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Svensmark, Shaviv and Veizer in Their Own Words

Jack Hays said:
The AGW believers routinely go on at length in their denunciations of the cosmoclimatologists. It seems only fair to let Svensmark, Shaviv and Veizer speak for themselves.

The Cloud Mystery - Svensmark, Shaviv & Veizer - YouTube
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I found that I had to watch it in stages, since it's almost an hour in length and I kept getting interruptions! - phone calls, dog that wanted to go for a walk, etc. I believe I have seen this before, but it's so interesting I didn't mind watching it again! :thumbs:
 
Jack Hays said:
The AGW believers routinely go on at length in their denunciations of the cosmoclimatologists. It seems only fair to let Svensmark, Shaviv and Veizer speak for themselves.

The Cloud Mystery - Svensmark, Shaviv & Veizer - YouTube
Click to expand...

I was surprised that Shaviv mentioned cool temperatures and high CO2 levels around 450 million years ago (~36 minutes in), since the Royal Society paper publication (2012) with which the video ends actually focuses quite a bit on trying to explain the general correlation between CO2 and temperatures over time.

In fact mentioning that period - the Andean-Saharan ice age, at the end of the Ordovician period (460-420 million years ago) - would seem to be a little counter-productive, at least if they expected any of their viewers to do some basic research: If it were true that the passage into and out of the galaxy's spiral arms were the primary driver of climate over geological timescales, then surely looking at the very broadest possible guage of global climate - the binary ice/non-ice distinction - we would expect a fairly strong pattern in the times between and during successive ice ages. But instead, what we see looks more like this:
300 million years of ice (Huronian ice age from 2.4 billion years ago)
1250 million years without ice
220 million years of ice (Cryogenian from 850 million years ago)
170 million years without ice
40 million years of ice (Andean-Sarahan from 460 million years ago)
60 million years without ice
100 million years of ice (Karoo ice age from 360 million years ago)
257 million years without ice (current ice age began ~3 million years ago)

And in the specific case of the Andean-Saharan, quite contrary to the video's implication there seems to be some evidence that (while its levels were higher than today's) a decline in CO2 in fact may have been one of the causes of the major glaciation. With another major factor having been continental position/drift, the role for cosmic radiation would apparently have been rather minor (if there were any at all). From the conclusions of one study cited by Wikipedia:
"Our data are consistent with the notion that a long-term drop in pCO2 due to increased silicate weathering (Kump et al., 1999; Saltzman and Young, 2005; Young et al., 2009) possibly also combined with reduced poleward ocean heat transport (Herrmann et al., 2004) resulted in the initial stage of glaciation beginning prior to Stage 1 in Fig. 9."
~ Young et al 2010; Did changes in atmospheric CO2 coincide with latest Ordovician glacial–interglacial cycles?​

Continued below...
 
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Unfortunately, this quirk of the video is actually consistent with what I've previously seen of the paper in question: Alternative possibilities (even when obvious and/or well-established) seem to be blithely ignored or glossed over by Svensmark in favour of his own, much more speculative notions. For example, in the 2012 Royal Astronomical Society paper, Svensmark attempts to explain the general correlation between CO2 and temperatures over geological time-frames by invoking a somewhat convoluted method whereby his cosmic radiation might produce the CO2 change also!

Likewise, clearly problematic or contrary evidence (such as the lack of expected symmetry between ice and non-ice age conditions highlighted above) have - so far as I've yet seen - not been addressed at all: On the contrary, the most telling point I noticed in previous discussions is that the cosmic radiation levels apparently did not change between 1970 and 2005 (or likewise between 1983 and 2004) - yet somehow changes in cosmic radiation levels are supposed to be responsible for changes in cloud cover, which in turn are responsible for the long-term changes in temperature!

Admittedly Jack the Parrot can hardly be expected to produce an intelligent response to any kind of scientific issue, so unless he happens to have found something relevant to copy and paste in response (or, in his more common random desperate C&P spam replies, happens to hit on something by luck), his ongoing failure to address such relatively obvious criticisms really doesn't mean much. But it does seem, from what I've so far encountered, that scepticism towards Svensmark's fringe theories is entirely justified. Whether or not cosmic radiation plays some role in modulating cloud formation from year to year, there seems to be little or no reason to suppose that it controls any long-term trends.

(Some more information available in these posts...)
Thread: 'Svensmark wins again,' Post #3

Thread: 'Svensmark wins again,' Post #10

Thread: 'Scientific Consensus has gotten a bad repuation and doesn't deserve it,' Post #98
 
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Deuce said:
On the contrary, Svensmark in particular is well-respected in the community.
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Is he? I know that the IPCC reports (at least, I've seen the passages in the 2001 TAR and if memory serves in the 2013 AR5) make note of the cosmic-radiation-drives-climate theory, but consider it unsubstantiated/insufficiently supported by evidence. It may well be that at the most basic level cosmic radiation modulates cloud formation - there seems to be some correlation from the graphs I've seen on that - but the notion that it's a major driver of long-term temperature trends, and particularly of the modern warming, does not seem to have much going for it (again from what little I've seen).

If that's the case I can't see how presenting himself with a Galileo complex (as in the OP video) and essentially slurring all the scientists who disagree with him would earn him much respect amongst his peers.

He does have a pleasant accent and speaking voice, I'll give him that :)
 
Mithrae said:
I was surprised that Shaviv mentioned cool temperatures and high CO2 levels around 450 million years ago (~36 minutes in), since the Royal Society paper publication (2012) with which the video ends actually focuses quite a bit on trying to explain the general correlation between CO2 and temperatures over time.

In fact mentioning that period - the Andean-Saharan ice age, at the end of the Ordovician period (460-420 million years ago) - would seem to be a little counter-productive, at least if they expected any of their viewers to do some basic research: If it were true that the passage into and out of the galaxy's spiral arms were the primary driver of climate over geological timescales, then surely looking at the very broadest possible guage of global climate - the binary ice/non-ice distinction - we would expect a fairly strong pattern in the times between and during successive ice ages. But instead, what we see looks more like this:
300 million years of ice (Huronian ice age from 2.4 billion years ago)
1250 million years without ice
220 million years of ice (Cryogenian from 850 million years ago)
170 million years without ice
40 million years of ice (Andean-Sarahan from 460 million years ago)
60 million years without ice
100 million years of ice (Karoo ice age from 360 million years ago)
257 million years without ice (current ice age began ~3 million years ago)

And in the specific case of the Andean-Saharan, quite contrary to the video's implication there seems to be some evidence that (while its levels were higher than today's) a decline in CO2 in fact may have been one of the causes of the major glaciation. With another major factor having been continental position/drift, the role for cosmic radiation would apparently have been rather minor (if there were any at all). From the conclusions of one study cited by Wikipedia:
"Our data are consistent with the notion that a long-term drop in pCO2 due to increased silicate weathering (Kump et al., 1999; Saltzman and Young, 2005; Young et al., 2009) possibly also combined with reduced poleward ocean heat transport (Herrmann et al., 2004) resulted in the initial stage of glaciation beginning prior to Stage 1 in Fig. 9."
~ Young et al 2010; Did changes in atmospheric CO2 coincide with latest Ordovician glacial–interglacial cycles?​

Continued below...
Click to expand...

Mithrae said:
Unfortunately, this quirk of the video is actually consistent with what I've previously seen of the paper in question: Alternative possibilities (even when obvious and/or well-established) seem to be blithely ignored or glossed over by Svensmark in favour of his own, much more speculative notions. For example, in the 2012 Royal Astronomical Society paper, Svensmark attempts to explain the general correlation between CO2 and temperatures over geological time-frames by invoking a somewhat convoluted method whereby his cosmic radiation might produce the CO2 change also!

Likewise, clearly problematic or contrary evidence (such as the lack of expected symmetry between ice and non-ice age conditions highlighted above) have - so far as I've yet seen - not been addressed at all: On the contrary, the most telling point I noticed in previous discussions is that the cosmic radiation levels apparently did not change between 1970 and 2005 (or likewise between 1983 and 2004) - yet somehow changes in cosmic radiation levels are supposed to be responsible for changes in cloud cover, which in turn are responsible for the long-term changes in temperature! . . .
Click to expand...

For non-scientists like me, the late Nigel Calder provided the best overview of Svensmark's 2012 paper I have seen.

A stellar revision of the story of life | Calder's Updates

https://calderup.wordpress.com/.../a-stellar-revision-of-the-story-of-life/


Apr 24, 2012 - Climate Change: News and Comments and The Svensmark Hypothesis Svensmark's Cosmic Jackpot Today the Royal Astronomical Society in ...
 
A stellar revision of the story of life | Calder's Updates

https://calderup.wordpress.com/.../a-stellar-revision-of-the-story-of-life/


Apr 24, 2012 - Climate Change: News and Comments and The Svensmark Hypothesis Svensmark's Cosmic Jackpot Today the Royal Astronomical Society in ...

". . . In Svensmark’s new paper an equally concise theory, that cosmic rays from exploded stars cool the world by increasing the cloud cover, leads to amazing explanations, not least for why evolution sometimes was rampant and sometimes faltered. In both senses of the word, this is a stellar revision of the story of life.

Here are the main results:
The long-term diversity of life in the sea depends on the sea-level set by plate tectonics and the local supernova rate set by the astrophysics, and on virtually nothing else.
The long-term primary productivity of life in the sea – the net growth of photosynthetic microbes – depends on the supernova rate, and on virtually nothing else.
Exceptionally close supernovae account for short-lived falls in sea-level during the past 500 million years, long-known to geophysicists but never convincingly explained..
As the geological and astronomical records converge, the match between climate and supernova rates gets better and better, with high rates bringing icy times.
Presented with due caution as well as with consideration for the feelings of experts in several fields of research, a story unfolds in which everything meshes like well-made clockwork. Anyone who wishes to pooh-pooh any piece of it by saying “correlation is not necessarily causality” should offer some other mega-theory that says why several mutually supportive coincidences arise between events in our galactic neighbourhood and living conditions on the Earth.
An amusing point is that Svensmark stands the currently popular carbon dioxide story on its head. Some geoscientists want to blame the drastic alternations of hot and icy conditions during the past 500 million years on increases and decreases in carbon dioxide, which they explain in intricate ways. For Svensmark, the changes driven by the stars govern the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Climate and life control CO2, not the other way around. . . . "
 
https://www.ias.edu/ias-letter/2015/shaviv-cosmic-rays

". . . The results have two particularly interesting implications. First, they bring yet another link between the galactic environment and the terrestrial climate. Although there is no direct evidence that cosmic rays are the actual link on the 32-million-year time scale, as far as we know, they are the only link that can explain these observations. This in turn strengthens the idea that cosmic ray variations through solar activity affect the climate. In this picture, solar activity increase is responsible for about half of the twentieth-century global warming through a reduction of the cosmic ray flux, leaving less to be explained by anthropogenic activity. Also, in this picture, climate sensitivity is on the low side (perhaps 1 to 1.5°C increase per CO2 doubling, compared with the 1.5 to 4.5°C range advocated by the IPCC), implying that the future is not as dire as often prophesied. . . .
It should be noted that the idea that cosmic rays affect the climate is by no means generally accepted. The link is contentious and it has attracted significant opponents over the years because of its ramifications to our understanding of recent and future climate change. For it to be finally accepted, one has to understand all the microphysics and chemistry associated with it. For this reason, we are now carrying out a lab experiment to pinpoint the mechanism responsible for linking atmospheric ions and cloud condensation nuclei. This should solidify a complete theory to explain the empirical evidence. . . ."
 
Climate News
Is the Solar System’s Galactic Motion Imprinted in the Phanerozoic Climate?

Guest essay by Kirby Schlaht Nir Joseph Shaviv is an Israeli-American physics professor, carrying out research in the fields of astrophysics and climate science. He is a professor at the Racah Institute of Physics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.He is also a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is best…

". . . In 2014 Shaviv and coworkers published the paper “Is the Solar System’s Galactic Motion Imprinted in the Phanerozoic Climate?in Scientific Reports. Fossil shells, mainly brachiopods with some conodonts and belemnites are proposed as chronometers with a physical mechanism inferred to exists to link the solar system’s vertical motion through the galaxy to the terrestrial climate

The motion of the solar system through the galaxy. The main components (relevant to climate on Earth) are the periodic passages through the galactic spiral arms as it revolves around the galaxy, and the motion of the solar system perpendicular to the galactic plane (the horizontal “wavelength” of that motion is actually longer than portrayed in the cartoon
Abstract:
“A new δ18O Phanerozoic database, based on 24,000 low-Mg calcitic fossil shells, yields a prominent 32 Ma oscillation with a secondary 175 Ma frequency modulation. The periodicities and phases of these oscillations are consistent with parameters postulated for the vertical motion of the solar system across the galactic plane, modulated by the radial epicyclic motion. We propose therefore that the galactic motion left an imprint on the terrestrial climate record. Based on its vertical motion, the effective average galactic density encountered by the solar system … suggests the presence of a disk dark matter component.” . . .
 
Israeli scientist Nir Shaviv recently posted at his site an article on the effects of cosmic radiation on climate. At the end he summarizes:
The results have two particularly interesting implications. First, they bring yet another link between the galactic environment and the terrestrial climate. Although there is no direct evidence that cosmic rays are the actual link on the 32-million-year time scale, as far as we know, they are the only link that can explain these observations. This in turn strengthens the idea that cosmic ray variations through solar activity affect the climate. In this picture, solar activity increase is responsible for about half of the twentieth-century global warming through a reduction of the cosmic ray flux, leaving less to be explained by anthropogenic activity. Also, in this picture, climate sensitivity is on the low side (perhaps 1 to 1.5°C increase per CO2 doubling, compared with the 1.5 to 4.5°C range advocated by the IPCC), implying that the future is not as dire as often prophesied.
The second interesting implication is the actual value of the 32-million-year oscillation. The relatively short period indicates that there is more mass in the galactic plane than accounted for in stars and interstellar gas, leaving the remainder as dark matter. However, this amount of dark matter is more than would be expected if it were distributed sparsely in a puffed-up halo as is generally expected. In other words, this excess mass requires at least some of the dark matter to condense into the disk. If correct, it will close a circle that started in the 1960s when Edward Hill and Jan Oort suggested, based on kinematic evidence, that there is more matter at the plane than observed. This inconsistency and indirect evidence for dark matter was also advocated by John Bahcall, who for many years was a Faculty member here at the IAS.”​
Read the entire post here.
 
Mithrae said:
...
Admittedly Jack the Parrot can hardly be expected to produce an intelligent response to any kind of scientific issue, so unless he happens to have found something relevant to copy and paste in response (or, in his more common random desperate C&P spam replies, happens to hit on something by luck), his ongoing failure to address such relatively obvious criticisms really doesn't mean much.
...
Click to expand...

He's one of the 10 (they might all be the same person) or so agit prop peddlers that spend their life spamming this site with pro corporate / right-wing garbage. Why they are not stopped (paid contract?) I don't know.
 
Verax said:
He's one of the 10 (they might all be the same person) or so agit prop peddlers that spend their life spamming this site with pro corporate / right-wing garbage. Why they are not stopped (paid contract?) I don't know.
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I am but a humble servant of the data.
 
Verax said:
He's one of the 10 (they might all be the same person) or so agit prop peddlers that spend their life spamming this site with pro corporate / right-wing garbage. Why they are not stopped (paid contract?) I don't know.
Click to expand...

Well at least he didn't disappoint on the 'random desperate C&P spam replies' side of things :lol: It's almost a shame he didn't get lucky; none of the spam answers the objections raised. Hell, one of his links was my original source, when he first posted it, for the most serious (and obvious) flaw in the theory; there's been no long-term change in cosmic radiation levels between the 1970s and the 2000s, so the premise that changes in cosmic radiation levels are responsible for the warming is absurd on the very face of it! In all honesty it seems incredible to me that such a simple, obvious and devastating point could actually be correct (though I suppose it's possible that Svensmark's actual peer-reviewed publications have always carefully skirted around the central notion which he promotes on YouTube), but like I say we could hardly expect a coherent response from a parrot.
 
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Mithrae said:
Well at least he didn't disappoint on the 'random desperate C&P spam replies' side of things :lol: It's almost a shame he didn't get lucky; none of the spam answers the objections raised. Hell, one of his links was my original source, when he first posted it, for the most serious (and obvious) flaw in the theory; there's been no long-term change in cosmic radiation levels between the 1970s and the 2000s, so the premise that changes in cosmic radiation levels are responsible for the warming is absurd on the very face of it! In all honesty it seems incredible to me that such a simple, obvious and devastating point could actually be correct (though I suppose it's possible that Svensmark's actual peer-reviewed publications have always carefully skirted around the central notion which he promotes on YouTube), but like I say we could hardly expect a coherent response from a parrot.
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Hah, I forgot that's what originally motivated me to reply was seeing his c&p replies spasm then I forgot about that aspect... that was funny.

Hmm, the last time I looked into Svens work it was the same issue. When others looked at the data they couldn't find the same correlation, it just doesn't line up. I believe their conclusion was that at best it could have less than 10% influence of some kind.
 
Mithrae said:
Well at least he didn't disappoint on the 'random desperate C&P spam replies' side of things :lol: It's almost a shame he didn't get lucky; none of the spam answers the objections raised. Hell, one of his links was my original source, when he first posted it, for the most serious (and obvious) flaw in the theory; there's been no long-term change in cosmic radiation levels between the 1970s and the 2000s, so the premise that changes in cosmic radiation levels are responsible for the warming is absurd on the very face of it! In all honesty it seems incredible to me that such a simple, obvious and devastating point could actually be correct (though I suppose it's possible that Svensmark's actual peer-reviewed publications have always carefully skirted around the central notion which he promotes on YouTube), but like I say we could hardly expect a coherent response from a parrot.
Click to expand...
I have only read a bit on Svensmark's work, but from what I understand the amount of cosmic radiation
is not the controlling factor. The magnetic fields of the sun control the volume of clouds formed
from cosmic radiation. More magnetic fields, less cosmic radiation gets through to form clouds, we get warmer.
It seems a bit far fetched to me, but so does the amplified warming predicted by the IPCC!
 
Mithrae said:
Well at least he didn't disappoint on the 'random desperate C&P spam replies' side of things :lol: It's almost a shame he didn't get lucky; none of the spam answers the objections raised. Hell, one of his links was my original source, when he first posted it, for the most serious (and obvious) flaw in the theory; there's been no long-term change in cosmic radiation levels between the 1970s and the 2000s, so the premise that changes in cosmic radiation levels are responsible for the warming is absurd on the very face of it! In all honesty it seems incredible to me that such a simple, obvious and devastating point could actually be correct (though I suppose it's possible that Svensmark's actual peer-reviewed publications have always carefully skirted around the central notion which he promotes on YouTube), but like I say we could hardly expect a coherent response from a parrot.
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Your inability to grasp the science is not my problem to fix. As pointed out by another poster, over the short term solar activity has a strong modulating influence on the cosmic rays. As demonstrated in Svensmark's 2012 paper, on longer time scales the changes in cosmic rays and temperature line up very closely. I recommend the link in my #11.
 
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Verax said:
Hah, I forgot that's what originally motivated me to reply was seeing his c&p replies spasm then I forgot about that aspect... that was funny.

Hmm, the last time I looked into Svens work it was the same issue. When others looked at the data they couldn't find the same correlation, it just doesn't line up. I believe their conclusion was that at best it could have less than 10% influence of some kind.
Click to expand...

Mere propaganda.
 
longview said:
I have only read a bit on Svensmark's work, but from what I understand the amount of cosmic radiation
is not the controlling factor. The magnetic fields of the sun control the volume of clouds formed
from cosmic radiation. More magnetic fields, less cosmic radiation gets through to form clouds, we get warmer.
It seems a bit far fetched to me, but so does the amplified warming predicted by the IPCC!
Click to expand...

...and there hasn't been less cosmic radiation getting through over the past 40+ years. Last night I found a 2014 PNAS study (I'll post the link when I get home) with a proxy-based estimate of incoming cosmic radiation back to 1900, and by that measure there had been a small change in cosmic radiation earlier in the century, consistent with patterns of solar activity. So, at most, the proposed mechanism might be a modest increase on top of known solar warming, without having any real effect on the GHG attributions. But that same study suggested that the level of correlation was best understood at the inter-annual (rather than inter-decadal) level.

That'd suggest a modulation of cloud formation patterns, perhaps, but not an influence strong enough to drive long-term trends. As I pointed out in a previous thread, a more obvious factor likely to affect cloud formation are the quantities of water vapour available to condense in the first place. And in fact Svensmark's own 2007 paper indirectly suggests some degree of POSITIVE correlation between temperature and cloud cover during the 1990s; lower temps/cloud cover earlier in the decade, rising to a peak in 1998 and falling dramatically down to 1999. That's precisely what we'd expect if more evaporation was a significant contributor to cloud formation - though Svensmark's graph claimed a correlation between clouds and cosmic radiation also - but precisely the OPPOSITE of his suggested cloud/temperature relationship.

The graphs etc. can be found at the first DP thread link in my earlier posts. Go ahead and make a bet with yourself on whether our resident "humble servant of the data" displayed any acknowledgement (or even understanding) of this data.
 
longview said:
I have only read a bit on Svensmark's work, but from what I understand the amount of cosmic radiation
is not the controlling factor. The magnetic fields of the sun control the volume of clouds formed
from cosmic radiation. More magnetic fields, less cosmic radiation gets through to form clouds, we get warmer.
It seems a bit far fetched to me, but so does the amplified warming predicted by the IPCC!
Click to expand...
The changing magnetic field actually makes a lot of sense as a significant variable.
 
Mithrae said:
Well at least he didn't disappoint on the 'random desperate C&P spam replies' side of things :lol: It's almost a shame he didn't get lucky; none of the spam answers the objections raised. Hell, one of his links was my original source, when he first posted it, for the most serious (and obvious) flaw in the theory; there's been no long-term change in cosmic radiation levels between the 1970s and the 2000s, so the premise that changes in cosmic radiation levels are responsible for the warming is absurd on the very face of it! In all honesty it seems incredible to me that such a simple, obvious and devastating point could actually be correct (though I suppose it's possible that Svensmark's actual peer-reviewed publications have always carefully skirted around the central notion which he promotes on YouTube), but like I say we could hardly expect a coherent response from a parrot.
Click to expand...

Your "simple, obvious and devastating point" is merely your own failure to study the problem. Stellar cosmic rays are only half the story. The other half is solar activity, which happens to have been at an historic maximum in the late 20th century. I again refer you to the link in my #11.

[h=1]Paper demonstrates solar activity was at a grand maximum in the late 20th century[/h] Solar activity measured by isotope proxies revealed the end of 20th century was the highest activity in 1200 years A 2010 paper (that I somehow missed) was recently highlighted by the blog The Hockey Schtick and I thought it worth mentioning here even if a bit past the publish date. The work by Ilya G.…
 
Verax said:
Hah, I forgot that's what originally motivated me to reply was seeing his c&p replies spasm then I forgot about that aspect... that was funny.

Hmm, the last time I looked into Svens work it was the same issue. When others looked at the data they couldn't find the same correlation, it just doesn't line up. I believe their conclusion was that at best it could have less than 10% influence of some kind.
Click to expand...

As I have already recommended to Mithrae (in #17 and #21), you too might usefully visit the link in my #11 to study the science before you embarrass yourself further.
 
Jack Hays said:
From 2010 and 2007? A very poor effort on your part.
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2010 and 2013. Being that his earlier work was shown to be weak and at times flat out wrong I don't really place much importance on what he has done since.
 
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