Cloud killer? Research suggests that solar storms interfere with cloud formation on Earth.
Credit: ESA/NASA
Posted on 08/08/2009 8:43:34 AM PDT by neverdem
Cloud killer? Research suggests that solar storms interfere with cloud formation on Earth.
Credit: ESA/NASA
Most of Earth's clouds get their start in deep space. That's the surprising conclusion from a team of researchers who argue that interstellar cosmic rays collide with water molecules in our atmosphere to form overcast skies.
As common as clouds are on Earth, the processes that produce them are not well understood. Scientists think particles of dust or pollen can serve as nuclei for water droplets, which in turn gather by the trillions into clouds. That would help explain how clouds form over urban areas: Fine particles called aerosols are emitted from the exhaust pipes of millions of vehicles and work their way into the atmosphere, where they are thought to attract water molecules. But it doesn't explain how clouds formed in preindustrial society--or how they form today over vast stretches of rainforest and ocean.
That's where cosmic rays come in. The idea goes like this: High-speed cosmic ray particles--protons and neutrons of still-mysterious origins that travel at nearly the speed of light--collide with water molecules in the atmosphere, stripping away electrons from those molecules and converting them into electrically charged ions. The ions then begin attracting other water molecules, which eventually form clouds.
The theory seems to hold water in the lab. In 2006, physicist Henrik Svensmark of the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen and colleagues produced aerosols artificially in an atmospheric chamber by bombarding water molecules with a particle beam. "More ions resulted in more aerosols," Svensmark says.
In the new study, Svensmark's team wanted to see if the idea also worked in the real world. The researchers focused on a phenomenon known as a Forbush decrease. Here, a massive storm on the sun's surface flings a superhot fog of particles, called a coronal mass ejection, past Earth, temporarily shielding our planet from cosmic rays. If cosmic rays really do contribute to cloud formation, Svensmark and colleagues hypothesized, then cloud cover should dip during Forbush decreases.
And indeed that's what Svensmark's team found. When the researchers examined cloud data collected by weather satellites over the past 22 years and compared them with 26 Forbush decreases, they discovered that, for the five strongest events, the water-droplet content of Earth's clouds decreased by an average of 7%. It's like bare patches forming in a field, says Svensmark, whose team reports its findings this month in Geophysical Research Letters. The cloud patterns eventually returned to normal, he says, but they took weeks to do so. "We're now convinced that aerosols are affected by the Forbush decrease," Svensmark says.
Geoscientist Jón Egill Kristjánsson of the University of Oslo, Norway, calls the findings "astonishing." He and other researchers have searched for years for relationships between Forbush decreases and cloud formation and have found nothing, or they have found significant relationships "only in very remote locations." If the data can be confirmed by other observations, he says, "Svensmark's new results would greatly strengthen the case for a cosmic ray-cloud connection."
Svensmark argues that the findings suggest a link between cosmic rays and climate change. Because clouds bring rain and reflect light from the sun, fewer clouds would mean a warmer Earth. But Kristjánsson isn't willing to go that far. Monitoring instruments "over the last 50 years or so show either no trend or a slightly upward trend" in cosmic rays hitting Earth, he notes. According to Svensmark's theory, that would mean either no increase in cloud formation or a slight increase--neither of which would warm the world.
No but I have considered the possibility that Liberals come from outer space. Possibly from the Planet Utopio. Where life is beutiful all the time.
wait a sec.... scientists aren’t sure where clouds come from?? This clashes with what they taught me in sixth grade!
HGow can we predict “climate change” if we don’t even know where clouds come from?
---It is in the midst of an unusual sunspot minimum, lasting far longer and with a higher percentage of spotless days than normal; since May 2008, predictions of an imminent rise in activity have been regularly made and as regularly confuted.
---It is measurably dimmer than is usual during a sunspot minimum.
---Over the last two decades, the solar wind's speed has dropped 3%, its temperature 13%, and its density 20%.
---Its magnetic field is at less than half strength compared to the minimum of 22 years ago. The entire heliosphere, which fills the solar system, has shrunk as a result, resulting in an increase in the level of cosmic radiation striking the Earth and its atmosphere.
To sum up, nobody really knows why this is happening, or what it means for our climate. Go Here if you want to read scientists arguing about it.
more like the planet Fruitopia.....or...Dystopia
Where life is beutiful all the time.
Where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be
happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're
coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!!!!
Earth not closed system. Film at 11!
You got it!
We'll need more funding to answer that. Therefore, gimme money.
They are definitely from outer space, dropped here by aliens who want to destroy our country and civilizationn.
The current solar siesta is to become known as the
“Gore Minimum”. Hopefully the Sun will finally drive the nail in the coffin of the global warming/climate change carbon trading insanity.
Cosmic rays causing cloud formation is nothing new. Cosmic rays are simply gamma radiation which interact with water vapor in the atmosphere to form clouds. Some scientists also believe that the increase in cosmic rays hitting the earth contributes energy to lightning.
Sun in siesta = more cosmic rays reaching earth = more cloud cover = global cooling = Welcome to The Gore Ice Age. I figure he will claim credit for it and try to figure out how to profit from it.
No, they come from Uranus.
Uranus is the Capital of Utopio.
Thanks, that was interesting.
That is what I was taught
Good grief, I -- as a high school sophomore -- could have demonstrated that to you back in 1953.
My homebuilt cloud chamber produced beautiful "contrail" clouds from both alpha and beta particles...
Yep, they're exhaust from UFOs in need of a tune-up ;-)
Does the trees moving make the wind blow?
Yours, perhaps. Certainly not mine. No nihilist little Mr. Hankies goosestepping around here. Seen 'em on tv, though.
You jest, I realize that.
But, I once dated a very cute and very entertaining woman from California, who in hindsight could only be described as a wacked-out neopagan. You know, the naked tree-sitter type. She literally believed that redwoods drew the fog and the rain, and that cutting any of them would cause a disastrous drought. And, she insisted that this was common knowledge, so she was not alone in this belief.
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