Classical Values :: Clouds In Chambers

May 25, 2007

Clouds In Chambers

What do you do when you want to study clouds and all you have is balloons because airplanes are not very reliable and they are expensive? Like any good scientist you try to make clouds in your lab. Which is exactly what C. T. R. Wilson did in 1912.

The study of high energy particles was greatly aided in 1912 when C. T. R. Wilson, a Scottish physicist, devised the cloud chamber. The general procedure was to allow water to evaporate in an enclosed container to the point of saturation and then lower the pressure, producing a super-saturated volume of air. Then the passage of a charged particle would condense the vapor into tiny droplets, producing a visible trail marking the particle's path.

The device came to be called the Wilson cloud chamber and was used widely in the study of radioactivity. An alpha particle left a broad, straight path of definite length while an electron produced a light path with bends due to collisions. Gamma rays did not produce a visible track since they produce very few ions in air. The Wilson cloud chamber led to the discovery of recoil electrons from x-ray and gamma ray collisions, the Compton-scattered electrons, and was used to discover the first intermediate mass particle, the muon. Wilson was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1927 for the development of the cloud chamber.

Why did Wilson invent the cloud chamber? It certainly wasn't to study nuclear physics which was in its infancy at the time. It really was the case that he wanted to study clouds.

Inspired by sightings of the Brocken spectre while working on the summit of Ben Nevis in 1894, he began to develop expansion chambers for studying cloud formation and optical phenomena in moist air.

So how did all this interest by people studying nuclear physics come about?

Very rapidly he discovered that ions could act as centres for water droplet formation in such chambers. He pursued the application of this discovery and perfected the first cloud chamber in 1911. In Wilson's original chamber the air inside the sealed device was saturated with water vapor, then a diaphragm is used to expand the air inside the chamber (adiabatic expansion). This cools the air and water vapor starts to condense. When an ionizing particle passes through the chamber, water vapor condenses on the resulting ions and the trail of the particle is visible in the vapor cloud.

Fun stuff. In fact it is so much fun that improved chambers have been developed that can make the required clouds continuously so that you do not have to keep re-pumping the chamber to get the required conditions for cloud formation. Mad Physics has a nice diagram of Wilson's original design and instructions on how to build a more modern version using methanol (wood alcohol), pure ethanol (the drinking kind), or pure isopropyl alcohol (used in diluted form in rubbing alcohol)and dry ice. Cornell University also has similar instructions along with a trouble shooting guide.

OK, so men have been making clouds in chambers since 1912. Since not long after that time we have understood that high energy nuclear particles can help clouds to form.

Which leads us to the question of climate and how our sun's magnetic field can affect climate. I wrote some about that in Clouds and More Clouds. As usual with any "new" science there are sceptics and deniers (you know who you are). So let us follow this along, look at some really big cloud chambers, and see if we can shed some light instead of just generating heat.

Let us start with the experiment that triggered off the whole brouha. An experiment done under the auspices of the Danish Space Agency first reported in the summer of 2006.

An essential role for remote stars in everyday weather on Earth has been revealed by an experiment at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen.

It is already well-established that when cosmic rays, which are high-speed atomic particles originating in exploded stars far away in the Milky Way, penetrate Earth's atmosphere they produce substantial amounts of ions and release free electrons.

Now, results from the Danish experiment show that the released electrons significantly promote the formation of building blocks for cloud condensation nuclei on which water vapour condenses to make clouds.

Hence, a causal mechanism by which cosmic rays can facilitate the production of clouds in Earth's atmosphere has been experimentally identified for the first time.

Well that is just one experiment you say. I suppose that is true if you don't count all the millions of cloud chamber experiments done since 1912. However, there are sceptics and deniers among us and we need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm all for that! Now there will always be a few flat earthers, however we want to satisfy the reasonable sceptics. The way to do that? Why get another team to to perform the same experiment to see if they get the same results. So will this be done? Yep. And by whom? Well atomic scietists to the rescue.

Geneva, 19 October 2006. A novel experiment, known as CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets), begins taking its first data today with a prototype detector in a particle beam at CERN[1], the world's largest laboratory for particle physics. The goal of the experiment is to investigate the possible influence of galactic cosmic rays on Earth's clouds and climate. This represents the first time a high energy physics accelerator has been used for atmospheric and climate science.

The CLOUD experiment is designed to explore the microphysical interactions between cosmic rays and clouds. Cosmic rays are charged particles that bombard the Earth's atmosphere from outer space. Studies suggest that cosmic rays may influence the amount of cloud cover through the formation of new aerosols (tiny particles suspended in the air that seed cloud droplets). Clouds exert a strong influence on the Earth's energy balance, and changes of only a few per cent have an important effect on the climate. The CLOUD prototype experiment aims to investigate the effect of cosmic rays on the formation of new aerosols.

Understanding the microphysics in controlled laboratory conditions is a key to unravelling the connection between cosmic rays and clouds. CLOUD will reproduce these interactions for the first time by sending a beam of particles - the "cosmic rays" - from CERN's Proton Synchrotron into a reaction chamber. The effect of the beam on aerosol production will be recorded and analysed.

The collaboration comprises an interdisciplinary team from 18 institutes and 9 countries in Europe, the United States and Russia. It brings together atmospheric physicists, solar physicists, and cosmic ray and particle physicists to address a key question in the understanding of clouds and climate change. "The experiment has attracted the leading aerosol, cloud and solar-terrestrial physicists from Europe; Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are especially strong in this area" says the CLOUD spokesperson, Jasper Kirkby of CERN.

Data from this experiment will be out around 2010. So we have to wait a while.

In the mean time the BBC reports on some other experiments going on.

A three-week experiment to resolve the biggest riddle in climate science begins in Australia on Thursday.

Scientists will use radar, aeroplanes, weather balloons and a ship to study the life cycle of tropical clouds.

They are searching for details of how clouds form and carry heat high up into the atmosphere.

A better understanding of these crucial processes should lead to computer models that can predict the extent of global climate warming more accurately.

Just how bad is the cloud problem? I cover some of that in More Uncertainty. However, let us see what the above linked BBC report has to say:

Tropical clouds carry heat and moisture from the Earth's surface high up in the atmosphere, a key process in driving heat around the globe.

"You have these 'hot towers', tropical storm clouds acting like chimneys to carry heat to the upper atmosphere," said Peter May from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre, co-chair of the project's organising committee.

"Also, you've got large areas of cirrus clouds which are reflecting a lot of incoming sunlight back away from the Earth; but they're also absorbing infra-red radiation coming back from below," he told the BBC News website.

"So you've got competing processes going on; and that balance depends on how big the ice crystals are and what the density is, how high they are and so on."

Existing computer models did not reflect these processes accurately, said Tom Ackerman of the University of Washington in Seattle, US, because they typically treated convection and cloud formation as separate processes.

So even without the nuclear particle (cosmic ray) connection to cloud production there is a lot of uncertainty.

Obviously more information is needed. One of the things we need is an understanding of how the sun affects the cosmic ray intensity on earth.

So let us look into it. First off let us look into Dr. Nir Shaviv's review of the Danish experiment.

After a long embargo, results from the Danish National Space Center (DNSC) Sky experiment were finally published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. These results will probably we overshadowed with today's announcement of this years' physics nobel prize winner (for the COBE microwave background experiment), but they are very important nonetheless.

This is the Royal Society's press release on the publication of Svensmark et al.:

"Using a box of air in a Copenhagen lab, physicists trace the growth of clusters of molecules of the kind that build cloud condensation nuclei. These are specks of sulphuric acid on which cloud droplets form. High-energy particles driven through the laboratory ceiling by exploded stars far away in the Galaxy - the cosmic rays - liberate electrons in the air, which help the molecular clusters to form much faster than atmospheric scientists have predicted. That may explain the link proposed by members of the Danish team, between cosmic rays, cloudiness and climate change."

Nir is kind enough to provide the pertinent graph, pictures of the experiment and the scientists involved, and some more discussion at the previous link.

Now what does all this have to do with the sun?

Nir again provides us with a connection

The activity of the sun manifests its self in many ways. One of them is through a variable solar wind. This flux of energetic particles and entangled magnetic field flows outwards from the sun, and impedes on a flux of more energetic particles, the cosmic rays, which come from outside the solar system. Namely, a more active sun with a stronger solar wind will attenuate the flux of cosmic rays reaching Earth. The key point in this picture is that the cosmic rays are the main physical mechanism controlling the amount of ionization in the troposphere (the bottom 10 kms or so). Thus, a more active sun will reduce the flux of cosmic rays, and with it, the amount of tropospheric ionization. As it turns out, this amount of ionization affects the formation of condensation nuclei required for the formation of clouds in clean marine environment. A more active sun will therefore inhibit the formation of cloud condensation nuclei, and the resulting low altitude marine clouds will have larger drops, which are less white and live shorter, thereby warming Earth.

Today, there is ample evidence to support this picture (a succinct introduction can be found here). For example, it was found that independent galactic induced variations in the cosmic ray flux, which have nothing to do with solar activity do too affect climate as one should expect from such a link. There are many more examples.

Ah, but Dr. Shaviv has more:

So why is this link important for global warming? As previously mentioned, solar activity has been increasing over the 20th century. This can be seen in fig. 5. Thus, we expect warming from the reduced flux of cosmic rays. Moreover, since the cosmic ray flux actually had a small increase between the 1940's and 1970's (as can be seen in the ion chamber data in fig. 6), this mechanism also naturally explains the global temperature decrease which took place during the same period.

Using historic variations in climate and the cosmic ray flux, one can actually quantify empirically the relation between cosmic ray flux variations and global temperature change, and estimate the solar contribution to the 20th century warming. This contribution comes out to be 0.5±0.2°C out of the observed 0.6±0.2°C global warming (Shaviv, 2005).

Naturally you will have to visit Dr. Shaviv's site to see the figures. However, if what he says is correct then CO2 is an amplifying mechanism and not the driver. In fact if his numbers are correct solar variation amplified by the cosmic ray effect accounts for 80% of the global warming we have seen.

Dr. Shaviv has a paper that originally appeared in PhysicaPlus that has more on the cosmic ray/climate connection over geological time. You can read it here along with some interesting pictures.

But wait. That is not all. Let us take another look at Dr. Svensmark's research.

For more than a decade, Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center has been pursuing an explanation for why Earth cools and warms. His findings -- published in October in the Proceedings of the Royal Society -- the mathematical, physical sciences and engineering journal of the Royal Society of London -- are now in, and they don't point to us. The sun and the stars could explain most if not all of the warming this century, and he has laboratory results to demonstrate it. Dr. Svensmark's study had its origins in 1996, when he and a colleague presented findings at a scientific conference indicating that changes in the sun's magnetic field -- quite apart from greenhouse gases -- could be related to the recent rise in global temperatures. The chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change, the chief agency investigating global warming, then castigated them in the press, saying, "I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible." Others accused them of denouncing the greenhouse theory, something they had not done.

Svensmark and his colleague had arrived at their theory after examining data that showed a surprisingly strong correlation between cosmic rays --highspeed atomic particles originating in exploded stars in the Milky Way -- and low-altitude clouds. Earth's cloud cover increased when the intensity of cosmic rays grew and decreased when the intensity declined.

Low-altitude clouds are significant because they especially shield the Earth from the sun to keep us cool. Low cloud cover can vary by 2% in five years, affecting the Earth's surface by as much as 1.2 watts per square metre during that same period. "That figure can be compared with about 1.4 watts per square metre estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the greenhouse effect of all the increase in carbon dioxide in the air since the Industrial Revolution," Dr. Svensmark explained.

The Danish scientists put together several well-established scientific phenomena to arrive at their novel 1996 theory. The sun's magnetic field deflects some of the cosmic rays that penetrate the Earth's atmosphere, and in so doing it also limits the immense amounts of ions and free electrons that the cosmic rays produce. But something had changed in the 20th century: The sun's magnetic field more than doubled in strength, deflecting an extraordinary number of rays.

Well that should be more than enough to keep the deniers and sceptics busy for a while.

Update:

A paper by Dr. Svensmark. This appears to be one of his earlier papers on the subject (no date given) and not the results published in 2006.

Another Svensmark paper [pdf] Dec. 2006

A paper by Jan Veizer [pdf] on climate over geological time.

More updates:

Empirical evidence for a nonlinear effect of galactic cosmic rays on clouds [pdf]

The possible connection between ionization in the atmosphere by cosmic rays and low level clouds [pdf]

Cosmic Rays and the Evolution of Earths Climate During the Last 4.6 Billion Years

Low cloud properties influenced by cosmic rays

The Sun is More Active Now than Over the Last 8000 Years

Solar Resonant Diffusion Waves as a Driver of Terrestrial Climate Change

Galactic Cosmic Rays and Insolation are the Main Drivers of Global Climate of the Earth

Reader linearthinker has a post up on his blog about the politics behind the science with reference to the IPCC and Dr. Svensmark.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

posted by Simon on 05.25.07 at 01:01 AM

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Comments

Screw glow-ball worming, you are killing the fantasies of Art Bell contrail conspiracy theorists everywhere with this scientific crazy-talk about clouds.

skh.pcola · May 25, 2007 03:35 AM

This article is fraught with errors and misleading statements. Here are just a few of the key mistakes:

1. Yes, cloud chambers prove that cosmic rays can generate clouds -- IF you have supersaturated air AND you suddenly cut the pressure in half in a fraction of a second. In the real world, where you seldom have supersaturated air and you don't cut the pressure so much so fast, cosmic rays still contribute to cloud formation -- but at a much, much lower rate. Cloud chambers prove that cosmic rays can generate clouds in the same way that nuclear bombs prove that uranium can explode -- it doesn't happen much in natural conditions. The "millions of cloud chamber experiments" prove absolutely nothing about the role of cosmic rays in the real atmosphere.

2. The CLOUD experiment doesn't in any way support the thesis. It represents a good-faith effort to explore a hypothesis. It could serve just as well to blow it out of the water. We won't know for a while. Until then, it neither supports nor undermines the hypothesis offered here.

3. Cherry-picking scientific results is a standard means by which frauds and charlatans mislead the public. There are thousands of scientific papers published every year. Picking out a couple of these to support some weirdo hypothesis is an easy way to fool those who don't review the broad spectrum of scientific papers published. You could just as easily prove that Mr. Bush is an al-Qaeda operative by cherry-picking quotes from him and stitching them together in the appropriate form.

Froblyx · May 25, 2007 10:37 AM

Frob,

Nice of you to discount the evidence of 100 million years of correlation of cosmic rays to climate.

Which has so far as I know not been disputed.

However, if you have evidence to the contrary I'd be glad to look at it.

In the mean time look out for charlatans.

BTW are you disputing the ionization chamber data? esp 1940 to 1970? Some evidence would be helpful there as well.

M. Simon · May 25, 2007 12:26 PM

Do you remember what Einstein said about proving him wrong? It only takes one.

Every thing I refrenced has been published in reputable physics journals.

The Svensmark data is important, not the work of a crank. So important and so in agreement with 90 years of cloud chamber experiments that CERN is willing to devote part of the output of one of its particle accelerators to confirmation.

It also confirms the 100 million year correlation of cosmic rays with climate change. So far as I know that correlation is not disputed. However, if you have evidence to the contrary.....

M. Simon · May 25, 2007 12:35 PM

First of all, the results of the CLOUD experiment should be discounted because the name is so contrived as to be silly.

Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets?!?

We don't want to promote that sort of thing.

Second of all, of course 100 million years of data should be discounted. The entire edifice of global warming research is based on and entirely dependant on the fact that despite earth's billions of years of existance, weather has only been around for about 1,000 years (and really meaningful weather only a few decades). Any evidence of weather prior to about 1000 CE is purely fanciful.

tim maguire · May 25, 2007 01:28 PM

Since all our "politically correct" global warming data has been generated over the past 100 yrs. any long term data becomes redundant in the minds of the believers.

Basic fact is the earth has warmed and cooled in many long repeated cycles, the earth has been warming since the end of the last ice age. Short sighted "science" about 50 yrs ago was predicting the impending next ice age would be upon us by now.

Hugh · May 25, 2007 02:19 PM

Since all our "politically correct" global warming data has been generated over the past 100 yrs. any long term data becomes redundant in the minds of the believers.

Hugh · May 25, 2007 02:20 PM

This is very frustrating. I have written about the cosmic ray hypothesis on my website as well (http://www.globalwarming-factorfiction.com).

There are quite a few researchers out there that are studying this phenomenen but they are not getting credit for their efforts by the "establishment". I don't understand cloud formation well enough to say that this is the only way that clouds are formed or even if this is a significant cause but, as I understand it, neither does anyone else. If this is a major influencer than our climate models have to take this into account. We would need to have the models reflect the solar activity and make corrections.

I repeat my often said mantra - we need to do more research and understand these things better in order to truly come to the conclusions that Mr. Gore is preaching.

Sean O · May 26, 2007 09:39 AM

The classic Amateur Scientist project collection, now available on CD, has plans for making two different cloud chambers. One of them used a pickle jar, so anyone with enough curiousity can get a look at these effects.

triticale · May 26, 2007 10:10 AM

" Cherry-picking scientific results is a standard means by which frauds and charlatans mislead the public"
Excellent to have that on the record, since Steve McIntyre has numerous hard examples of same from the AGW crowd on his ClimateAudit blog.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled proxies. Al Gore can say it faster than you...

rhodeymark · May 26, 2007 01:25 PM

M. Simon,

This is my view on your original posting:

What's the big picture?
In the context of global warming (GW), this issue is interesting because it raises the question that cosmic rays are primarily responsible for the GW we are experiencing now, instead of C-O2 emissions.

In order for this to be a plausible explanation, the following points have to be established:

a) It must be possible for cosmic rays to seed cloud production.

b) There has to be evidence that cosmic rays have actually had this effect, in the real atmosphere.

c) There has to be evidence that this effect has been effective over the period of time of interest: the last 100 years.

If any of these points fails to be established, then the argument that the cloud-forming capabilities of cosmic-rays can serve as an explanation for GW fails.

a) Can cosmic rays seed clouds?
- Your write-up mentions the work of Wilson, the Danish National Space Center, and the CLOUD project at CERN. All of this in-lab work, not atmospheric work.
- You also quote some explanatory work from Shaviv.
- I note that some climate scientists think that the seeds formed in these processes are too tiny to be responsible for forming real clouds.
- Conclusion: I will sidestep that discussion by just stipulating that that I find it plausible that processes involving cosmic rays can, in principle, seed clouds.

b) Have cosmic rays actually seeded clouds in the past?
- Papers by Shaviv argue for correlations between cosmic-ray fluxes (CRFs) and temperature proxies. The inference is that these are linked by cloud creation. The paper with the evidence in it is Shaviv & Veizer (2003).
- However, some scientists (Rahmstorf, and 10 others. (2004)) have had problems believing in these correlations. They have severely criticized the methodology by which they were calculated. Their conclusion: "Two main conclusions result from our analysis of [Shaviv and Veizer, 2003]. The first is that the correlation of cosmic ray flux (CRF) and climate over the past 520 m.y. appears to not hold up under scrutiny. Even if we accept the questionable assumption that meteorite clusters give information on CRF variations, we find that the evidence for a link between CRF and climate amounts to little more than a similarity in the average periods of the CRF variations and a heavily smoothed temperature reconstruction. Phase agreement is poor. The authors applied several adjustments to the data to artificially enhance the correlation. We thus find that the existence of a correlation has not been convincingly demonstrated." (http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Journals/rahmstorf_etal_eos_2004.html).
- Shaviv responded in an article in which he gave explanations as to why his methodology is correct, but I wasn't able to follow them. Unfortunately, I can no longer access this article, for reasons unknown.
- Conclusion: There is still some controversy about whether the correlations between CRF and climate changes in the past are meaningful. I take no strong position on this.

c) Has this been effective over the last 100 years?
- The article of Shaviv's that most fully discusses the evidence, Shaviv & Veizer (2003), states, with respect to their own evidence, "As a final qualification, we emphasize that our conclusion about the dominance of the CRF over climate variability is valid only on multimillion year time scales."
- The folks at RealClimate (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=42) have pointed out that a major embarrassment to the CRF theory is that, whereas global average temperature has been marching up pretty steadily since the 1970s, the corresponding trend for CRFs (that they should be decreasing) has not shown up. If the effect is taking place but the cause is not, is the cause a cause?
- Conclusion: The CRF theory fails to be an explanation of recent GW.

Final thought: One of the points that Shaviv makes a few times (and which you have quoted) is the idea that "C-O2 is an amplifying mechanism and not the driver." I hate to disappoint you, but with respect to the historical timeframe, that is exactly the conventional wisdom: In the past, the amount of C-O2 in the atmosphere has been responsive to, not driving, temperature change; but it has had an amplifying effect because the greenhouse effect means that it serves as a positive feedback for warming. This is exactly the conventional explanation for why temperature increase has led C-O2 increase over the millennia.

The problem at present is that human beings are doing what nothing else has been able to do before: Inject large amounts of C-O2 into the atmosphere without the stimulus of increased temperature. How much? Over 33% in the last 100 years. And this will have an impact on the temperature - according to basic atmospheric physics.

Neal J. King · May 26, 2007 05:50 PM

Hugh,

- Long term data are not inherently considered redundant. They suggests that certain factors could be implicated. However, when we have modern measurements, we can measure and calculate that these proposed factors do not change enough to cause the observed change in global average temperature.

- The warming and cooling of the Earth in previous times has been on timescales of 100,000s of years. The changes we see now, in the last 100 years, are happening about 6 times as fast as observed in paleotemperature data.

- The issue of "global cooling" was a concern in the popular press (TIME, Newsweek, Science News), not in the climate-science community, whose judgement at the time was "too soon to tell". This is not the case for global warming. All the major scientific societies in the world have stated their opinion that it's real and due to the burning of fossil fuels. That's rather unusual - but I guess they felt that the non-scientist population was gettng rolled on this issue.

Neal J. King · May 26, 2007 08:37 PM

Alright Have cosmic rays actually seeded clouds in the past?
Alexander Ruzmaikin and Joan Feynman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., together with Dr. Yuk Yung of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., have analyzed Egyptian records of annual Nile water levels collected between 622 and 1470 A.D. at Rawdah Island in Cairo. link These records were then compared to another well-documented human record from the same time period: observations of the number of auroras reported per decade in the Northern Hemisphere. Auroras are bright glows in the night sky that happen when mass is rapidly ejected from the sun's corona, or following solar flares. They are an excellent means of tracking variations in the sun's activity.
"Since the time of the pharaohs, the water levels of the Nile were accurately measured, since they were critically important for agriculture and the preservation of temples in Egypt," she said. "These records are highly accurate and were obtained directly, making them a rare and unique resource for climatologists to peer back in time."
A similarly accurate record exists for auroral activity during the same time period in northern Europe and the Far East. People there routinely and carefully observed and recorded auroral activity, because auroras were believed to portend future disasters, such as droughts and the deaths of kings.
The Nile water levels and aurora records had two somewhat regularly occurring variations in common - one with a period of about 88 years and the second with a period of about 200 years.
So what causes these cyclical links between solar variability and the Nile? The authors suggest that variations in the sun's ultraviolet energy cause adjustments in a climate pattern called the Northern Annular Mode, which affects climate in the atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere during the winter. At sea level, this mode becomes the North Atlantic Oscillation, a large-scale seesaw in atmospheric mass that affects how air circulates over the Atlantic Ocean. During periods of high solar activity, the North Atlantic Oscillation's influence extends to the Indian Ocean. These adjustments may affect the distribution of air temperatures, which subsequently influence air circulation and rainfall at the Nile River's sources in eastern equatorial Africa. When solar activity is high, conditions are drier, and when it is low, conditions are wetter.
I didn't know what the Northern Annular Mode was so I googled it.
So not only does Solar Flux affect cloud formation, in the high latitudes surrounding the polar regions, it even drives the weather in a more general sense, with mixing of tropospheric and stratospheric wind currents.
have the CRF been only valid over multi million year time scales?
No. There is evidence for a physical linkage between the geomagnetic index aa (GI-AA)and streamflow in the Mississippi River Basin for the period 1878�2004.link
Have the average temperatures been marching up rather steadily since 1970?
Not in this century. With the exception of 2005 there has been a downward trend in the average global temperature, 2006 being the lowest since the turn of the century.

Papertiger · May 30, 2007 02:50 AM

Papertiger,

Thanks for your substantive response to my critique on the cosmic ray flux (CRF) proposal as an explanation for global warming (GW). I am currently studying the articles you've pointed to, and the papers cited therein, and am preparing an evaluation accordingly.

I should have it ready sometime tomorrow.

Neal J. King · May 30, 2007 06:36 PM

Wow. I really can look at clouds from both sides now. Far out.

Bilwick · May 31, 2007 09:32 AM

Neal, here is the source paper by Ruzmaikin, Feynman, and Yung.
Good luck.

I mean that sincerely. I have been intentionally rude to you and it is undeserved. For my part, over a year I have been arguing against people who tell me that I am a fool for even suggesting that humankind isn't a plague on the planet. Over and over, I see in the media that the argument is done, the science is incontrovertable, and that no further discussion will be countenanced, when in my mind the discussion has only just begun.
So when I encounter people like yourself, arguing for the position that humans are destroying the planet, even when you are in good faith, I conflate you with the herridans and media driven bully pulpit, I have been fighting against for so long.
To your credit you have accepted my short temper with grace.
I appreciate that.

Papertiger · May 31, 2007 06:42 PM

Papertiger,

I'm still working on it. But I won't be through with it tonight; either Friday night or Saturday.

Neal J. King · May 31, 2007 06:55 PM

Papertiger,

For my part, I appreciate your message. It is unfortunately the case that there is so much controversy over this issue that there is often a conflation of the scientific questions and the political issues; so it often happens that people have a definite image of whom they're arguing with, even when they haven't begun the discussion!

So I appreciate your being willing to take a "time out" to relax your view of the discussion.

I am pretty much through with the papers, but am too drained from the week to deal with it tonight. More tomorrow...

Neal J. King · June 1, 2007 07:42 PM

NEAL - Come on, brother. It shouldn't be this hard.
There are only three possiblities: Win, lose, or draw.
But let me leave you with this. In the event (and all probability) that we end with some measure of ambiguity, then it isn't a sin to adhere to original principles, and judge mankind as innocent until proven guilty.
That our existence isn't a plague on Earth.

Papertiger · June 2, 2007 07:39 PM

Papertiger,

With regard to the question of finding an explanation for today's global warming in cosmic-ray fluxes (CRF):

To recap, I expressed the main questions as:
a) Can cosmic rays seed clouds?, to which I stipulated to the answer, Very plausibly, Yes.
b) Have cosmic rays actually seeded clouds in the past?, to which my conclusion was: There is still some controversy over this point; I take no strong position.
c) Has this been effective over the last 100 years?, to which my conclusion was: Based upon the CRF records, No.

In response, you've brought forward two recent articles. Here's what I get from them:

1) Ruzmaikin, Feynman & Yung�s work suggesting a connection between 88-year cycles in the levels of the Nile and in records of the aurora in the northern hemisphere (in China?), during the period 622-1470 AD. A few things puzzle me about the paper: for the aurora information, they could only use summary data (events per decade): It would sure be nice to know something about the relative phase of these two cycles, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, the details of the data are hidden in earlier papers to which I couldn't obtain access. Because 88 years is a multiple of the 22-year solar cycle, they believe the Sun is involved. They suggest a solar-luminosity variation in the ultraviolet, for some reason. They try to find some reason why the 22-year cycle doesn't have these effects.
2) Charles A. Perry's article, which is actually not yet published, but can be obtained at: greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk/pdf/Gamma Rays and Climate Perry, Charles[pdf] . His argument is kind of complex:
- He correlates geomagnetic index aa (GI-AA) to cosmic-ray flux (CRF) over periods when both are measurable, and then uses GI-AA as a proxy when CRF is not available. (GI-AA measurements go back to 1868.) The greater GI-AA, the less the CRF; if you think CRF gives rise to cloudiness, the greater GI-AA, the less the cloudiness.
- He also correlates GI-AA to total solar irradiance (TSI): the greater the GI-AA, the greater the TSI.
- Since TSI should increase the solar radiation, but CRF should decrease the absorbed sunlight (because of clouds), he sums the TSI with the GI-AA as a kind of �total effect�, to include both the effect of solar luminosity changes and the effect of increased albedo from extra cloudiness.
- When he correlates this new measure, TSI plus GI-AA, with Mississippi River flow, he sees a connection. However, there are some tricks: He has to stick in a 34-year lag-time (which he finds an explanation for); and has to change it to a 37-year lag starting about 1950. Is that flakey? Yes, kind of. Does that mean that it�s fraudulent? No, not necessarily. Something could have changed in 1950. It doesn�t look real good; but it�s hardly beyond imagining.

Broadly speaking, RFY and P speak to the question of the impact of solar varitions on climate. P argues specifically for a CRF/cloudiness interpretation, whereas RFY suggest an effect of luminosity � but on the basis of the presented evidence, I don�t see why a CRF interpretation would be ruled out, although it's not what the authors proposed. These papers strengthen the case for the "yes" position in point b): that CRF has had some effect in the past. (On which point I took no strong position.)

(By the way, I should point out that for neither of these papers have I been able to derive any benefit of the scholarly reaction. The Perry paper is very recent (in fact, I am not sure that it has technically been published). Likewise, for RFY I found no scholarly response. So my personal evaluations may need to be changed later if some professionals point out weaknesses or strengths that I didn't pick up on.)

So we are still left with point c): "Has this been effective over the last 100 years?" (The reason for mentioning the multi-million-year timescale earlier was because Shaviv & Veizer explicitly stated that their conclusions could NOT be drawn for shorter periods than that. Perry's paper applies to current times (as late as 2004), and it strongly suggests that CRF can have some influence on climate. But notice what he connects: a highly fluctuating effect (Mississippi River flow) with a highly fluctuating cause: TSI combined with GI-AA, as a kind of proxy for CRF. (A more explicit description of the CRF trends over time can be found here:
realclimate.org/index.php?p=42
in brief, there isn't any trend in the CRF, it's essentially cycled with period 11 years. So if you want to attribute GW to this cause, there's a problem: the cause isn't happening, but the effect is.

So this brings us back to your final point, that "With the exception of 2005 there has been a downward trend in the average global temperature, 2006 being the lowest since the turn of the century."
This is not a valid way to look at noisy data: One cannot isolate specific data points as being significant or insignificant. The problem with the climate is that this is a system with many internal dynamics and rhythms of its own, even without outside forcings to consider (like C-O2 or solar variations). Even when a steady influence of any form is applied, you have to expect a lot of up & down: It's like lifting a water bed, even when you apply steady lift, the water level is going to slosh around quite a bit. The typical approach taken for noisy data like this is to apply a smoothing. And when you do that, you get something like this: ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch03 [pdf]
Figure 3.1 on page 242 shows a clear upward trend, albeit with jags both up and down.

Just as it's inappropriate to look at the variations over an hour for a perspective on a season, it's inappropriate to look at variations over a couple of years for a perspective on climate change. You have to let the noise settle out.

Neal J. King · June 2, 2007 08:00 PM

Papertiger,

I just posted my response. But, because of the links, it is being held for review.

M. Simon usually gets round to it in a couple of hours, I think.

Cheers.

Neal J. King · June 2, 2007 08:16 PM

Neal,

The blog software does not recognize the <url> tag. I converted your links to this form:

Here is how you make permalinks:

<a href="url">text to display</a>

replace url with:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/06/introduction-to-blogging.html
leave the quote marks

replace text to display
with
An Introduction To Blogging

An Introduction To Blogging

If you keep a cheat sheet (text file) up of your most commonly used forms (probably around 10 to 20) it is really easy.

===

If I made an error let me know.

Simon

M. Simon · June 3, 2007 02:07 AM

Neal says,

- Since TSI should increase the solar radiation, but CRF should decrease the absorbed sunlight (because of clouds), he sums the TSI with the GI-AA as a kind of �total effect�, to include both the effect of solar luminosity changes and the effect of increased albedo from extra cloudiness.

But when TSI is up, solar magnetism is up. Therefor fewer clouds.

=========

Side note - I have been watching the Feynman lectures I posted about. I wish I had seen it 30 years ago. For the first time I understand quantuum electrodynamics.

Of course for most practical matters the old approximations and ways of thinking are fine. However, it is good to get a coherent explanation.

What the theory says is that there are no local events. There are only local results.

M. Simon · June 3, 2007 02:21 AM

M. Simon,

- Thanks for editing the posting. However, I notice that the end result has some strange effects: What is this stuff: kind of �total effect�, that shows up both in my posting and your quote from it?

- wrt TSI and GI-AA: If the TSI, CRF and GI-AA were all in lock-step, you'd only need one of them. But in fact the connection between GI-AA and the others is not very strong: there's a lot of variance left over that is not associated with GI-AA. Maybe someone with a stronger background than I in dealing with correlations among statistical time series will have a better understanding. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, this paper is really really new: The copy I was able to access shows it as a preprint. So, although some of the skeptical blogs are promoting it, it hasn't received any response from the climate-science community so far, not even a mention. It could be that there are responses submitted to journals that are undergoing peer review - that could take six months, unfortunately.

- QED: If you're further interested, there's also a book Feynman wrote on the topic: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. It's probably at a level above that of the lecture, but not textbook-level intensity.

Neal J. King · June 3, 2007 07:24 AM

Neal,

I have no idea where the funny characters came from. I didn't touch anything except the urls.

Thanks for the book suggestion.

M. Simon · June 3, 2007 09:56 AM

{Perry} strongly suggests that CRF can have some influence on climate. But notice what he connects: a highly fluctuating effect (Mississippi River flow) with a highly fluctuating cause: TSI combined with GI-AA...
But the Mississippi is the most regulated inland waterway on the planet. I find it incredible that you equate river flow in the Mississippi as somehow more nebulous then tree ring cores, bore hole temperatures, and ice core readings. This is delusional thinking.
in brief, there isn't any trend in the CRF a quick look at the page you referenced, sans the propaganda, reveals a graph showing the very trend you say isn't there.
This is not a valid way to look at noisy data {refering to the suface temperature record over the last 7 years}
This is a rare cognizant statement on your part. With the discrepancy between the surface temperature, which is an amalgum of thousands of remote thermometers, subject to the whim of parameters applied by hundreds of different people each with their own built in bias, and the satellite temperature which is highly reproducable, with built in redundancies and cross checks, it isn't sane to rely on the surface data at all.

Papertiger · June 5, 2007 06:20 PM

Papertiger,

- No trend in the CRF: Just look at red curve: from the 1970s onward, it goes up, down, up, down, up, down - according to the 11-year cycle. There isn't even significant change in the top & bottom. It's cycling.

- Whereas if you look at the temperature graph from the 1970s, that curve is moving up.

- My comment about Perry's match between MRF and CRF was kind of a side point: It was an explanatory remark subsidiary to explaining why the million-year issue was not the main point in my earlier discussion. But it expresses my sense of discomfort with his having essentially slid two oscillating curves back and forth until they fit together - except it worked better if he cut one of them in half and got a separate fit for each half. Never mind: as I said, I don't have any strong reason to say that CRFs cannot affect climate.

But they don't seem to be behaving in any way that would lead to the observed temperature rise that we've been talking about: GW.

Neal J. King · June 5, 2007 10:00 PM