Cosmic Rays and Climate

By J. Kirkby. 2005

250 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Among the most puzzling questions in climate change is that of solar-climate variability, which has attracted the attention of scientists for more than two centuries. Until recently, even the existence of solar-climate variability has been controversial—perhaps because the observations had largely involved correlations between climate and the sunspot cycle that had persisted for only a few decades. Over the last few years, however, diverse reconstructions of past climate change have revealed clear associations with cosmic ray variations recorded in cosmogenic isotope archives, providing persuasive evidence for solar or cosmic ray forcing of the climate. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established. Although this remains a mystery, observations suggest that cloud cover may be influenced by cosmic rays, which are modulated by the solar wind and, on longer time scales, by the geomagnetic field and by the galactic environment of Earth. Two different classes of microphysical mechanisms have been proposed to connect cosmic rays with clouds: firstly, an influence of cosmic rays on the production of cloud condensation nuclei and, secondly, an influence of cosmic rays on the global electrical circuit in the atmosphere and, in turn, on ice nucleation and other cloud microphysical processes. Considerable progress on understanding ion–aerosol–cloud processes has been made in recent years, and the results are suggestive of a physically-plausible link between cosmic rays, clouds and climate. However, a concerted effort is now required to carry out definitive laboratory measurements of the fundamental physical and chemical processes involved, and to evaluate their climatic significance with dedicated field observations and modelling studies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/562dbab718b4a5b7eb8c12e79ced29970497bc1b

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. D. Shindell
2. J. Pongratz
3. G. Myhre
4. Nicola Scafetta
5. M. Lockwood

In Atmospheric Science

1. G. Myhre
2. J. Pongratz
3. M. Lockwood
4. Nicola Scafetta
5. D. Shindell
6. Piers M. Forster
7. K. Shine

Citations in the corpus

• Solar change and climate: an update in the light of the current exceptional solar minimum (2010, background): “The suggestion that cosmic rays can modulate the formation of some clouds (see review by Kirkby 2007) would influence equation (2.2) through effects on the albedo, A , and via the greenhouse term, G .”
• Solar Influence on Global and Regional Climates (2012, background): “As predicted and inferred by Kodera (2002) and Kodera and Kuroda (2005), this anomaly amplifies as it propagates polewards and downwards during autumn and winter, giving a weaker polar vortex in December–January at solar minimum.”
• Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications (2010, background): “This synchronizat on mechanism acts in addition and together with other more direct mechanisms such as irradiance forcing and cloud modulation via cosmic ray flux [Kirkby, 2007; Svensmarket al., 2009], and contributes to magnifying the climatic eff ct of a weak astronomical periodic forcing.”
• Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing (2014, background): “It has been hypothesized that cosmic ray flux create atmospheric ions which facilitates aerosol nucleation and new particle formation with a further impact on cloud formation (Dickinson, 1975; Kirkby, 2007).”