A new study is certain to provoke fierce reactions from the vast global establishment devoted to spending billions of dollars a year fighting atmospheric release of CO2. Demonizing the production of energy from the burning of organic fuel has providing a handy tool to all those who seek to tax and regulate economic activity even further. But researcher Henrik Svensmark, from The Technical University of Denmark long has been a critic of climate models that downplay the role of solar activity. And now, he has conducted experiments that provide scientific weight to his theories by identifying the feedback mechanism through which solar activity works.
Svensmark and colleagues showed this in a massive experiment to simulate the interaction of cosmic rays with the upper atmosphere, and were able to model the physical mechanism. His study was published in the journal Nature Communications and ably summarized by Graham Lloyd of the Australian, reprinted in the Global Warming Policy Forum:
He does not dispute that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have a warming impact on the climate.
But his findings present a challenge to estimates of how sensitive the climate is to changes in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
Professor Svensmark says his latest findings were consistent both with the strong rise in the rate of global temperature change late last century and a slowdown in the rate of increase over the past 20 years.
‘’It gives a physical foundation to the large body of empirical evidence showing that solar activity is reflected in variations in Earth’s climate,” a media statement accompanying the scientific report said.
“For example, the Medieval Warm Period around year 1000AD and the cold period in the Little Ice Age 1300-1900 AD both fits changes in solar activity,” it said.
“Finally we have the last piece of the puzzle of why the particles from space are important for climate on Earth,” it said.
The study reveals how atmospheric ions, produced by the energetic cosmic rays raining down through the atmosphere, helps the growth and formation of cloud condensation nuclei — the seeds necessary for forming clouds in the atmosphere.
More cloud condensation nuclei mean more clouds and a colder climate, and vice versa.
“Since clouds are essential for the solar energy reaching the surface of the Earth the implications are huge for our understanding of why climate has varied in the past and also for a future climate changes,” the statement said.
Professor Svensmark said it had until now wrongly been assumed that small additional nucleated aerosols would not grow and become cloud condensation nuclei, since no mechanism was known to achieve this.
The research team tested its ideas experimentally in a large cloud chamber.
Data was taken over a period of two years with total 3100 hours of data sampling.
Illustration of cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere. A proton with energy of 100 GeV interact at the top of the atmosphere and produces a cascade of secondary particles who ionize molecules when traveling through the air. One 100 GeV proton hits every m2 at the top of the atmosphere every second.
The defensive case on global warming (now aka "climate change") has always been that "this is basic physics," meaning you can show it in the laboratory. But Richard Feynman long ago warned that "basic physics" is inherently oversimplified, because ALL lab experiments are far simpler than nature. Which is why physics tells us little about biological evolution or human behavior, for example. Or the atmosphere, where models are really guesswork.
All the scare "studies" are not experiments at all --- they are computer simulations, and they are just about as accurate as computer simulations of the stock market. The corrupting effect of the climate fraud has been enormous. Tony Blair, who was one of the main instigators, said at the Copenhagen conference that the truth didn't really matter. What's the big deal?
Well, one big deal is that a small percentage of that cost could have been spent on bringing clean water to African villages where people die from infections. Bjorn Lomborg has been trying to make that point forever, and the fraudulent money establishment has been closing its ears and eyes. So much for liberal compassion.