"The Cloud Mystery",The cause of climate change

Another aged scientist working well outside his field of expertise. Very sad. Thanks for sharing.

 

I hope you can direct me to someplace other than YouTube. It is blocked to internet users (like me) in China.

 

I could use a management summary too...it was hard wading thru it all even if you have access.

 

Perhaps a synopsis for those with narrow bandwidth, who don't watch video on line?

Icarus

 

OK, now I understand we are talking about Svensmark. Read his papers via the 'index' link, and read responses to the hypothesis in other journal publications.


My impression is that it has been tested and does not fit the data, on many different time scales. But your mileage may vary.

 

So you're against exploration and research into different areas of science by different means? Your not much of a science guy are you? Because this kind of attitude would have fit in very well when Galileo was shaking things up. :glare:

 

LoL! Weren't you the one that told me to look it up myself on Google when I asked for a link to a cite?

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_Mystery]The Cloud Mystery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


The Documentary


The Cloud Mystery



Here you can thank me later.

 

Yeah clouds are part of the picture, but out of curiosity, how many realize the actual anthropogenic impact on cloud formation?

Sulfur dioxide emissions, airplanes, shipping, forced evaporation through irrigation/water reservoir building?


There was a study done after 9/11 after plains were grounded for several days which found a considerable cooling effect in areas adjoin to airplane routes.

 

Tougher sledding, but should anyone wish to, open google scholar and search on galactic cosmic rays global climate.

Just those words will present you with Svensmark's and Shaviv's publications on the subject, along with others who have agreed and others who have disputed. Many can be downloaded or viewed online; for the rest see your local librarian.

You may well disagree with my (non-specialist) conclusion that GCR is not the non-CO2 climate driver, but after some study you would at least see how I came to feel this way.

I will select just of the publications to discuss to discuss. Usokin et al 2005; it is on the second google scholar page and your free copy will come from oulu in Finland. Take a look at the first two panels of their figure 3. It is the best correlation I've seen between GCR and Earth surface temperatures.

Just one little problem though. To embrace this, one must also embrace the temperature proxy record of Mann. That of course is also popularly known as 'the hockey stick', and I'll guess it might be difficult for a few of our members.

Finally, there was a pretty big bump in Earth temperature about 55 million years ago (the PETM), and many lines of evidence showed a big bump in CO2 and methane then also. If I were looking to test for a strong GCR effect, I'd probably look there. In the absence of correlation between GCR and temperatures during the PETM, I'd be forced to conclude (er, again) that infrared absorbing gases in the atmosphere are the primary driver of climate.

 

Tochatihu, if you get bored google sulfur dioxide..

there was a study (Schlesinger?) which found very high degree of correlation btw resent post 1970s global warming and sulfur dioxide regulation implementation.. As study pointed out SO2 changes climate in several ways. For one it is far more potent cloud forming agent then cosmic rays. Second, SO2 in stratosphere reacts with methane which on short-term scale far more potent greenhouse gas then CO2.

Resent studies had shown the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull which spewed out many tons of SO2 in stratosphere had a cool down effect on global climate, and as far as I am aware there weren't significant change in cosmic rays in the same period. There are several well documented cases of volcano eruptions causing global cooling like Mount Tambora eruption in 1815, Lake Toba ~70,000 ago, Yellowstone, etc.

The Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event was caused by SO2, for dinosaur luck the meteorite crashed in sulfur field in South America and blew huge amounts of sulfur in atmosphere and significantly altered climate.

As it was pointed a jet airliner contail emissions have impact on weather.. the study found that day/night temp difference increased by 1C, there is some mentioning in wikipedia: Contrail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is basic problem with many posters here (like OP, etc) they look at some aspect of climate change (CO2, cosmic rays, etc) and peg everything on it. Meanwhile the picture is far more complex.

 

Related: an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS, whatever that is) has now been installed at the international space station. Kinda pricey ($2 billion) but it will have the best look at cosmic rays over the next 10-20 years; the stations anticipated lifespan.

That is 1 or 2 solar cycles. While people are not talking about this primarily as a climate explorer, it will surely provide a lot of info in that direction.

I am 100% in favor of research to sort out the role of cosmic rays on clouds etc. Need to be looking at some subtleties though. For example the NCDC temperature station data from Puerto Rico shows an 11-year cycle in minimum winter temperatures. Not huge, but there. Meteorology shows polar highs penetrate closer to the equator (like, to Puerto Rico) in years with low sunspot numbers. Nobody knows why. It won't be me finding out (out of my league), but Joanna Haigh in UK might do.

Anyway it seems a fascinating area and worthy of examination.

 

mojo, what are you trying to prove? that there are other factors in place influencing climate change? Or that human activity has no impact?

Leaving H2O and cloud formation aside, the anthropogenic production of other greenhouse gases CO2, CH4, CFC-12, NO produced 2.26wt/m2 warming effect. With 343wt/m2 of Solar total, 240wt/m2 passing through atmosphere ~50% absorbed at surface. Comparing to 2.26wt/m2 this is 1.8% increase.

Yes cosmic rays influence climate, but they always did that through the time; solar cycle is pretty stable and as is it has a short-term effect, 11 years. The only proven time the cosmic rays had been a global warming factor in recorded history time is when supernova blew up in 10th century.

Following that we had a several centuries of warming up with Northern Europe population exploding, Vikings, Iceland and Greenland exploration, Genghis khan and mongol hordes invading Europe and China, etc.. Warming which by the 15th century turned into cooling due to Greenland meltdown impact on Gulfstream.

You should really stop rationalizing your believes! The picture is far more complex to be attributed to one factor, and your selective fact presentation while have the appearance of scientific approach isn't one, sorry!