Posted on 10/24/2006 7:42:17 PM PDT by Freeport
Earth's recent warming trend might in part be due to a lack of starlight reaching our planet, a new study suggests. But other scientists are not so sure.
According to a theory proposed a decade ago, when a star explodes far away in the Milky Way, cosmic rays—high-speed atomic particles—go through the Earth’s atmosphere and produce ions and free electrons.
The released electrons act as catalysts and accelerate the formation of small clusters of sulfuric acid and water molecules, the building blocks of clouds. Therefore, cosmic rays would increase cloud cover on Earth, reflecting sunlight and keeping the planet relatively cool.
However, because the Sun’s magnetic field—which shields the Earth from these rays—doubled in intensity during the last century, there has been a reduction in cloudiness, a possible contributor to Earth’s warming.
Scientists at the Danish National Space Center mimicked chemistry of the lower atmosphere in a large reaction chamber. They created a mixture that contained gasses at realistic concentrations and used an ultraviolet lamp to act as the Sun.
Microscopic droplets, precursor to clouds, started floating in the air of the reaction chamber.
“We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei,” said team leader Henrik Svensmark, Director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Center. “This is a completely new result within climate science.”
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
NO BLOOD FOR FREON!
No man, it's a Rovian plot to make noon hotter than midnight.
LOL!
Hey, aren't we already saving the gay baby whaels by switching to R134a?
How inconvenient for the Algore.
Maybe we could help the situation out by allowing a little more sulphur in jet fuel.
I hope you realize that if Man Made Global Warming goes away, the UFO's will be back in force. The Kooks at UFOOL are mostly occupied with MMGW at the moment.
Better put on the tin foil hat !!!
Why? Most of the proponents of Man Made Global Warming probably also believe in UFO's and also suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome.
If all the real UFO's went away today, there would still be as many sightings tomorrow.
Can someone please shoot the BORE off into the Milky Way to confirm this?
Interesting new science here, but I really do not understand why writers extrapolate one area of the electromagnetic spectrum and apply it to the entire spectrum. It is 'due to a lack of Cosmic Ray starlight' not 'due to a lack of starlight'. Infrared starlight can only warm the planet and that warming will always increase with increased infrared starlight. This new theory is actually stating that increased Cosmic Ray starlight will increase the cloud cover of the planet. Increased cloud cover will increase the amount of Visible starlight that is reflected. Visible starlight that is not reflected generally warms the planet when it gets absorbed by surface structure or the worlds oceans. You could conceivably have a situation where there is less Cosmic Ray starlight but more infrared starlight. That would mean serious warming since infrared is primarily absorbed by the planets oceans or clouds. Less clouds due to less cosmic rays would mean more Visible starlight absorption. Clearly there are numerous astrophysical factors involved here and we apes are far from understanding much of anything at our present time. Best to not interfere because chances are we would only muck it up at present. IMHO.
Uh-ohhhh...I think I misread the memo.
I was using RU-486.
Oh no, we can't have any evidence, even by reputable scientists, that would suggest anything other than large quantities of CO2 are responsible for the alleged global warming. (smirk)
That was a ridiculous response. We all know (adjusts tin-foil beanie) that Rove has been too busy fixing the Diebold machines rather than doing death ray machines. That comes after the election. Planet Zog, bah! (smirk)
Outstanding! ROTFLOL!
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