Greenhouse Gases, Cosmic
Rays and Mathematical
Models
What Science Really Tells Us About
Climate Change
Dr. Terry Flower, ICCC9, July 2014
What I will tell you
• What Science is capable of telling us
What I will tell you
• What Science is capable of telling us
• Greenhouse Gases
What I will tell you
• What Science is capable of telling us
• Greenhouse Gases
• Cosmic Rays and the Sun
What I will tell you
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What Science is capable of telling us
Greenhouse Gases
Cosmic Rays and the Sun
Mathematical Modeling
What I will tell you
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What Science is capable of telling us
Greenhouse Gases
Cosmic Rays and the Sun
Mathematical Modeling
What I predict will be the future trend
Science has been successful
• We got to the moon
Science has been successful
• We got to the moon
• We’ve made medical advances
Science has been successful
• We got to the moon
• We’ve made medical advances
• Look at computers
Science has been successful
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We got to the moon
We’ve made medical advances
Look at computers
The digital age
Science has been successful
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We got to the moon
We’ve made medical advances
Look at computers
The digital age
Hubble Space Telescope
Science has been successful
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We got to the moon
We’ve made medical advances
Look at computers
The digital age
Hubble Space Telescope
Missions to the Solar System
Science vs. Pseudo-Science
TV Commercials
make connections
between science and
their product
Department Names at Universities
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Mathematical Science
Family, Consumer and Nutrition Science
Exercise Science
Social Science
Political Science
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas Kuhn, 1962
• How Science is done
• Scientists perform experiments to reenforce
the existing “Paradigm”
• Existing “Paradigm” leads to crisis
• New “Paradigm”
• Vast differences between political and
scientific revolutions but both have a common
metaphor
Parallelism in Science and Politics
• Both cease to meet needs of (at least) a
segment of both communities that they
themselves created
• The sense of malfunction leads to crisis
• Choice of a paradigm cannot be settled by
logic and experiment alone – it depends on
what works rather than truth itself
Water Vapor - the Main Greenhouse Gas
• Eric Fetzer, an atmospheric scientist who
works with AIRS data at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Water vapor is
the big player in the atmosphere as far as
climate is concerned.“
• If we don’t understand water vapor
contributions we don’t understand the
climate.
Clouds are not well understood
Clouds
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Cover 65% of the Earth, on the average
Can have a net cooling effect of 30 W/m2
Anthropogenic sources are 1.6 W/m2 total
Need to include cooling effect of clouds
Solar Activity and Climate Connection
Inactive sun (low sunspot
peak, long cycle length) > cold
climate
Active sun (high sunspot peak,
short cycle length) > warm
climate
Solar magnetic field deflects
galactic cosmic rays.
• Lower B field → increased GCR → increased
monsoon intensity
• Henrik Svensmark – The Chilling Stars an
explanation of the physical mechanism, not
yet confirmed
Cloud – GCR Effects
• Original GCR-cloud correlation made by Svensmark & Friis-Christensen, 1997
• Many studies since then supporting or disputing solar/GCR - cloud correlation
• Not independent - most use the same ISCCP satellite cloud dataset
• No firm conclusion yet - requires more data - but, if there is an effect, it is likely
to be restricted to certain regions of globe and at certain altitudes & conditions
• •Eg. correlation (>90% sig.) of low cloud amount and solar UV/GCR,1984-2004:
• Aerosol chamber +
state-of-the-art
analyzing instruments
in CERN PS beamline
• Laboratory expts. under
precisely controlled
conditions (T, trace
gases, aerosols, ions)
• Study aerosol
nucleation & growth;
and cloud droplet & ice
particle microphysics
Orbiting Carbon Observatory Launched July 2
Satellites in “A-Train”
• Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), which launched
July 2, will be the A-Train's sixth member. Its mission is to
measure atmospheric carbon dioxide
• Information on aerosols and clouds from CALIPSO and
CloudSat, we can use that information to estimate the
amount of absorption of sunlight by these airborne
particles, which is something we cannot currently do,
• MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer),
an instrument on the Aqua satellite, tracks cloud cover.
AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder), another Aqua
instrument, measures air temperature and the amount of
water content in the atmosphere. To accurately measure
carbon dioxide
Poincare’ (1854-1912)
• New Methods of Celestial Mechanics, 1892
Poincare’ (1854-1912)
• New Methods of Celestial Mechanics, 1892
• Nonlinear dynamical equations are subject to
Poincare’ (1854-1912)
• New Methods of Celestial Mechanics, 1892
• Nonlinear dynamical equations are subject to
• Sensitivity to initial conditions
Poincare’ (1854-1912)
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New Methods of Celestial Mechanics, 1892
Nonlinear dynamical equations are subject to
Sensitivity to initial conditions
Unpredictably chaotic outcomes
Ocean Levels
Summary and Forecast
• Climate has continually varied in the past, and the causes are not
well understood - especially on the 100 year timescale relevant for
today’s climate change
Summary and Forecast
• Climate has continually varied in the past, and the causes are not
well understood - especially on the 100 year timescale relevant for
today’s climate change
• Space satellites will show water vapor’s dominant role as a
greenhouse gas
Summary and Forecast
• Climate has continually varied in the past, and the causes are not
well understood - especially on the 100 year timescale relevant for
today’s climate change
• Space satellites will show water vapor’s dominant role as a
greenhouse gas
• Strong evidence for solar-climate variability, but no established
mechanism. A cosmic ray influence on clouds is a leading candidate.
Research will confirm this mechanism in a controlled laboratory
experiment; satellites can help our understanding
Summary and Forecast
• Climate has continually varied in the past, and the causes are not
well understood - especially on the 100 year timescale relevant for
today’s climate change
• Space satellites will show water vapor’s dominant role as a
greenhouse gas
• Strong evidence for solar-climate variability, but no established
mechanism. A cosmic ray influence on clouds is a leading candidate.
Research will confirm this mechanism in a controlled laboratory
experiment; satellites can help our understanding
• The question of whether - and to what extent - the climate is
influenced by solar/cosmic ray variability remains central to our
understanding of anthropogenic climate change
Summary and Forecast
• Climate has continually varied in the past, and the causes are not
well understood - especially on the 100 year timescale relevant for
today’s climate change
• Space satellites will show water vapor’s dominant role as a
greenhouse gas
• Strong evidence for solar-climate variability, but no established
mechanism. A cosmic ray influence on clouds is a leading candidate.
Research will confirm this mechanism in a controlled laboratory
experiment; satellites can help our understanding
• The question of whether - and to what extent - the climate is
influenced by solar/cosmic ray variability remains central to our
understanding of anthropogenic climate change
• Crisis of conformity; Political Correctness will continue to be
problematic