News from Outer Space

A little while ago I wrote about CLOUD which is a CERN expt designed to test theories of cloud-cosmic ray connections, and the mechanisms of how the said CR's might influence clouds. But there is bad news... they've been scooped: A team at the Danish National Space Center has discovered how cosmic rays from exploding stars can help to make clouds in the atmosphere. The results support the theory that cosmic rays influence Earth's climate. So I suppose the CERN follk will have to find something else to do...

I haven't a clue about the validity of this (well, OK, I suspect strongly that it will turn out to be not as exciting as it claims, but will have to await someone competent to evaluate it...). Its all in online in "Proceedings of the Royal Society A", October 3rd, apparently. Although I can't find it.

[Update: a reader sends me a copy of the paper; how kind. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is somewhat less dramatic than the press release. Or in my readers words: "What's noteworthy is the complete lack of discussion of the implications in the Proc RS A paper, but not in the press release. I'm guessing that the reviewers told them to throw out all the unsubstantiated speculation and stick to the facts. We can expect to see this spun wildly...". Aha! A prediction... the essence of science! -W]

[[Uupdate: Eli has read it too, and isn't impressed -W]

More like this

Well I RTFR (you are on my bad list for providing the link), and suffice it to say there is little to nothing new in it, and a fair amount that is misleading. Anyone wishing to learn a bit about smog chambers and photochemistry can visit Rabett Run.

The long and the short of it is that the Danes set up a situation where there was 1000 times more SO2 and probably even more O3 in the chamber and a ton of UV more than you find in the natural atmosphere. Under such conditions, the formation of aerosols is limited by the number of condensation nuclei and ions. They filtered the gas going through the cell so there were no aerosols, which left the ions as the only possible nucleation sites. BFS, the formation of aerosols depended on the ion density.

At the end of the post is a figure from a study in Mexico City that shows the limiting factor is the availability of SO2 and, to a lesser extent, NO2.

If this Particle Nucleation by cosmic rays proves out, doesn't it throw a giant monkey wrench into the present climate modeling?

[Um, try the RealClimate article, which points out a lot of reasons why this probably isn't going to work, not the least of which is a lack of trends in CR -W]

I started several threads, in various science forums, titled " Lightning Comes from Space" citing Joe Dwyer's work at FIT on runaway cascade initiation of lightning from his observations of X-Rays and Y-Rays.

Dwyer's paper:
http://www.lightning.ece.ufl.edu/PDF/Gammarays.pdf

Looks like I'll have to update them with " Clouds Come from Space Too"

Here's the best numbers I've found for the % of low clouds from cosmic rays:

"... cosmic rays. These high-energy particles originate in outer space and in solar flares, and can have a small but significant effect on the weather, increasing the chances of an overcast day by nearly 20 per cent.
Giles Harrison and David Stephenson from the University of Reading, UK, examined 50 years of solar radiation measurements from sites all over the country, enabling them to calculate daily changes in cloudiness. By comparing this data with neutron counts - a measure of cosmic ray activity - for the same period, the scientists have shown an unambiguous link between cosmic rays and clouds (Proceedings of the Royal Society A, DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2005.1628).
"The odds of a cloudy day increase by around 20 per cent when the cosmic ray flux is high," says Harrison, amounting to a few extra days of cloudiness per year."

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18925365.700

More Earth and Space Weather Conections:

First Global Connection Between Earth And Space Weather Found

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/space_weather_li…

More interesting grist for the Plasma/weather interactions:

Cluster makes turbulent breakthrough
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/8/7

Regards,
Erich J. Knight

By Erich J. Knight (not verified) on 26 Oct 2006 #permalink