Re: [asa] Serious scientists getting closer to the cosmic connection to climate

On 1/16/07, Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> *Interestingly, during the 20th Century, the Sun's magnetic field (which
> shields Earth from cosmic rays) more than doubled, thereby reducing the
> average influx of cosmic rays. The resulting reduction in cloudiness,
> especially of low-altitude clouds, may be a significant factor in the global
> warming Earth has undergone during the last century. Until now, however,
> there has been no experimental evidence of how the causal mechanism linking
> cosmic rays and cloud formation may work.*
>

If this were true we would have stratospheric warming and not stratospheric
cooling that we are seeing. Nor does it explain the increase in nighttime
lows. Last night, the temperatures here dropped to below zero. Care to guess
whether the sky was clear or cloudy? Ding, ding, ding. It was clear. Absence
of low-level clouds would cause nighttime lows to drop and not rise as
measured.

 This argument has always been beyond stupid because CO2 accounts for less
> than 3% of greenhouse gases. 80% of such gases is water vapor, for which man
> is not responsible.
>

Not true. Water vapor is a positive feedback mechanism for CO2 and increases
the climate sensitivity to CO2. See
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.energy.25.1.441?journalCode=energy

 Further, the earth has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age in
> the mid-1800s, yet there was no appreciable increase in atmospheric CO2
> until over a century later in the mid-1900s.
>

Where did you get that info? Carbon dioxide increased decisively starting
around 1850 and was in record territory over the last 650,000 years since
1900. Since then it's been up and to the right at a rate of 0.60 ppm/yr in
the 60s to 1.87 ppm/yr now.

 *Money for particle accelerators has been in short supply.
>
> To study cosmic rays requires such accelerators, because cosmic rays can
> carry billions of electron volts. Some have been recorded at 1020 electron
> volts, and there is no current explanation of how those massive energies are
> generated.*
>
> Thus high-energy physicists are going to jump at the opportunity for
> funding and thus argue against man-made global warming. So much for
> scientific "consensus." ..."
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1723443/posts?page=31#31
>

Funny, I thought they were looking for Higgs bosons and SUSY partners.
Better send a memo to the people at the LHC that when it goes online in
November they will be disproving anthropogenic global warming instead.

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Received on Tue Jan 16 15:02:57 2007