Nigel Calder, Cosmic Rays and Global Warming
February 20th, 2007 by Stephen
There is an article being widely touted by those who don’t want to believe the current consensus for man made climate change in our world. The article is written by Nigel Calder, the ex editor of New Scientist magazine - a popular science magazine giving a round up of current science news.
There are many things that could be said about the article, but it makes one important point. Calder says that the sun has become increasingly active over the 20th century, but the activity has levelled off, and that this corresponds with a levelling off of global warming noted since 1999.
He also points to a paper by Henrik Svensmark, published in the proceedings of the Royal Society, demonstrating the role of cosmic rays in the formation of rain clouds. Calder’s summary of the issue is:
[Svensmark] saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world.
The problem with Calder’s thesis does not lie in Svensmark’s work, but in the fact that he has selected perfectly good science to bolster a claim that is not supported by the evidence.
The Climax station in Colorado has been measuring cosmic rays reaching the earth since 1953 (before the rapid warming of the last three decades or so). I have created a graph from the Climax Station data, and included it here. Click on the thumbnail to see the full sized version.
Notice that whilst there is a (well known) ten year cycle to these data, there is emphatically not any trend here. It is not the case that the sun’s magnetic field has been intensifying (until 1999) and thus batting away more cosmic rays. These data show that, whilst Svensmark’s thesis is excellent science, and furthers our understanding of cloud formation, it says absolutely nothing about the climate change we have been experiencing over recent decades.
Nigel Calder does us a disservice, by confusing the data in this way. (Indeed, the levelling off since 1999 he mentions is also wrong I think. I will see if I can get hold of some data).
[...] But such spikes are not a surprise. In any such dataset there will be outlyers - but what is quite clear is that there has been a strong warming trend, particularly over the last few decades. Compare this graph to my graph in my post earlier today, and you can see that there is also no correlation between the warming trend over these decades and cosmic rays. [...]
I have demonstrated that Global Temperatures are largely affected by Cosmic Rays and Sunspot Number.
I used Climax Cosmic Ray Data and Annual Global Temperature data Crutem3vgl
The Sunspot data was posted on the web by Roger Coppock on the web.
I have produced a graph of Annual Global Temperature corrected for the effects Cosmic Rays against Sunspot Number for the years 1953 to 2005 with a correlation coefficient R^2 of 0.735
If I weed out the Solar cycle which peaked in 1979/80 and when the Global Temperature was apparently affected by Volcanoes the R^2 rises to 0.788
The R^2 for CO2 vs Temperature over the same period is definitely lower than those derived above
This shows that recently warm climate is not unusual when the effect natural forcing is taken into account.
See below for the final methodology.
Cosmic rays
Having obtained the average Cosmic Ray flux for each year.
It was deducted from a figure of 4350 this being felt to be a representative upper limit for Cosmic ray flux
The resultant value of flux was multiplied by a factor to represent the probable extent that it would influence the Temperature
This was then deducted from the corresponding Global Temperature to correct it for the Cosmic Ray flux
These data were then then plotted against the corresponding value for Sunspot Number using a
Linear Least Squares Applet available at
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chemlab/info/resources/linear/linear.html
this allowed the values of the constants to optimised .
With better facilities the it might be possible to optimise the process further. I suspect that the sunspot to temperature relationship is not linear.
There is a significant effect on global temperature by Sunspots and Cosmic rays combined.
These data proves that the IPCC is wrong when it concludes that natural forcings have very little effect on global climate and the the world is led up a blind alley when it seeks to control global temperature by reducing CO2
Dear Thomas,
Congratulations on proving black is white, or rather (through highly selective and dubious criteria) finding a trend in data that shows no trend!
You do not link to a paper (published or unpublished) which details your analysis. But It seems quite clear that there can be no published paper because yor analysis has too many dubious premises. For example:
Apparently affected? Clearly a post hoc justification for deleting data in order to create a trend where there is none. This is illegitimate and just plain wrong.
Secondly, your R^2 is a correlation of sunspot numbers against cosmic rays. Not surprising that there should be a reasonable correlation between these two things, but as the sunspot cycle is an approximate 10 year cycle, and is well understood, we see that solar forcings do not account for the sharp rise in global mean temperatures over the past 30 years. If we saw a 10 year cycle of temperature fluctuation, we could correlate that with solar forcings (and of course, the IPCC does take just this into account), so whatever you intend to prove is not proven by a correlation between sunspot cylce and cosmic rays.
Other dubious analysis:
What factor? Why? Is this, by any chance “Fudge’s Constant”?
So these data (what data? You linked to an applet, but not to the graph you mentioned, nor to any data) do emphatically not prove the IPCC wrong. They only prove that your claim that the world is being led up a blind alley is completely specious.
What is critical here to the cosmic radiation role is the Friis-Christensen and Lassen Paper (Science, 1991) from the same lab. Sunspot peak frequency correlates at a level of 95% with cooling and warming for the 20th century. That paper led the extraterrestrial origin research and is now supported by experiment! Ask me for a copy if you cannot get your hands on it.
artesian1[at]sympatico.ca
Yes, there is an interesting correlation in that paper between the length of the sunspot cycle and with warming, up until about 1960. Svensmark’s[2] argument is that the inter planetary magnetic fields are affected by the change in solar activity, and that therefore cosmic rays are reduced and that this causes less low lying cloud to be formed.
But the argument does not address the point made above, that there has not been any clear long term trend in arrival of cosmic rays. Damon and Laut[1] argue that there are serious methodological flaws in these papers. Svensmark offers a theory without commenting on the lack of a downward trend in arrival of cosmic rays. Furthermore their graph pretty much breaks down in the 1960s, when there is little if any evidence of a long term change in solar cycle lenght (or sunspot numbers etc.) from that period to the present, despite the very rapid warming we have seen in that period (and continuing strongly over the last 16 years since that paper was published).
There is, of course, a strong body of evidence of the importance of solar activity to our climate, but that does not make this argument any more plausible. Without a trend in cosmic rays, or solar cycle length, solar activity etc., there is nothing but the greenhouse effect to explain the rapid warming we are currently seeing. (Albeit with some solar forcings factored in).
–
[1] Damon, P.E. and P. Laut (2004), Pattern of Strange Errors Plagues Solar Activity and Terrestrial Climate Data, Eos, vol 85, num 39, p. 370
[2] Svensmark, H. (1998), Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth’s Climate, Physical Review Letters, vol 81, num 22, pps. 5027-5030
Dear Mr. Calder,
I bought your book “The chilling stars” yesterday and I finished it today. Brilliant, no bias and fascinating.
I’m a graduate electrical engineer, and thus very naive about high physics and high chemistry. However, there is something that has occurred to me which no one else seems to have locked onto and which I shall share with you: Why is there just enough water on the earth’s surface to create oceans and continents? When we consider the whole mass of the earth, the oceans are a very tiny percentage thereof. OK, a lot of water may be trapped in the magma, but it’s unlikely as water is light and therefore tries to come to the surface and also the volcanic activity over the last 4 milliard years should have spewed it up to the top. It therefore seems to me that a small variation in the surface water as an already tiny percentage of the mass of the earth should suffice to ensure that most habitable planets orbiting other stars are either water-worlds or bone dry and we’re in the (very) lucky few that have seas and dry land.
Perhaps, with your connections, you may see fit to try to interest the big guns in this problem and maybe also write another really spifficating book about it.
All I would ask in return is to be informed of your progress.
With best regards,
Witold Emiljanowicz.
the action on climate by the solar electricity emitted by the solar flares is clear since ….1910 (see the book of Albert NODON “l’action électrique du Soleil”.).
We have now the good theory , good because it leads to the discovery of new facts and not only to clear explanations of previously known facts .
see also my rubrique HELIOMETEO at http://www.alertes-meteo.com
jean martin MEUNIER ex-secretary of the French section of IAGA
(international association of geomagnetism & aeronomy, IUGG)
Congratulations to the writers/editors of “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. I have long suspected that man is not responsible for climate change (which is undoubtably happening), because of two main reasons.
1) The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is tiny, about 400ppm or 0.0004% . The amount of man’s contribution is also tiny.
2) The warming of the Earth preceeds the rise in CO2 levels. The oceans hold CO2, and as they warm, CO2 is released. This applies to any liquid and any gas. The warmer the liquid the less gas it can hold.
Both these points were covered in that programme.
Am I being over cynical when I ask how is it that we are polluting our planet and causing global warming at the same time as we are being told fossil fuels are running out?
Tom:
1) The amount of potassium in your diet is tiny. But you sure would miss it if it wasn’t there.
It is not the percentage of the atmosphere that is Carbon Dioxide that is important - it is its very real effect on our climate (without it the Earth would be very cold).
2) You have been conned by a silly programme maker with a vendetta. The thing he misrepresented was the feedback effect of warming the ocean. If you warm the ocean CO2 is released. If C)2 is released you warm the ocean. In historic climate small fluctuations in climate have magnified effects because of this. In our day we have caused the initial warming by CO2, and the result is a feedback that will magnify its effect. Now that is worrying.
And you are not overly cynical. You are not cynical enough of people who are trying to tell you stuff through populist TV programmes.
“Notice that whilst there is a (well known) ten year cycle to these data, there is emphatically not any trend here.”
Oh, but there is, and it is downward, which according to Svensmark’s theory should cause reduced cloudiness and warmer surface temperatures. Monthly neutrino influx data from NOAA’s Climax, Colorado website shows a statistically significant downward trend (P=0.03).
Pete
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