The Sun Moves Climate Change

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The Sun Moves Climate Change

The Deniers -- Part VI

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post

Man produces greenhouse gases and greenhouse gases cause global
warming, most scientists agree, but how, exactly, do greenhouse gases
cause global warming? While theories abound, as do elaborate computer
models incorporating a multitude of gases and other climatic factors,
none has been conclusive. And if greenhouse gases aren't responsible,
what else could be? A clear, verifiable mechanism showing how a
greenhouse gas or other physical entity can drive climate change has
eluded science. Until now.

For more than a decade, Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space
Center has been pursuing an explanation for why Earth cools and warms.
His findings -- published in October in the Proceedings of the Royal
Society -- the mathematical, physical sciences and engineering journal
of the Royal Society of London -- are now in, and they don't point to
us. The sun and the stars could explain most if not all of the warming
this century, and he has laboratory results to demonstrate it. Dr.
Svensmark's study had its origins in 1996, when he and a colleague
presented findings at a scientific conference indicating that changes
in the sun's magnetic field -- quite apart from greenhouse gases --
could be related to the recent rise in global temperatures. The
chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental panel on Climate
Change, the chief agency investigating global warming, then castigated
them in the press, saying, "I find the move from this pair
scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible." Others accused them
of denouncing the greenhouse theory, something they had not done.

Svensmark and his colleague had arrived at their theory after
examining data that showed a surprisingly strong correlation between
cosmic rays --highspeed atomic particles originating in exploded stars
in the Milky Way -- and low-altitude clouds. Earth's cloud cover
increased when the intensity of cosmic rays grew and decreased when
the intensity declined.

Low-altitude clouds are significant because they especially shield the
Earth from the sun to keep us cool. Low cloud cover can vary by 2% in
five years, affecting the Earth's surface by as much as 1.2 watts per
square metre during that same period. "That figure can be compared
with about 1.4 watts per square metre estimated by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the greenhouse effect of
all the increase in carbon dioxide in the air since the Industrial
Revolution," Dr. Svensmark explained.

The Danish scientists put together several well-established scientific
phenomena to arrive at their novel 1996 theory. The sun's magnetic
field deflects some of the cosmic rays that penetrate the Earth's
atmosphere, and in so doing it also limits the immense amounts of ions
and free electrons that the cosmic rays produce. But something had
changed in the 20th century: The sun's magnetic field more than
doubled in strength, deflecting an extraordinary number of rays. Could
the diminution of cosmic rays this century have limited the formation
of clouds, making the Earth warmer?

That was a plausible theory. But exactly how cosmic rays might create
clouds was a mystery -- an unprovable theory, many said. Some even
claimed that it was inconceivable for cosmic rays to influence cloud
cover.

To discover a mechanism, a team at the Danish National Space Center
assembled by Dr. Svensmark undertook an elaborate laboratory
experiment in a reaction chamber the size of a small room. The team
duplicated the chemistry of the lower atmosphere by injecting the
gases found there in the same proportions, and adding ultraviolet rays
to mimic the actions of the sun.

What they found left them agape: A vast number of floating microscopic
droplets soon filled the reaction chamber. These were ultra-small
clusters of sulphuric acid and water molecules -- the building blocks
for cloud condensation nuclei-- that had been catalyzed by the
electrons released by cosmic rays.

We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons do
their work," Dr. Svensmark remarked. For the first time ever,
researchers had experimentally identified a causal mechanism by which
cosmic rays can facilitate the production of clouds in Earth's
atmosphere. "This is a completely new result within climate science."

Dr. Svensmark has never disputed the existence of greenhouse gases and
the greenhouse effect. To the contrary, he believes that an
understanding of the sun's role is needed to learn the full story, and
thus determine man's role. Not only does no climate model today
consider the effect of cosmic particles, but even clouds are too
poorly understood to be incorporated into any serious climate model.

Because of the work of Dr. Svensmark, other agencies are now building
on the Danish findings. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear
Research in Geneva, has just started a multi-phase project that begins
with a rerun of the Danish experiment, only CERN will use an
accelerator rather than relying on natural cosmic rays. This
multinational project will provide scientists with a permanent
facility for studying effects of cosmic rays and charged particles in
the Earth's atmosphere.

The clouds may be lifting on scientific inquiry into climate change.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute
and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Energy Probe Research
Foundation. Email: Lawrence Sol...@nextcity.com.

CV OF A DENIER:

Henrik Svensmark is director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research at
the Danish Space Research Institute (DSRI). Previously, Dr. Svensmark
was head of the sunclimate group at DSRI. He has held post doctoral
positions in physics at University California Berkeley, Nordic
Institute of Theoretical Physics, and the Niels Bohr Institute. In
1997, Dr Svensmark received the Knud Hojgaard Anniversary Research
Prize and in 2001 the Energy-E2 Research Prize.