Cosmic Rays and earths climate.

Some very intersting results have been published today, concerning the CLOUD experiment at
cern. What they have discovered is that as much as 50% of earths cloud-cover is caused by
interactions in the atmosphere with cosmic rays called ion-induced nucleation. This obviously
has profound implications for climate science, as this is something that climatologists never
included in there theories before.

Note: This does not debunk manmade global warming theory, but it is a game changer in our
efforts to understand the complex issue of climate change and the earth system.

The first results from the lab's CLOUD ("Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets") experiment published in Nature today confirm that cosmic rays spur the formation of clouds through ion-induced nucleation. Current thinking posits that half of the Earth's clouds are formed through nucleation. The paper is entitled Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation.
This has significant implications for climate science because water vapour and clouds play a large role in determining global temperatures. Tiny changes in overall cloud cover can result in relatively large temperature changes.

Original article here, with links to further explanation of their findings.
www.theregister.co.uk...

reply to post by Atzil321


Excellent find. S&F&

...seems to me this means that things may be much worse than previous models predicted - because another factor is adding to and driving climate change. ...I say again, we need to accept the reality of climate change and start planning to deal with it. To the benefit of the whole human race, and all the earth's inhabitants. Not just the uber wealthy.

reply to post by Atzil321


The GCR warming theory is a very interesting one, but even with this new data - still very incomplete, and with many shortcomings yet to be addressed. I'm not sure where you're getting this idea in regards to "as much as 50% of earths cloud-cover"?

The CLOUD experiment here merely confirmed the part that was already largely agreed upon, and thus completely expected: that cosmic rays induce some level of tiny aerosol formation. The real question however is whether it's enough to foster a large enough and fast enough growth to lead to full-fledged cloud formation.

This part has not been answered. Note:

Early results seem to indicate that cosmic rays do cause a change. The high-energy protons seemed to enhance the production of nanometre-sized particles from the gaseous atmosphere by more than a factor of ten. But, Kirkby adds, those particles are far too small to serve as seeds for clouds. "At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step," he says.

Source: Nature


So the real question still remains - and the observational data we have suggests there are at least serious gaps in this theory, particularly when it comes to cloud formation and recent warming.

More info here: Could cosmic rays be causing global warming?

While the link between cosmic rays and cloud cover is yet to be confirmed, more importantly, there has been no correlation between cosmic rays and global temperatures over the last 30 years of global warming.

Anyway thanks for bringing this topic up responsibly and constructively though - because once this story hits the blogosphere - I'm sure we're going to see all sorts of distorted and blown-out-of-proportion articles about how this is "the final nail in the man made global warming coffin" (for the 9,999,999th time).

reply to post by mc_squared


I think I misunderstood some of the article I read.. Thanks for pointing it out and the link
to nature who have a better explanation of whats being investigated with CLOUD.

Wow! Good find! Sounds pretty crazy, I wouldnt have thought that clouds are created by cosmic rays, that just doesnt seem very logical. Im definitely going to have to look into this phenomenon further, thank you for bringing it to my attention.