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'No Sun Link' to climate change
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Topic Started: Apr 2 2008, 09:18 PM (370 Views)
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STC
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Apr 2 2008, 09:18 PM
Post #1
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Commodore
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'No Sun link' to climate change
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.
The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics", that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.
 Cloud cover affects temperature - but what determines cloud cover?
The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.
But Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years.
Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the UK team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.
This is the latest piece of evidence which at the very least puts the cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Center (DNSC), under very heavy pressure.
Dr Svensmark's idea formed a centrepiece of the controversial documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.
Wrong path
"We started on this game because of Svensmark's work," said Terry Sloan from Lancaster University.
"If he is right, then we are going down the wrong path of taking all these expensive measures to cut carbon emissions; if he is right, we could carry on with carbon emissions as normal."
Cosmic rays are deflected away from Earth by our planet's magnetic field, and by the solar wind - streams of electrically charged particles coming from the Sun.
The Svensmark hypothesis is that when the solar wind is weak, more cosmic rays penetrate to Earth.

Climate Change: No Sun link A cosmic climate connection?
That creates more charged particles in the atmosphere, which in turn induces more clouds to form, cooling the climate.
The planet warms up when the Sun's output is strong.
Professor Sloan's team investigated the link by looking for periods in time and for places on the Earth which had documented weak or strong cosmic ray arrivals, and seeing if that affected the cloudiness observed in those locations or at those times.
"For example; sometimes the Sun 'burps' - it throws out a huge burst of charged particles," he explained to BBC News.
"So we looked to see whether cloud cover increased after one of these bursts of rays from the Sun; we saw nothing."
Over the course of one of the Sun's natural 11-year cycles, there was a weak correlation between cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover - but cosmic ray variability could at the very most explain only a quarter of the changes in cloudiness.
And for the following cycle, no correlation was found.
Limited effect
"This work is important as it provides an upper limit on the cosmic ray-cloud effect in global satellite cloud data," commented Dr Giles Harrison from Reading University, a leading researcher in the physics of clouds.
His own research, looking at the UK only, has also suggested that cosmic rays make only a very weak contribution to cloud formation.
The Svensmark hypothesis has also been attacked in recent months by Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory. He showed that over the last 20 years, solar activity has been rising, which should have led to a drop in global temperatures if the theory was correct.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its vast assessment of climate science last year, concluded that since temperatures began rising rapidly in the 1970s, the contribution of humankind's greenhouse gas emissions has outweighed that of the Sun by a factor of about 13 to one.
According to Terry Sloan, the message coming from his research is simple.
"We tried to corroborate Svensmark's hypothesis, but we could not; as far as we can see, he has no reason to challenge the IPCC - the IPCC has got it right.
"So we had better carry on trying to cut carbon emissions." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7327393.stm
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STC
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Apr 2 2008, 09:19 PM
Post #2
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Commodore
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Looks to me like yet more evidence that the cosmic ray effect is not an adequate explanation for climate change.
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Sgt. Jaggs
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Apr 2 2008, 09:24 PM
Post #3
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How about a Voyager Movie
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What ever happened to the terrible hole in the Ozone fear from the early 80's. Did we eliminate enough CFCs from our aerosol to make a difference? Not making a point I am really asking if anyone has an opinion about that? I have not heard of it for quite sometime.
BTW does a Steaming Pantload contribute to global warming?
Just wondering.
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STC
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Apr 2 2008, 09:29 PM
Post #4
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Commodore
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I think a steaming pantload might just cook the planet!
:lol:
Re. the ozone layer. I think, because of measures to cut CFC emissions, the rate of decay & damage is falling.
I've not had time to read the entire thing but here is a Wiki link with detailed info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_hole#Cu...ozone_depletion
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somerled
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Apr 2 2008, 09:39 PM
Post #5
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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Like I said elsewhere. Solar forcing is not a significant aspect of the current epock of global warming.
The skeptics need to come up with a new theory.
PS here is the full article :
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Apr 3, 2008
Do cosmic rays cause climate change?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a major report in 2007 saying that most of the Earth’s warming over the last 50 years has been manmade. However some researchers believe that the observed temperature changes could instead be caused primarily by variations in natural phenomena — including changes to the flux of galactic cosmic rays striking the Earth’s atmosphere.
Now, two particle physicists in the UK claim to have shown that there is little evidence that variations in the cosmic ray flux affect Earth’s climate — although a group in the Ukraine believes that such a link can explain long-term temperature trends.
Cosmic rays and clouds The idea that cosmic rays — high-energy particles that bombard Earth from space — could be affecting the Earth’s climate was put forward by physicist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish Space Research Institute in Copenhagen and colleagues in the late 1990s. Svensmark found that variations in global cloud cover at altitudes of up to 3 km, as revealed by satellite data from 1983 onwards, correlated neatly with the incident cosmic ray flux measured by neutron counters located around the world. Furthermore these variations matched changes in sunspot activity, which varies on an 11-year cycle, with the peak in sunspot activity, which occurred around 1990, corresponding to a minimum in incident cosmic rays and coverage of low clouds.
Svensmark and colleagues proposed that greater sunspot activity, which causes the Sun to emit larger numbers of charged particles (the solar wind), decreases the flux of cosmic rays reaching the Earth from elsewhere in our galaxy because the solar wind’s increased magnetic field deflects more of them away from our planet. Because, he claims, these cosmic rays ionize the atmosphere and water droplets then condense on the ions, a decrease in the cosmic ray flux will lead to a reduction in cloud cover. Lower cloud cover, he says, will then, on balance, cause the Earth to heat up.
Significant uncertainties However, significant uncertainties in Svensmark’s theory have meant that the IPCC did not include cosmic rays as a possible cause of climate change in a comprehensive scientific report issued last year.
Now, new research by Terry Sloan of the University of Lancaster and Arnold Wolfendale of the University of Durham has cast further doubt on the link between cosmic ray flux and cloud cover (Environ. Res. Lett. 3 024001 ). The pair says that the observed correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover does not imply that variations in the former cause changes in the latter. They came to this conclusion after looking for correlations between the two observables beyond the simple global averaged data from the sunspot cycle.
No such correlation The first of two such correlations they looked for was that between cosmic ray flux and cloud cover at different magnetic latitudes. Galactic cosmic rays are also deflected by the Earth’s own magnetic field, but this deflection is lower at the poles than it is at the equator, so it is at the former that the full effect of changes to the solar wind is felt and hence the “dip” in cosmic ray flux at the time of the solar maximum is more pronounced here. Sloan and Wolfendale looked to see if there was a corresponding variation in the cloud cover dip across magnetic latitudes but found none. They also looked to see if sudden bursts or reductions in the cosmic ray flux, which do occur throughout a solar cycle, were accompanied by increases or decreases in low cloud cover. Again they found no such correlation.
By performing a statistical analysis on their first correlation, the UK researchers concluded that no more than 23% of the reduction in global low cloud cover at the time of the 1990 solar maximum was caused by the lower cosmic ray flux, pointing out that there are all sorts of other effects that could have been to blame instead. They believe their analysis can be used by climatologists to put an upper limit on the impact of cosmic rays on global warming, a mechanism that was in any case not included in last year’s report by the IPCC. “We have shown that Svensmark has no ground on which to challenge the IPCC,” says Sloan.
Direct connection? However, Sloan and Wolfendale are not the only physicists to have recently turned their attention to the cosmic ray hypothesis. Vitaliy Rusov of the National Polytechnic University in Odessa, Ukraine and colleagues do not agree with the IPCC’s view that man is to blame for the recent warming. To prove their point, they looked for a direct connection between cosmic ray flux and temperature.
The team constructed a model of the Earth’s climate in which the only significant inputs were variations in the Sun’s power output and changes to the galactic cosmic ray flux (arXiv: 803.2765 ). They found that the model’s predicted evolution of Earth’s surface temperature over the last 700,000 years agrees well with proxy temperature data taken from Antarctic ice cores (arXiv: 0803.2766 ).
Rusov agrees that Svensmark’s cosmic ray ionization mechanism cannot fully account for the observed correlation between cosmic ray flux and cloud cover, as Sloan and Wolfendale have demonstrated. But he believes that a small but direct link between cosmic rays and clouds could itself trigger a mechanism which causes further, and greater, changes in cloud cover.
from Physics World Enviornmental Letters.
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somerled
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Apr 2 2008, 09:40 PM
Post #6
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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- Jag
- Apr 3 2008, 12:24 PM
What ever happened to the terrible hole in the Ozone fear from the early 80's. Did we eliminate enough CFCs from our aerosol to make a difference? Not making a point I am really asking if anyone has an opinion about that? I have not heard of it for quite sometime. BTW does a Steaming Pantload contribute to global warming?
 Just wondering.
Methane is a strong greenhouse gas - so yes it would.
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somerled
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Apr 2 2008, 09:44 PM
Post #7
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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- Jag
- Apr 3 2008, 12:24 PM
What ever happened to the terrible hole in the Ozone fear from the early 80's. Did we eliminate enough CFCs from our aerosol to make a difference? Not making a point I am really asking if anyone has an opinion about that? I have not heard of it for quite sometime. BTW does a Steaming Pantload contribute to global warming?
 Just wondering.
The Ozone holes (there are two of them) , are still there , it will take many decades for the CFCs to breakdown , BTW : CFCs are still used in the third world (which is where all those stocks of CFCs were sent by the manufacturers when they were banned in the developed world.
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rowskid86
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Apr 2 2008, 09:50 PM
Post #8
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Suck my Spock
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- somerled
- Apr 2 2008, 09:40 PM
- Jag
- Apr 3 2008, 12:24 PM
What ever happened to the terrible hole in the Ozone fear from the early 80's. Did we eliminate enough CFCs from our aerosol to make a difference? Not making a point I am really asking if anyone has an opinion about that? I have not heard of it for quite sometime. BTW does a Steaming Pantload contribute to global warming?
 Just wondering.
Methane is a strong greenhouse gas - so yes it would.
i remember a south park episode about farting causing global warming, they found that out because everyone openly farted because they where afraid of holding it in and Spontinious Combustion.
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somerled
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Apr 2 2008, 10:16 PM
Post #9
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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- rowskid86
- Apr 3 2008, 12:50 PM
- somerled
- Apr 2 2008, 09:40 PM
- Jag
- Apr 3 2008, 12:24 PM
What ever happened to the terrible hole in the Ozone fear from the early 80's. Did we eliminate enough CFCs from our aerosol to make a difference? Not making a point I am really asking if anyone has an opinion about that? I have not heard of it for quite sometime. BTW does a Steaming Pantload contribute to global warming?
 Just wondering.
Methane is a strong greenhouse gas - so yes it would.
i remember a south park episode about farting causing global warming, they found that out because everyone openly farted because they where afraid of holding it in and Spontinious Combustion.
I don't watch South Park very often , my wife hates the show .
I think I've seen only 2 or 3 episodes in the last 2 or 3 years, and wasn't impressed with them.
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Sgt. Jaggs
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Apr 2 2008, 10:37 PM
Post #10
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How about a Voyager Movie
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- somerled
- Apr 2 2008, 09:44 PM
- Jag
- Apr 3 2008, 12:24 PM
What ever happened to the terrible hole in the Ozone fear from the early 80's. Did we eliminate enough CFCs from our aerosol to make a difference? Not making a point I am really asking if anyone has an opinion about that? I have not heard of it for quite sometime. BTW does a Steaming Pantload contribute to global warming?
 Just wondering.
The Ozone holes (there are two of them) , are still there , it will take many decades for the CFCs to breakdown , BTW : CFCs are still used in the third world (which is where all those stocks of CFCs were sent by the manufacturers when they were banned in the developed world.
How do we know that there are "holes" in the Ozone? How are they observable?
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somerled
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Apr 2 2008, 11:44 PM
Post #11
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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- Jag
- Apr 3 2008, 01:37 PM
- somerled
- Apr 2 2008, 09:44 PM
- Jag
- Apr 3 2008, 12:24 PM
What ever happened to the terrible hole in the Ozone fear from the early 80's. Did we eliminate enough CFCs from our aerosol to make a difference? Not making a point I am really asking if anyone has an opinion about that? I have not heard of it for quite sometime. BTW does a Steaming Pantload contribute to global warming?
 Just wondering.
The Ozone holes (there are two of them) , are still there , it will take many decades for the CFCs to breakdown , BTW : CFCs are still used in the third world (which is where all those stocks of CFCs were sent by the manufacturers when they were banned in the developed world.
How do we know that there are "holes" in the Ozone? How are they observable?
Mostly by high altitude observations and satellite observations.
See this link and this link and this link and this link.
Is big here now (over Antartica and Australia) as we are just moving out of summer. The holes (northern and southern oscillate in size with season).
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Hoss
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Apr 3 2008, 07:34 AM
Post #12
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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The sun has no link to sun-burn either. Your skin just turns red because of all the carbon emissions, not because of the radiation from the sun cooking it. That don't happen.
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Mel
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Apr 3 2008, 08:12 AM
Post #13
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Coffee Lover
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I keep getting a visual of a steaming pantload.
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somerled
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Apr 3 2008, 09:40 AM
Post #14
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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- 38957
- Apr 3 2008, 10:34 PM
The sun has no like to sun-burn either. Your skin just turns red because of all the carbon emissions, not because of the radiation from the sun cooking it. That don't happen.
And you are out doing active things in the sun on a hot day and are sweating , it's the sun making you melt ....
Yep .... forget all that science you learnt in school and college or university , 5 year old kids had it right all along.
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RTW
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Apr 3 2008, 10:05 AM
Post #15
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Vice Admiral
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- somerled
- Apr 2 2008, 07:39 PM
current epock of global warming.
"Epoch"?
Isn't that a bit sensational for something that has had little effect thus far?
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