13.07.2015 Views

Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate - Science ...

Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate - Science ...

Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate - Science ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

a clear indication of corresponding changes ingalactic cosmic rays (GCR), which are modulatedby variations in solar activity. The oxygen-18values are proxies for a climate parameter, liketemperature or precipitation, from a shift in <strong>the</strong>Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Thecorrelation extends well over 3,000 years, withamazingly detailed correspondence. The bottomgraph shows <strong>the</strong> central 400 years expanded and isaccurate on almost a yearly basis, making acause-effect relationship very likely.The best explanation for <strong>the</strong>se observations, andsimilar ones elsewhere, is that – as has long beenrecognized [Singer 1958] – GCR intensity ismodulated by <strong>the</strong> strength of <strong>the</strong> solar wind and itsmagnetic field. More recently, a detailed mechanismwhereby cosmic rays can affect cloudiness and<strong>the</strong>refore climate has been suggested and verifiedexperimentally by Henrik Svensmark [2007a,b].More detailed work is to take place under <strong>the</strong>CLOUD project proposed by a group of scientists atCERN, <strong>the</strong> world’s largest particle accelerator.Solar <strong>Activity</strong> and <strong>Climate</strong> (as seen by proxies)12Figure 14: Values of carbon-14 (produced by cosmic rays – hence a proxy for solar activity)correlate extremely well with oxygen-18 (climate proxy); data are from a stalagmite in Oman [Neff2001]. The time interval covers more than 3,000 years, from about 9,600 to 6,200 years beforepresent (BP). The lower graph shows a particularly well-resolved time interval from 8,350 to 7,900years BP. It would be difficult to explain this detailed correlation except through <strong>the</strong> modulation ofgalactic cosmic rays by changes in <strong>the</strong> solar wind and solar magnetic activity [Singer 1958]. Themechanism whereby cosmic rays influence terrestrial climate is most likely a change in cloudiness,as suggested by Svensmark [2007a, 2007b].

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!