Svensmark Effect Attacked: Study claims cosmic rays don’t effect clouds

Svensmark hypothesized that cosmic rays flux affects cloud formation which, in turn, affects climate change.

Henrik Svensmark

CREDENTIALS 

  • Ph.D., Physics Laboratory I, Technical University of Denmark, (September, 1987).
  • Master of Science in Engineering (Cand. Polyt), Physics Laboratory I, The Technical University of Denmark, (February, 1985).
Source: [1]

BACKGROUND

Henrik Svensmark is a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen. Svensmark has studied the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation and presented a hypotheses that global warming is caused by solar radiation.
Svensmark appeared in a documentary titled "The Cloud Mystery" to illustrate his position, and has also shared his research at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change.
Henrik Svensmark is director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish Space Research Institute (DSRI). Previously, Dr. Svensmark was head of the Sunclimate group at DSRI. He has held post doctoral positions in physics at University California Berkeley, Nordic Institute of Theoretical Physics, and the Niels Bohr Institute. [2]

STANCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE

"In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable." [3]
According to Lawrence Solomon, "Dr. Svensmark has never disputed the existence of greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect. To the contrary, he believes that an understanding of the sun's role is needed to learn the full story, and thus determine man's role. Not only does no climate model today consider the effect of cosmic particles, but even clouds are too poorly understood to be incorporated into any serious climate model. [2]

KEY QUOTES

"During the last 100 years cosmic rays became scarcer because unusually vigorous action by the Sun batted away many of them. Fewer cosmic rays meant fewer clouds—and a warmer world. [4]


Astrobiology Web reports:
The problem of the contribution of cosmic rays to climate change is a continuing one and one of importance. In principle, at least, the recent results from the CLOUD project at CERN provide information about the role of ionizing particles in ‘sensitizing’ atmospheric aerosols which might, later, give rise to cloud droplets.
Our analysis shows that, although important in cloud physics the results do not lead to the conclusion that cosmic rays affect atmospheric clouds significantly, at least if H2SO4 is the dominant source of aerosols in the atmosphere. An analysis of the very recent studies of stratospheric aerosol changes following a giant solar energetic particles event shows a similar negligible effect. Recent measurements of the cosmic ray intensity show that a former decrease with time has been reversed. Thus, even if cosmic rays enhanced cloud production, there will be a small global cooling, not warming.

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