The CLOUD experiment abstract states the following: “A striking correlation has recently been observed between global cloud cover and the flux of incident cosmic rays. The effect of natural variations in the cosmic ray flux is large, causing estimated changes in the Earth’s energy radiation balance that are comparable to those attributed to greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution. However a direct link between cosmic rays and cloud formation has not been unambiguously established.”

The study was meant to look at aerosol nucleation in the atmosphere and not make pronouncements on which was more important to rising atmospheric termperatures, cosmic rays or greenhouse gases. Instead the data has been interpreted to support a theory that cosmic rays, cloud formation and climate are linked. and are the dominant driver of climate change. According to the study “the basic purpose of the CLOUD detector … is to confirm, or otherwise, a direct link between cosmic rays and cloud formation by measuring droplet formation in a controlled test-beam environment.” The study within that context is valid. However, the study does not show that cosmic rays are actually responsible for some part of the recent atmospheric warming. For the study to be validated it would need to show that there was actually a decreasing trend in cosmic rays bombarding the upper atmosphere in recent decades. Unfortunately for climate change skeptics, the evidence shows that no such decrease has occurred.

Sometimes scientific results get spun to support a political objective. The CERN CLOUD study is a good example of this. For more information read http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/08/the-cerncloud-results-are-surprisingly-interesting/

The loss of Petermann ice was seen as extreme when compared to other areas of Greenland but the larger pattern of ice loss throughout Northern Greenland can be traced to rising temperatures over the land mass.Greenland’s glaciers have collectively lost more than 1,500 square kilometers (592.6 square miles) of ice between 2000 and 2010.

You can read about the implications of the study at http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Cern_study_gives_insight_into_cloud_formation.html?cid=30994792. The study, aptly named CLOUD, standing for Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets, shows that cosmic rays play an important role in the formation of aerosol particles in the upper troposphere. If you are unfamiliar with the term, troposphere, that is the near earth atmosphere where we humans and all other air-breathing life on the planet spend most of the time. How significant are cosmic rays in cloud formation? That remains an unknown. We do know that clouds are seeded by aerosol particles. That’s the theory behind cloud seeding that led the Beijing Olympics to deploy thousands in an action to keep rain away from the opening ceremonies for the Games in 2008.

The CLOUD experiment revealed that chemicals such as ammonia, sulphuric acid and water when combined with cosmic ray bombardment from space, do not sufficiently explain observations of aerosol formation in the atmosphere and that human-generated pollutants may play a far more significant role in cloud formation.

For climate change skeptics the CLOUD experiment fuels the anti-change debate. After all if our climate is controlled by cosmic rays then what do greenhouse gases really contribute? Climatologists recognize the role clouds play in moderating atmospheric temperatures and that climate models need to take cloud formation into consideration. Nevertheless, the overwhelming evidence shows that greenhouse gases, whether naturally produced by the planet’s carbon cycle, or industrially produced by our human civilization, are the main drivers of temperature change, and as a result, the main concern.

There is no doubt that different surface materials have different heat capacities. Black materials are non reflective and therefore more heat absorbing. I always remember the lyrics “paved paradise and put up a parking lot” when I think about micro-climate heating. Cities are enormous heat sinks in the summer and even in winter. They are to heat and temperature what a planet and star are to gravity fields. But they are a creator of micro-climates. They overall do not reflect the larger climatic picture. Deserts such as you have described have a larger impact on temperature and the atmosphere. The Sahara region of Africa and the Gobi in Mongolia are today major players in our atmospheric engine. But as CO2 increases in the atmosphere we may see these areas playing more significant roles as drought prone regions enlarge. The extremes you talk about in terms of temperature may be even more exaggerated with more CO2 present.

Thank you for your prompt reply to my questions and for your answers. My concern is that with the ever increasing urban sprawl we humans are altering the absorption/reflection ratio of the planet and this will cause increased global warming. I have been looking at how much radiation is reflected and absorbed by different colours and found at one site a record temperature recorded was 70+ degrees C in Lut Desert in Iran. The reason for the extreme temperature is because the desert is covered in black lava rock. I look at a bitumen road and think of the Lut Desert. We erect buildings without any consideration how the structure will affect the temperature. New building estates are reducing the exposed grasslands and reducing them to bricks, concrete and bitumen. I do not know the absorption/reflective abilities of the materials but if more is absorbed and less is reflected the temperature will go up. Well that’s what I believe. Thanks again for your answers and I will have a good read of the Ice Core Site.

In answer to your excellent questions I will try and explain this from a layman’s perspective. I am not a scientist but am an avid researcher and so I hope that what I say provides clarity.

How does the CO2 molecule increase the temperature of the earth?

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases include Methane, Ozone, Nitrous Oxide, water vapour and a number of Noble gases. These gases have the ability to absorb infrared radiation at higher capacity rates than oxygen and nitrogen, the two dominant gases of the atmosphere. It is the atomic construct of these gas molecules that makes them effective absorbers of solar radiation. Air molecules such as oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2) are not a combination of two elements. When infrared interacts with these molecules little energy is transferred. But when solar radiation encounters a gas molecule consisting of a combination of elements as in CO2, solar energy is absorbed. Hence a higher absorptive heat transfer rate. There are other gases in the atmosphere that consist of multiple elements. Carbon monoxide (CO) is one. But CO quickly breaks down in the atmosphere and therefore doesn’t have the same impact as the more stable dual element gases.

In all the graphs CO2 goes up what makes it go down?

There are lots of graphs that show changes in CO2 both up and down. Our planet Earth actually breaths and there is an annual CO2 cycle in the atmosphere. In the summer plants absorb CO2 and graphically this is represented by a down spike. In the winter CO2 levels go up. Because the northern hemisphere has a larger continental mass than the southern, a graph showing CO2 concentrations displays lower CO2 levels in the northern summer and higher levels in its winter. More biomass in the north means less CO2. But I think you are asking if there is within the geological record periods of time when there was less CO2. And there is strong physical evidence of many periods of lower CO2 just as there are periods in the recent geological record (the last 55 million years or so) when CO2 levels are higher than today.. From ice, sediment and rock cores we can trace the rise and fall of CO2 levels corresponding to glacial and interglacial periods.

If CO2 drives temperature up what makes the temperature go down?

CO2 is only one element in a complex of many elements on this planet. We know that water vapour is a greenhouse gas but cloud cover which consists of water vapour as clouds decreases the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface. So although water vapour and higher humidity increases heat capacity, cloud cover reflects sun light and reduces the amount of solar radiation striking the earth. Ice such as in the glaciers of the Antarctic and the sea ice of the Arctic are highly reflective so that solar radiation bounces back into space. Deserts reflect solar radiation while forests absorb radiation. Deserts may be hot during the day but they chill down dramatically at night because the sand has very low heat capacity.

What else can make the overall temperature go down? Less greenhouse gases because these gases have higher heat capacity than the dominant atmospheric gases and change the overall heat capacity of the atmosphere. We can little to alter the natural carbon cycle of the planet but we can do something about the industrial carbon cycle that increases CO2 and other greenhouse gases in sufficient quantity to change our climate.

Wouldn’t the air temperature in Antarctica have to be above 0 before the surface ice will melt?

Antarctica is a very interesting case. Since the continental plate moved to its present position some 35 million years ago it has become an isolated land mass completely surrounded by ocean. This has contributed greatly to its glaciation and it has been pretty much ice bound for much of those 35 million years. Today Antarctica seldom sees 0 as a daytime temperature. But increasingly we are seeing temperature spikes and sustained daytime temperatures above 0 in some areas of Antarctica and the areas in question are close to ice shelves like the Larsen and Ross. When these ice shelves begin to break up because of the increasing warmth of not only the air above but the water below, heated by air, then we alter the nature of Antarctica’s ice system which consists of reasonably stable ice shelves on the edge of the continent holding back the movement of glaciers that form from the snow pack on the continent itself. Without the ice shelf to hold the glaciers back they become more unstable. There are some recent NASA images that show how the ice flows on Antarctica and at what rate it flows from the centre of the continent. We don’t have models complex enough to predict what may happen across Antarctica but one thing we do know. The ice is changing at the ice shelves first and when the shelves go the flow pattern of the glaciers may change. Warmer air, warmer oceans, less sea ice, Antarctica will be altered. Will it be ice free? Probably not for a very long time.

How do the molecules in the atmosphere increase the temperature above the temperature produced by solar radiation to increase the warming of the planet?

See my previous answer about how the CO2 molecule increases the temperature of the earth.

If CO2 is heavier than air and in a cold environment like Antarctica a higher concentration of CO2 would be closer to the surface than would be in a tropical environment, wouldn’t the data on CO2 concentration collected from the ice core data be exaggerated; and by that CO2 concentrations in the past over the whole planet were considerably less than now?

This is a very good question and one that gets asked by those who feel that climate change is a canard. There is a certain logic to what you ask. When we look at the atmospheric composition of trapped air within ice is it only measuring a sample that reflects local atmosphere or is it measuring a global sample? I think that really is your question. The atmospheric engine moves from the equator to the poles and back on a simplistic level. This is like a giant conveyor belt. So air samples trapped in ice reflect global atmospheric conditions not local ones. I think it is important to understand that ice cores are collected not only from Antarctica but from alpine glaciers and Arctic glaciers. If all show a similar pattern of rising levels of CO2, and they do, I think it brings into question the notion that Antarctica has a special relationship with CO2. I think it is worth looking at some of the science behind ice core sampling. A good site to visit is: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology_IceCores/

Your other observation related to the heavier nature of the CO2 molecule has no real bearing on the measuring of air trapped in ice. Heavier or lighter the composition of trapped air should reflect general air composition.

If this is a possibility wouldn’t that alter all computer modeling of future temperature?

Computer modeling is not the issue. Measuring is. We are seeing rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. In parallel we are seeing a rise in average temperatures. We are also witnessing a similar rise in methane. The correlation between these rises and the burning of fossil fuels is pretty compelling.

When an Ice Core is taken and brought to 1 atm from 1+ atm is the pressure differential taken into account when the data is collected?

Let me refer you to the website I provided earlier on the science of collecting ice core samples and the reading of the results from these samples.

As Ice has the maximum reflective ability to Solar radiation, is it air temperature produced by CO2 that is considered in climate modules that will melt the ice?

I’m not sure I understand this question. Ice reflects solar radiation. So this radiation tends not to be captured within the atmosphere. But CO2 molecules do capture infrared radiation and have absorptive properties that qualify as a greenhouse gas.

Do you know the maximum radiation absorption/re-emission ability of CH4, H2O and CO2 molecules in the atmosphere?

I know that when I pose this question in Google I get lots of chemical charts showing absorption capacity for every one of these gases. As much as I know scientists can skew data out of self interest, the IPCC represents hundreds of the best science institutes and minds focused on the issue of climate change and atmospheric warming. There are numerous publications dealing with the chemistry of the atmosphere and the absorptive and adsorptive rates of greenhouse gases.

Keep asking questions. But better yet look for solutions from within our technical competence as humans. Because that’s what this blog is exploring – solving human problems through the application of 21st century technologies.