Ian Bradford: How Cosmic Rays Affect the Earth’s Climate

In 1911 and 1912, Austrian physicist Victor Hess made a series of ascents in a Hydrogen balloon to take measurements of radiation in the atmosphere.  He was looking for a source of ionising radiation that registered on his electroscope.  (An electroscope is a device that detects charged particles.)  The prevailing theory was that the radiation came from the rocks of the Earth. 

In 1909 German scientist Theodor Wulf measured the rate of ionisation near the top of the Eiffel tower at a height of about 300m using a portable electroscope. He noted that the ionisation rate at the top was just under half that at the ground - a much less significant decrease that what was expected. Meanwhile Victor Hess took things a stage further by again going up in a balloon but this time a little higher. In 1911 the balloon reached a height of about 1100 m. Hess found no essential change in radiation compared to ground level. On the 7thAugust 1912 he ascended to 5300m. He found the radiation there was three times that at sea level, so he concluded that the radiation was entering the atmosphere from above. Earlier, he noted that there was no noticeable drop during a partial solar eclipse, so he could rule out the sun as a source.

Hess had discovered a natural source of high energy particles – COSMIC RAYS.  These rays came from outer space.  90% of Cosmic rays are Hydrogen nuclei – simply protons, and 9% are Helium nuclei - or alpha particles.  The rest, just 1%, is made up of other elements. 
Protons are positive particles, and a Helium nucleus consists of two protons and two neutrons, so it is also a positively charged particle. 

Danish scientists Christensen and Lassen examined the statistical correlation between sunspot activity and the increase or decrease of temperatures in the Northern hemisphere during the 20^th century. They were puzzled by the decrease in the Earth’s temperature from about  1945 to 1970 when CO₂  levels were rising. (NOTE: This 25-year period  of falling Earth’s temperature is totally ignored by climate alarmists.)   

It was Christensen and Svensmark, the Danish physicist,  who made the breakthrough that the solar effect was due to cosmic rays. NASA’s cloud data showed a strong correlation between extensive cloud formation and the relative intensity of cosmic rays. The more cosmic rays the more clouds formed. Christensen and Svensmark also noted that the Earth’s magnetic field increased when the sun was active with sunspots and vice versa. The Earth’s magnetic field helped block the cosmic rays coming from outer space. In their 2007 book, The Chilling Stars,  A Cosmic View, they found the following:

1      Cosmic rays knock electrons out of air molecules to produce ions. (These are positively and negatively charged particles in the atmosphere.)

2      Ions help form sulphuric acid and water molecules. These are aerosols which need to grow to have effect.

3      Ions also accelerate the growth of these small aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei. Seeds in which liquid water droplets form to make clouds.

In simple language, this means cosmic rays help seed clouds in the atmosphere, particularly when the sun is in a quiet phase - that is when there are not many or no sunspots. 

In 2011, CERN tested the hypothesis that cosmic rays play a significant role in the formation of low-lying clouds on Earth. The findings confirmed the findings of Svensmark. The aerosols formed a few Km up in the atmosphere from clusters of sulphuric acid and water reflect sunlight. With a less active sun in cycles 24 and 25, perhaps we could expect it to get colder on Earth.  This has nothing  to do with the emission of carbon dioxide. 

On several occasions the IPCC has rejected the idea that the sun was worthy of investigation. In 1991 the then chairman of the IPCC, Bert Bolen dismissed Christensen’s and Svensmark’s findings as naive and irresponsible. To them it was always “greenhouse gases” which caused global warming, even though cooling had taken place for 25 years when the amount of carbon dioxide kept increasing. 

There is more on cosmic rays and a connection to the Earth’s climate.  Niv J Shaviv, a scientist at the Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem argued that the variability of cosmic ray intensity hitting Earth may also be affected by the Earth’s position in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy has four major spiral arms and some smaller arms. While the arms are rotating, so is the Earth along with our solar system. Our solar system travels around the centre of the galaxy at about 863,000km/hr. The spiral arms also rotate but at a slower speed of around 76,000km/hr. So our solar system passes through the galaxy’s spiral arms because it is rotating faster.  The Earth takes about 250 million years to do one rotation about the centre of the galaxy.  The Earth passes through one of the four spiral arms every 135 years and takes about 10 million years to go through each arm.  

 

When it passes through an arm it will quite likely be closer to an exploding star - a supernova, than it normally would. Since exploding stars are sources of cosmic rays you would therefore expect more cosmic rays to be hitting the earth. Shaviv then reasoned that the passing of the Earth through the arms may lead to the periods of warming and cooling. 

Shaviv and colleague Veizer concluded that cosmic ray intensity was  an important factor affecting the Earth’s climate. They studied Calcium and Magnesium isotopes and showed that the Earth had experienced major warming/cooling cycles every 135 million years, and that coincided with the Earth passing through one of the four arms of the galaxy.  

Let’s summarise:  The prime mover of climate change is the sun.  Milankovitch cycles give long term predictions of climate. (The changing orbit of the earth, the tilt, and the wobble around the axis).  The sun moves under the gravitational influence of the four largest planets.  The planets change their orbits under a 1200-year cycle, so the sun moves one way in the ellipse then back the other way in the 1200 years.  The movement of the sun towards the spring equinox at present explains the hot summers and very cold winters in the northern hemisphere. The number of sunspots gives an indication of the sun’s intensity. When there are very few sunspots, more cosmic rays are admitted to the earth’s atmosphere seeding clouds which cause a cooling. The Earth’s rotation about the centre of the galaxy means exposure to more or less cosmic rays and that is reflected in the temperature record.  

Carbon Dioxide and Methane don’t actually feature. 

Readers will by now have realised that there are several phenomena that control climate. But, of course, we are continually told by the IPCC and climate alarmists that it’s the 4%  of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that humans emit that causes global warming/climate change.  The other 96% of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from natural sources must be very jealous. Here’s a tiny fraction of their mates getting all the publicity and all the action while they sit in the atmosphere doing nothing. Doesn’t seem right somehow.  

Ian Bradford, a science graduate, is a former teacher, lawyer, farmer and keen sportsman, who is writing a book about the fraud of anthropogenic climate change.