Tag Archives: cosmic rays

AGW critic recovering

Turns out that scientist at the Copenhagen meeting who suffered a heart attack was Henrik Svensmark, author of a plausible book and much research behind it as to what (besides carbon dioxide), might be causing the global warming that may or may not actually be occurring.

Svensmark seems to be recovering from what seems to have been a malfunctioning pacemaker, according to this hard-to-read Google translation of a Danish newspaper account, posted by Anthony Watts. Svensmark believes that a lack of cosmic rays to provide the seed nuclei for the formation of clouds to keep the temperature low is behind whatever warming there is. Sol’s recent sleep apparently has upped the cosmic ray count, which Svensmark might say is bringing the recent early winters.

Cosmic ray storm

Sol’s protracted solar minimum, which began about 2007, has opened the inner solar system to the highest concentration of cosmic rays yet measured during the space age (about fifty years old).

Which should provide a good test of Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark’s theory that cosmic rays provide seed nuclei for the low-altitude clouds that keep Earth’s temperature low. The theory is an alternative to the carbon dioxide argument, in that fewer cosmic rays hitting Earth would mean fewer low-level clouds and thus correspondingly higher temperatures. If Svensmark’s theory–explained in his 2008 book The Chilling Stars–is correct, winters could become more severe. At least until Sol’s minimum turns back to maximum.