Cosmic Rays and Climate

Enough of politics for a while. Lets look at climate science. Henrik Svensmark has postulated that cosmic rays provide a mechanism to form clouds and if these clouds are low clouds, they will result in cooling. The cosmic rays are valved in or kept out of our atmosphere by the strength of the Sun’s magnetic field which extends to form the interplanetary field. A strong field limits the cosmic rays and a weak field permits entry. Currently the Sun’s magnetic field is the lowest ever measured by our satellites. see

While it looks like Svensmark is correct,  there are those who disagree with his work.  A CERN team lead by Jasper Kirkby are planning on expanding the research into the formation of clouds by galactic cosmic rays.   (Cosmic rays are really not “rays” but are particles blasted out from exploding stars [supernova see ]).

Kirkby is a British experimental particle physicist with CERN in Geneva.  He says that the Sun and the Earth’s climate are interlinked.  But the mechanism is not fully understood.  His team hope to establish or refute the connection between cosmic rays and the Earth’s climate.

There are two exhibits, both well worth your time to examine.  The first is a video presentation Kirkby made that takes you through the evidence of Sun and Earth’s climate connection and the planed experiments to look at cosmic rays and climate. The video presentation is one hour long.  See it here.  The  charts he used for the video presentation are the second exhibit and can be seen here . The charts take less time and they are much easier to read than seen on the video.  But I suspect that your understanding of the Earth and Sun interconnection will not be very complete without Kirkby’s explanation.

Cbdakota