Piers Corbyn's viewsNigel!
As a youth the work of your father Ritchie Calder inspired me - and my parents and brothers too and your work has been equally inspirational for me and millions.
However your feeling that Svensmark's work (however exciting it may appear and however great a guy, which he is*) takes you back to when you reported the victory of the pioneers of plate tectonics in their battle against the most eminent geophysicists of the day; does not mean he is right. [*and you may recall I stood shoulder to shoulder with him against the shameful 'ambush' at the Royal Met Soc conference in Imperial College around 1998 when the warmists declared against doing ANY experiments on Svensmark's lines]
The problem is that while his theory correctly identifies charged particles as very important in cloud formation it points to the wrong charged particles.
His theory elevates Cosmic Rays which are a proxy for solar activity into Cosmic Rays as a supposed agent of sun-earth connection. It is like elevating the length of a mercury column in a glass capillary to the CAUSE of temperature when of course the length of the Mercury column is an effect of temperature not a cause of it.
Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) counts are modulated by the total magnetic flux of the sun in the solar system and are a measure of it but they are not the agents of sun-earth connection. The solar particles themselves and sun-earth magnetic links are that.
The test is simple and the GCR theory fails.
The sun's total flux activity AND CONSEQUENTLY Cosmic Ray flux follow the 11 year solar cycle like clockwork. GCR variation is an EFFECT of the size of solar-magnetic activity. This is an undisputed fact and there are loads of observational graphs of GCR which show the large 11 year cycle (nb make sure graphs are not smoothed over 22 years in advance! and beware of the concept of solar cycle length because if over 22 years it conceals the crucial 11 year signal)
Therefore if GCR are the agent driving temperatures the main world temperature fluctuation MUST BE the 11 year cycle, but it is not. The vastly dominant world temperature cycle is the 22year magnetic Hale cycle which governs the sun-earth connectivity.
So whatever things GCR might be doing and there are many; like for CO2, climate isn't one of them.
When I made these points in Munich in November (Pres below) the supporters of the GCR as the prime sun-earth agent theory (NB Svensmark himself was not present then) were not able to refute them.
Munchen VIDEO
climaterealists.com/index.php?id=9341Parliament select committee (2011) Presentation:
www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews11No5a.pdf- slides 41 & 42 re 11 yr (solar activity) and 22yr temperature and tests of what does and doesn't cause climate change:
The long running CR thread on the matter
climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3307What we have is two alternatives.
S(M)A= Solar (magnetic) activity; GCR=Galactic Cosmic ray flux changes; WC=Earth weather & climate; and => means causal link.
I. GCR Theory:
SA=>GCR=>WC ie GCR is THE agent of sun-earth linkage and WC.
This theory FAILS fundamental tests and can predict nothing.
It should be noted there is a 1 to one correspondence with solar activity increases and GCR decrease and so any claim about GCR can equally be made a claim about SA.
The theory's claims on changes in the source rate of GCR as the sun moves through the spiral arms of the galaxy may be equally inversions of reality because for every increase in super nova GCR production due to dust that same interstellar and interplanetary dust dims the sun. So again cause and effect have in the face of it been reversed. At least it is clearly absurd to assume GCR is the cause when the dust causing GCR has the same effect on the sun's rays.
II. S(M)A Theory:
SMA=>WC and SA=>GCR ie SMA drives WC and SA drives GCR so WC and GCR are related by common cause not by mutual cause & effect.
This theory is seen to work on a daily basis and makes predictions which work (eg west Russian heatwave and jet stream, TC Yasi trashing Queensland etc, see below)
FIVE important points:-
1. When we have notable weather changes - such as Jet stream shifts and note climate change is just prolonged jet stream shifts - there is no evidence of GCR changes or their involvement. Rather we actually see events on the sun followed by weather events. GCR plays no role. See Munchen vid and slide 38 (re West Russia heat wave and its predicted end Aug 15th 2010 driven by a double sunspot).
2. GCR only react well with matter when slowed down - ie after collisions with air and pion etc production [the basis of the old cloud chamber of particle detection] and after collisions the energy range of the product particles overlaps with that of solar charged particles. The two must be compared at this level. The total energy flux of solar particles is typically 300 times that of GCR.The reason is that although the original GCR are at very very high energies the solar particles are very very very much more numerous.
3. The great electrical events in the upper atmosphere - ionospheric disturbances, geomagnetic activity, aurora, noctilucent clouds, sprites, etc which precede storms and jet stream shifts (which are steps of climate change) are ALL driven by solar-particle and magnetic activity and nothing whatsoever to do with GCR which is a background issue of 0.3% significance compared with solar action.
4. The hard thing to explain about the evolution of planet earth is, as Prof Richard Lindzen mentioned in his presentation in the Palace of Westminster in February is NOT so much the variations, important though they may be, but the astounding constancy of peak temperatures over a billion years while the Sun has got brighter as it evolved in time. THIS necessitates better understandings of atmospheric feedbacks - air-sea interfaces, plant effects and well well sun-earth relations including the amount of dust between earth and Sun as well as very rapid solar-magnetic links. GCR is just too small - and effect not a cause - compared with all these it would appear.
Note the standard explanation for 100 million year cycles was the oscillation of the solar system through (ie going above and below) the plane of the galaxy and the extra dust when it is in the thickest part. The relative supernova rate will EXACTLY track the amount of dust so we have another cause and effect jumble.
Sevensmark says:
Dust=>GCR(SourceChanges)=>WC (through his mechanism which has failed the test)
I suggest:
Dust=>WC and Dust=>GCR(SourceChanges) so WC and GCR(SourceChanges) correlate reasonably well (although obviously noise due to dust variations through regions of space) because they have common cause but do NOT have a causal relationship.
5. BEWARE!!! The desperate warmists - and recall the VERY close links between the ultra-warmist Royal Society leaderships eg Prof Lord Martin Rees ex Pres RS and the Royal Astronomical Society, are deliberately allowing GCR theory to come across as THE alternative to their delusional fraud.
They are just giving Svensmark enough rope so they can easily and publicly trash his theory and then claim "Oh well then it MUST BE CO2".
Recall their punchline "reason for CO2" which I report on the vid: "It can't be anything else".
Oh yes it can! but it's not GCR either
WATCH THIS SPACE!! Cheers, Piers
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