Danish physicist, Henrik Svensmark, is a bit different from your average climate change skeptics. He has an alternative theory of climate change and he has just written a book about it.
Published this week by Icon books, but not yet available at Amazons, it is called 'The Chilling Stars - A New Theory of Climate Change' and its apparently all about cosmic rays.
According to the book's co-author and former editor of New Scientist, Nigel Calder, the new theory can explain why Antarctica is not warming. Indeed the most recentsummary from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that while temperatures have increased by almost twice the global average at the Arctic, there has been no warming at the Antarctic.
I've always been fascinated by bits of information that don't fit neatly within an accepted theory, i.e. no warming trend at the Antarctic, and I'm always intrigued when there is a new theory to explain the apparent anomaly.
Anyway, along with the book there is a new journal paper by Dr Svensmark 'Cosmoclimatology: A New Theory Emerges' in Astronomy & Geophysics, Volume 48 Issue 1, February 2007.
The abstract states: Changes in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays alter the Earth's cloudiness. A recent experiment has shown how electrons liberated by cosmic rays assist in making aerosols, the building blocks of cloud condensation nuclei, while anomalous climatic trends in Antarctica confirm the role of clouds in helping to drive climate change. Variations in the cosmic-ray influx due to solar magnetic activity account well for climatic fluctuations on decadal, centennial and millennial timescales. Over longer intervals, the changing galactic environment of the solar system has had dramatic consequences, including Snowball Earth episodes. A new contribution to the faint young Sun paradox is also on offer.
Here's an opinion piece from the Sunday Times Online entitled 'An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change' by Nigel Calder which includes comment that:
"Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.
He 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. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier."
Read the complete article here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece.
Anthony - my, you ARE in an agressive mood aren't you?
Your previous post:
Nothing much changed since IPCC 1995 - the weighting of the forcing is unchanged...
The post before that:
With respect to your comment re "Most surfaces are dark because they absorb light..." Get real - the moon can be so bright it casts a shadow when it reflects SUNSHINE. This fact can be empirically proven by me.
Earthshine Project is about measuring the light that is reflected from the Earth on to the Moon and then back to Earth - EARTHSHINE. If it can reflect SUNSHINE, why can't it refelct EARTHSHINE?
As a proxy, it's far sight better than any of the proxies that are that are IPCC mainstream - such as treerings, ice cores and formaminafera, all of which all can respond to a multitude of other envornomental factors... What else other than reflected sunlight from the Earth will cause a brightening / dimming of the face of the moon that is not facing the sun?
Please grow up and be a bit more constructive...
cheers
Arnost
Arnost, did you realise the Big Bear Boffins are taking on IPCC report of 1995?
Toby, I'm not sure what 25b would do to alleviate water problems to be honest. Apparently we need about $10b in Oz and that will amount to pretty much squat unless we get signficiant rain where its needed. I don't know enough about water issues aronud the world to comment so I'll stay out of it.
More people does not necessarily mean more CO2, although historically this has been the case. We have technology and systems that can decouple population and economic growth from emissions growth. The challenge is doing this quickly enough to limit predicted adverse effects from climate change.
Per head, China emits between about 1-2 tonne CO2. Australia emits about 27 tonne CO2 per head. From an equity perspective, they can tell us to get stuffed. They also manufcature the worlds finished products (well pretty much anyway). That is emission intensive industry which we wash our hands of while reaping the benefits (cheap imports).
The way carbon markets are structured, least cost offsets will be bought. Money won't prejudice the conutry or the project where offsets are available. It'll just go where its cheapest.
I'm not sure what you think is a con?
Meanwhile on planet Arnost, the moon is reflecting light back to earth from its DARK side. Arnost, tell me you mistyped or something. Most dark surfaces are dark because they absorb light, not reflect it.
Repost from my 21/02 post to Nexus6 http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/
There's an interesting experiment being run out of the Big Bear Solar Observatory by the New Jersey Institute of Technology. http://www.bbso.njit.edu/
This is the Earthshine Project, which measures the Earth's albedo by measuring the amount of sunlight reflected from the Earth and, in turn, back to the Earth from the dark portion of the face of the Moon.
A graph of the results (top right of link below) looks to me like it corresponds nicely with measured temps over the last 20 years.
http://www.bbso.njit.edu/ science...ence_may28.html
What's more, they suggest that the forcing due to albedo is understated in climate similations vis a vis observations.
"...Solar and terrestrial changes are in phase and contribute to a greater power going into the climate system at activity maximum. However, the effect of the albedo is more than an order of magnitude greater. Our simulations suggest a surface average forcing at the top of the atmosphere, coming only from changes in the albedo from 1994/1995 to 1999/2001, of 2.7+-1.4 W/m2 (Palle et al., 2003), while observations give 7.5+-2.4 W/m2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1995) argues for a comparably sized 2.4 W/m2 increase in forcing, which is attributed to greenhouse gas forcing since 1850..."[page 4 of the report]]
More solar activity = Less Cosmic Ray influence = Less Clouds = Higher Temps.
The jury's still out!
cheers
Arnost
Anthony, the trouble is this 25 billion is not going to have any impact on climate change. Yes 25 b is a small sum of money as a % of GDP of the top 50 economies of the world....for the other 130 odd countries it is very significant. If this money was used to alleviate water problems it would actually have a very beneficial effect to mankind.
Of course you could argue we don t want to help them because more people equals more co2 and what we really need to do is to cull a significant chunk of the worlds population (I doubt many of us/ you included would support this).
How is it that China can sell carbon credits...when it is a huge part of the future problems that may avail if co2 is the cause of GW? Surely this is a con and an example of how difficult to police a carbon trading scheme will be?!
Toby, $25bUSD is not significant for the developed world. Arnost implies we are being conned into financing the developing world at our own expense.
I would argue cheap labour due to labour laws (or lack thereof) and deflated currencies are a far greater 'threat' to the inflated complacent ego's of the developed world than emissions trading would ever be.
Arnost, have you not tried Yum Cha or a good Rogan Josh?
so 25 billion is not a significant sum of money!!!??? Tell that to those without access to fresh water or electricity......
Arnost,
try not to worry about the whole transfer of wealth thing. The developed nations will just cut aid to the developing world equivalent to what they pay in carbon markets. Besides, $25bUSD is around 5% of Oz GDP, so it's a pretty tiny market.
You can continue to hide under your bunker with cans of soup and tomatoes if you like or you can get out and enjoy the congested developed world air.
Jennifer, I'm still waiting to be entertained by your logic?
Interesting document Arnost: I will have to try to get around to reading it properly. How do you justify this statement, though: “And how much CO2 was eliminated / reduced? – exactly zero!”
From my quick read, most activity is around reducing CFCs (which also helps with the ozone hole problem). But your statement implies that the system is completely corrupt and there is no environmental benefit. That doesn’t seem to be what the authors are saying: what is your justification for that?
I will have to think about this wealth transfer thing. I am not sure that it is as straight forward as you think. To my mind our recent prosperity in Australia has been to a large part due to cheap imports of consumer goods, etc from, mainly, China. You could argue the exploitation has been very much the other way around. What if the extra money that China makes encourages them to flood the Australian market with such things as cheap solar hot water heaters? I think that we would all benefit.
I'm not campaigning for inappropriate carbon credit markets !