Saturday 27 August 2011

The Dog That Did Not Bark

Heliocentricity Strikes Again

Several week ago (22nd of July to be exact) we came across a curiosity squirrelled away on the back pages.  CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) has been conducting some experiments testing the role of the sun in cloud formation in the atmosphere.  Clearly this research would have lots of implications for the "global warming" ideological campaign.  (The null hypothesis would be: sun has no [or negligible] influence on cloud formation upon the earth affecting global temperatures; therefore, human induced warming remains the dominant [settled] cause.) 

Late July the chief of the CERN particle physics lab, Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer told his staff that they were to report upon the findings of the experiments, but not discuss them or draw any implications from them.  The dog was not going to be allowed to bark.  People at the time smelled a rat:
could it be that the results of the experiment had not have gone the way that everyone hoped and expected?  (Imagine if an experiment on climate change showed that the sun had no or negligible influence upon global temeratures--would the good scientiests in Euroland have been muzzled? No--the dogs would have been barking, loudly.)

Now, the truth is seeping out.  The results of the CERN solar-earth research have been published in Nature.  Here are the money quotations: 
CERN's 8,000 scientists may not be able to find the hypothetical Higgs boson, but they have made an important contribution to climate physics, prompting climate models to be revised.  The first results from the lab's CLOUD ("Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets") experiment published in Nature today confirm that cosmic rays spur the formation of clouds through ion-induced nucleation. Current thinking posits that half of the Earth's clouds are formed through nucleation. The paper is entitled Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation.

This has significant implications for climate science because water vapour and clouds play a large role in determining global temperatures. Tiny changes in overall cloud cover can result in relatively large temperature changes.

Unsurprisingly, it's a politically sensitive topic, as it provides support for a "heliocentric" rather than "anthropogenic" approach to climate change: the sun plays a large role in modulating the quantity of cosmic rays reaching the upper atmosphere of the Earth. . . .

[Lead physicist Jasper Kirkby]  is quoted in the accompanying CERN press release:  "We've found that cosmic rays significantly enhance the formation of aerosol particles in the mid troposphere and above. These aerosols can eventually grow into the seeds for clouds. However, we've found that the vapours previously thought to account for all aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere can only account for a small fraction of the observations – even with the enhancement of cosmic rays."  . . . .

Climate models will have to be revised, confirms CERN in supporting literature (pdf):  "[I]t is clear that the treatment of aerosol formation in climate models will need to be substantially revised, since all models assume that nucleation is caused by these vapours [sulphuric acid and ammonia] and water alone." . . .

As Pajamas Media comment: "It may be too strong to say that this finding rubbishes previous climate models that didn’t take cosmic ray effects into account. But not by a whole lot, since the models don’t account for cosmic rays. One thing is for sure: Humanity cannot do a thing about cosmic rays or their influence on the atmosphere."

Well, Nature is a prestigious scientific journal. It has been very anthropogenically hot in the climate sense for years.  So, expect cognitive dissonance to erupt.  One thing will emerge immediately.  The CERN physicists involved in the experiment will be exposed as having been sleepers in the pay of Big Oil all along.  You read it first here.  Expect those dogs to commence a-barkin'. 

No comments: