Not Quite Settled

Can any scientific body be more trustworthy for the quality of its findings, more respected for the presence of internationally renowned scientists on its roster than CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research? Likely not. The CERN team on its CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUdoor Droplets) project which studied the influence of galactic cosmic rays on Earth's climate through the media of aerosols and clouds have reached an interesting conclusion.

Basically, it would seem, that the United Nations team on the environment has got it wrong, that it is not human activity that it is responsible for 'global warming', now called Climate Change, but rather that it is the source of all life on Earth, our Sun, that is responsible. And here is their explanation:

Cosmic rays and cloud formation

CLOUD is an experiment that uses a cloud chamber to study the possible link between galactic cosmic rays and cloud formation. Based at the Proton Synchrotron at CERN, this is the first time a high-energy physics accelerator has been used to study atmospheric and climate science; the results could greatly modify our understanding of clouds and climate.

Cosmic rays are charged particles that bombard the Earth's atmosphere from outer space. Studies suggest they may have an influence on the amount of cloud cover through the formation of new aerosols (tiny particles suspended in the air that seed cloud droplets). This is supported by satellite measurements, which show a possible correlation between cosmic-ray intensity and the amount of low cloud cover. Clouds exert a strong influence on the Earth’s energy balance; changes of only a few per cent have an important effect on the climate. Understanding the underlying microphysics in controlled laboratory conditions is a key to unravelling the connection between cosmic rays and clouds.

The CLOUD experiment involves an interdisciplinary team of scientists from 18 institutes in 9 countries, comprised of atmospheric physicists, solar physicists, and cosmic-ray and particle physicists. The PS provides an artificial source of ‘cosmic rays’ that simulates natural conditions as closely as possible. A beam of particles is sent into a reaction chamber and its effects on aerosol production are recorded and analysed.

The initial stage of the experiment uses a prototype detector, but the full CLOUD experiment will include an advanced cloud chamber and a reactor chamber, equipped with a wide range of external instrumentation to monitor and analyse their contents. The temperature and pressure conditions anywhere in the atmosphere can be re-created within the chambers, and all experimental conditions can be controlled and measured, including the ‘cosmic ray’ intensity and the contents of the chambers.

Well, what was abundantly clear to the scientists involved was that it is cloud cover that is the determinant of global warming or cooling. When the Earth is shielded by clouds, or clouds are, conversely, not present, alterations in the percentage of Earth shielded from cosmic rays cause global temperature variations - up - or down. The sun's cosmic rays being the main sources (or cause) of cloud formation, deductive reasoning and the results seen from the reaction chamber produced in the answer.

Fascinating, is it not? It is not anthropomorphic-based activities that act on our environment to produce atmospheric global activities that result in warming and cooling trends, but our great life-benefactor in nature, our very own sun. Human C02 emissions, they aver, on the basis of their impeccable research cannot be faulted for environmental changes, with carbon dioxide emissions from human-sourced activities the culprit. Other scientists have been whispering that carbon dioxide is essential to life itself.

Dr. Jasper Kirkby, the British experimental particle physicist who heads up the CLOUD project has been cautioned to present the findings, but not to interpret them minutely, and to release the findings discreetly, without fanfare, to ensure that a hornet's nest of environmental denunciation does not rain down on his head, that of CLOUD, and inevitably upon CERN. The current orthodoxy expounded passionately by the UN's IPCC is not to be aggressively challenged.

For, as patiently explicated by CERN's director general, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, were it to happen that the sun and not mankind is pointed out as the fount of the environment behaving in a manner that is claimed to be singularly and increasingly dangerous to this Globe and its creatures, the resulting ruckus "would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate".

The science, obviously is not quiet "settled".