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It's cosmic rays
What the science says...While the link between cosmic rays and cloud cover is yet to be confirmed, more importantly, there has been no correlation between cosmic rays and global temperatures over the last 30 years of global warming. The fatal flaw in the theory that cosmic rays (or lack thereof) are driving global warming is that cosmic radiation has shown no correlation with global temperatures since 1970.
This led the Max Planck Institute (Krivova 2003) to conclude that "between 1970 and 1985 the cosmic ray flux, although still behaving similarly to the temperature, in fact lags it and cannot be the cause of its rise. Thus changes in the cosmic ray flux cannot be responsible for more than 15% of the temperature increase." Similarly, Lockwood 2007 compared neutron monitor measurements, Beryllium 10 and Carbon 14 isotopes (both proxies for cosmic radiation) as well as several other measures of solar activity and concluded "the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanism is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified." Other difficulties with cosmic ray theoryThere are other problems proving the causality link between cosmic rays and cloud formation. This is not to disprove the theory but just to show there are enough question marks to show some healthy skepticism about cosmic ray theory. Breakdown in the correlation between low clouds and cosmic rays
Svensmark explained the 6 month lag as data uncertainty (Svensmark 2003). He also claims the loss of correlation after 1994 is due to long term calibration drift with the ISCCP satellites (Marsh & Svensmark 2001). The ISCCP disagree. Critique by Sloan and Wolfendale The bottom line is even if these difficulties can be resolved and the causality link between cosmic rays and cloud formation is proven, all they'll find is the cloud formation 50 years ago is similar to now and has had little to no impact on the last 30 years of long term global warming. Further readingA team of scientists from 17 countries have found the most likely origin of galactic cosmic rays - the centres of distant galaxies (Active Galactic Nuclei) powered by supermassive black holes. This discovery is not particularly pertinent to the global warming debate but it is cool :-)
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| © John Cook 2008 | |
The skeptic argument...