. Duh, the climate is warming up, what do we expect to happen when this ice age created ice finally melts as we warm up from the last ice age. But wait. How did we cause the ice age? We humans are so special, nothing changes without us, nothing exists without us.

In the 1970's we caused what we thought was to be another ice age. Not the sun. Not the winds. Not cosmic rays like todays story may suggest, no we did it. It was all over the news.

So we stopped the 1970's ice? Obviously we did. We are humans. So, those who stopped it must have forgot to turn off the weather machine? That is causing our warming? Yay I solved it.

Maybe not.

And now. Low and behold we are told that our entire climate is greatly affected by something we can not control, nor could even predict till now. Scary space and those pesky suns that keep us from being a frozen ball of rock seem to have an effect after all. Models will be changed. Old ones thrown out as toilet paper. Money will continue to find a way to the same pockets. Doublethink, doublespeak will assist.

Nobody will change policy. Nobody will hold truth and understanding in front of our future generations. Just like fictional muggles we will blindly ignore the truth of the world around us so that we can continue to place ourselves on a high pedestal, being convinced of our divinity in the universe. So we can continue to enslave ourselves to ourselves to punish ourselves for being ourselves.

King Canute, where is your wisdom? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide

[twofeathers]

"The team suggested the above process could have practically affected Earth's climate over time. The repeated periods of cooling and heating in global temperatures by 2oC over the past 10,000 years could be down to changes in solar activity and cosmic rays. Larger fluctuations of up to 10oC could have occurred over astronomical timescales as the solar system moved through the Milky Way galaxy, the paper stated:"

Any link or direct quote to support the above paraphrasing? I don't see it in the paper - in fact I don't see any reference to global temperature variation in the paper. Also, there is a wide range between "[temperature changes] could be down to changes in solar activity" and "could have practically affected". Which are the team proposing?

[diodesign]

Re: twofeathers

The temperature assessment is from the university.

C.

[twofeathers]

Re: twofeathers

Yes, the final statements at that link are very badly worded and open to misinterpretation by adding the causal link between the variation in cosmic rays reaching the atmosphere and the global temperature variations. But those statements don't explicitly mention there is a causal link - it just states that two events happened at the same time and leaves it dangling. There is also no statement about how much of those temperature variations is down to the cosmic ray variations.

It's quite a big leap from what those statements say to "could be down to" i.e. 100% caused by - which is what you say those statements claim. I would suggest that there is no chance of that being the case. For example, it's pretty clear that over 100% of 20th century warming is down to GHG emissions (including natural feedbacks).

[Pompous Git]

Re: twofeathers

For example, it's pretty clear that over 100% of 20th century warming is down to GHG emissions (including natural feedbacks).

And warmists claim the sceptics are deluded! Presumably you also know how to get a quart from a pint pot...

[Kabukiwookie]

Donning tinfoil hat of Blocking +4

So if extraterrestrial sources of energy can have influence on our weather, how about HAARP?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Donning tinfoil hat of Blocking +4

I kinda doubt it, since Wikipedia says that HAARP shut down completely two years ago.

[Citizen99]

I'm currently reading

"Searching for the Catastrophe Signal"

"The origin of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"

by Bernie Lewin

This describes the history of successive environmental concerns, from the policy over-reaction to the damage caused by saturation use of DDT (loss of public health benefits particularly in the 'third world'), emissions by SuperSonic Transport, CFCs and the ozone layer, and so on ...

As one issue loses traction over time, for whatever reason, the next one comes along.

The book contains plenty of detail.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a layperson...

...I also have an opinion, and it is just as valid as any of your so-called “facts’!

[Handle123456]

But who to tax for that?