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Also, people that censor the opposition, such as Wiki, are technocratic social controllers and a red flag for critical thinkers.

@Sounder,

Fuck you.

Also, people that censor the opposition, such as Wiki, are technocratic social controllers and a red flag for critical thinkers.

Cosmic ray theory of global warming gets cold response

Danish theorist’s latest paper overstates the effects of solar activity in climate change, critics say. Tim Wallace reports.



For those who want an explanation for global warming that lets fossil fuels off the hook, the work of Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark has long burned brighter than the midday sun on a cloudless day.

For two decades, Svensmark, of the Danish National Space Institute (DTU Space) at the Technical University of Denmark, has propounded a theory of “cosmoclimatology”, which holds that cosmic rays and sunspots are the real drivers of climate change.

His latest published research – a paper on cloud formation in Nature Communications that he claims is “the last piece of the puzzle explaining how particles from space affect climate on Earth” – has received plenty of uncritical media attention.

Britain’s Daily Express has warned archly of the imminent possibility of another Ice Age and The Australian newspaper has reported the results as meaning the impact of solar activity on the climate is up to seven times greater than climate models suggest.

Other scientists are less impressed. “The press release goes way beyond what the paper actually shows,” says Steven Sherwood, an expert in atmospheric climate dynamics at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia.

Svensmark’s theory in a nutshell is this: cosmic rays are atomic fragments – mostly nuclei – blown into space from exploding stars that constantly bombard the Earth. When they enter the atmosphere, their electric charge helps form clusters of molecules – aerosols – that in turn act as seeds, or nuclei, for water droplets to condense around, creating clouds.

More cosmic rays means more ‘cloud condensation nuclei’ (CCN), more clouds, and a colder climate. Fewer rays means a warmer climate.

Which is where the sun comes in. At times of high solar activity, signified by higher numbers of sunspots, our own star’s magnetic field helps shield the planet from cosmic rays, meaning less cloud formation and thus higher temperatures. When the sun is ‘quiet’, there is more ionisation in the atmosphere, meaning more clouds and a cooler climate.

Svensmark’s new paper – the “last piece of the jigsaw” – co-authored by Martin Bødker Enghoff, also at DTU Space, Nir Shaviv, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Jacob Svensmark at the University of Copenhagen – demonstrates in the lab that cosmic ray ionisation can lead to greater cloud formation than previously believed.

The paper then argues that the result “should be incorporated into global aerosol models, to fully test the atmospheric implications”.

Scientists involved in related research, however, doubt the new findings make much difference to accepted climate models.

“The authors need to quantify the effects in an atmospheric model rather than just speculating,” says Ken Carslow, of the University of Leeds, UK, who has also studied potential links between cosmic rays and aerosol formation as part of CERN’s Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets (CLOUD) experiment. “It’s a tiny effect and previous studies suggest it will not be important,” he states.

Terry Sloan, of the University of Lancaster, UK, whose own research has calculated the contribution of cosmic rays at less than 10% of the global warming seen in the 20th century, is also dubious. He points out that other atmospheric “impurities”, such as dust and salt particles, play more important roles as cloud-condensing nuclei.

“The effects [of ionisation] are too small to measure except in the dust- and impurity-free atmosphere such as in their experiments,” Sloan says. “Dust in the atmosphere plays a much bigger part in cloud formation.”

Steven Sherwood concurs. The paper itself, he notes, only suggests the result “may be relevant in the Earth’s atmosphere under pristine conditions”. Even if things do work in the real world the same way as in a laboratory, cloud growth due to ions would only make up “several per cent” of the total.

“Several per cent ain’t much, and the real atmosphere is not pristine,” Sherwood says. While the new research has shown that cosmic rays can produce particles big enough to seed clouds, that was never “the real problem” with Svensmark’s ideas. A bigger issue is the number of such particles, which “would be negligible compared with the background aerosol and the aerosol humans are adding by burning things, tilling soil, etc.”

“If clouds were affected by cosmic rays,” he adds, “they would have been affected a hundred times more strongly by human air pollution, and the world would have cooled over the past century, rather than warmed.”

Sounder » Sat Mar 14, 2020 8:05 pm wrote:I have been trying to say this in roundabout ways so as not to offend, but I tire of that.

Also, people that censor the opposition, such as Wiki, are technocratic social controllers and a red flag for critical thinkers.

To which people can only respond to with anger and insults, precisely because the assertion cannot be easily denied.

Anyway, grow up, it would be a stupid world where everyone agreed about everything.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

If I were to take your statement at face value you say that all intellectuals are morally bankrupt and in cahoots with the ultra-wealthy to distract from unspecified matters that are more dire than AGW.

On the other hand you have thousands of climate scientists from all over the world, working for decades and all coming to the same conclusion: we're fucked.

Sounder » Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:37 pm wrote:Dr. Evil wrote...

If I were to take your statement at face value you say that all intellectuals are morally bankrupt and in cahoots with the ultra-wealthy to distract from unspecified matters that are more dire than AGW.

Intellectuals have always been insecure about their role in society. They like to feel needed, and they are needed, and they like to feel good about themselves and for the most part, they like the rest of us deserve to feel good about themselves. I live in a town with probably 95% support for AGW, my wife works up at the uni. in hard sciences. I can still love the people even if I consider that AGW is more about social manipulation than it is about science.

Intellectuals are not morally bankrupt but they, like all of us, have been unconsciously programmed over centuries to bow to authority, and a sizeable segment of intellectuals seem happy to pass the abuse on to the lower tiers of society.

Your 'face value' is quite stilted. I said; AGW is a grandstanding device for intellectuals, that serves to distract from those other issues, and that is the true objective of the ten percent protector class in service to their sponsors the .01%.

Notice the avoidance of the grandstanding charge, so not all intellectuals, but those that use AGW as a grandstanding device are protectors of the .01%. Unconscious of their role no doubt, while consciously thinking they are rebels.

On the other hand you have thousands of climate scientists from all over the world, working for decades and all coming to the same conclusion: we're fucked.

It's always the most cheery bunch that gets the best funding.