Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Cosmic Rays & Climate Change

Taking the rays
ER — (archived)

Your point is taken, we know the sun does affect the earth, and it is probable that changes in the sun's output do affect terrestrial climate, just as it affects many other things, like the aurorae and the upper atmosphere and who knows what else.

It may very well be that changes in solar output affect the cosmic ray exposure to the earth, perhaps by altering the way these rays interact with the earth. My question is, the flow of cosmic rays comes from the galaxy, perhaps even from further away, and is pretty constant. If the article's claim is that the sun interferes with this flow, somehow causing changes, then it must be deduced from comparing some record of cosmic ray changes with some other record of solar changes. This might lead us to conclude, if they are correlated, that one affects the other. Do we have records of both these phenomena going back far enough to establish this correlation?

This study sounds legit, but the account I read doesn't explain how the author established this connection. All we get in the linked article is this:

"Mr Svensmark claims that the number of cosmic rays hitting the Earth changes with the magnetic activity around the Sun. During high periods of activity, fewer cosmic rays hit the Earth and so there are less clouds formed, resulting in warming."

Perhaps those clouds are being formed by the increased magnetic activity, not the decreased number of cosmic rays.

I'm personally not aware of any long term records of cosmic rays and solar magnetic effects that could be used to establish this as a fundamental climatic process, not just something that affects weather in the short term. I know that even efforts to link the 11 year sunspot cycle with weather changes are highly controversial and inconclusive, even though that does not seem to be an unreasonable hypothesis at all.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it appears to me this article is mostly about how this cloud modification might work, not whether it actually does. It also appears Mr Svensmark is an atmospheric specialist, perhaps he has high-energy astrophysicists and interstellar medium specialists as collaborators on his study, but they are not mentioned in the report.

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