Cosmic Rays and Climate

[Whomp]

There is a lot of study being done on mitigation, you may have heard about the 25 million dollar prize recently offered by Richad Branson (chairman of The Virgin Group) for viable carbon sequestration. I don't know what the balance of funding is in the field as a whole, it comes from both government and industry though. As far as mitigation probably more from industry. I'm not sure what you mean by 'commercially viable' in this context.

Interesting. I was not aware of Richard Branson's offer.
I mean commercially viable, for instance, with hybrids. The technology is there but it needs a little governmental push and commercial fleets (IE govt. vehicles, taxis, buses etc) to buy in and bring the economies of scale to the market. The consumer will follow.

We might do well to institute some form of carbon emission trading, as has already been done for sulfur emissions in the US. But if public opinion were strong enough it would be unnecessary IMO.

I'm familiar with the climate exchange and it seems to be gaining strength since capital markets reward environmentally superior companies.
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/news/index.html
This happened on the exchange last week.

Carbon Resource Management has successfully registered the first carbon credits originating from a windfarm project in China at the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and executed on the CCX trading platform.

The carbon credits originate from a wind farm in Northeast China where 23 wind turbines have been installed, each with a power output of 1,500 kW. The project is expected to generate approximately 74 GWh of electricity per year. A total of 74,779 credits were traded at the CCX, corresponding to the period from October 2005 to August 2006. Further credits for the following years are expected to be verified and registered for trading at the CCX at a later date.

Nick Clarke, CRM's CEO said: "The success of delivering and trading verified emissions from China to the CCX demonstrates that the mechanisms are in place to effect carbon trading worldwide and that this is the solution for tackling climate change."

 

[Gothmog]

@Perfection - I don't know about Al Gore other than hearsay. He gave a talk at the Fall AGU in 2006, I was at the meeting but didn't attend the talk.

@Whomp - hybrids still burn oil. AFAIKT we are still going to burn every last bit of oil and coal, unless/until it becomes not economically viable to do so. The only question is how fast and remember that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is a couple few hundred years depending on oceanic and biospheric responses.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Some serious and interesting info here. :b: I wonder why our funny GW deniers are not already here poluting the thread.

BTW i know of ion mediated condensation becuase organic chemistry but i was not aware of it being a mechanism in cloud formation.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

About GW mitigation i read somewhere that there are some ideas about using huge desertic areas to plant some sort of genetic modified grass usable as biodiesel which results in net removal of several tons of atmospheric CO2 per hectare/year. But I wonder if that would have some immediate effect in temperatures.

 

[batteryacid]

Heard about this correlation in an Aerosol physics seminar; the correlation between sunspot activity and temperature is there, the proposed mechnism is an increased production of ionic species in the upper troposphere due to High energy radiation which then has impacts on cloud height distributions and droplet size distributions (Reason for this is, that ionic condensation nuclei are much more efficient to form droplets than neutral ones due to the dipolar energy terms when water molecules attach)

The whole proposal is still a bit shaky and debated in the sceintific community as I understood it, but some kind of vast nucleation chamber with some high-energy ray device attachments was to be built in CERN or some Max-Plank institute to study this mechanism more closely

 

[Goa]

Heard about this correlation in an Aerosol physics seminar; the correlation between sunspot activity and temperature is there, the proposed mechnism is an increased production of ionic species in the upper troposphere due to High energy radiation which then has impacts on cloud height distributions and droplet size distributions (Reason for this is, that ionic condensation nuclei are much more efficient to form droplets than neutral ones due to the dipolar energy terms when water molecules attach)

The whole proposal is still a bit shaky and debated in the sceintific community as I understood it, but some kind of vast nucleation chamber with some high-energy ray device attachments was to be built in CERN or some Max-Plank institute to study this mechanism more closely

Yeah, indeed very interesting physics.
nevertheless, not only is the hypothesis that this mechanism increases earths temperature on shaky ground, but additionally there is no experimental evidence that cosmic radiation has increased systematically over the last hundred years. Contrarilly, it seems to be rather stable.

 

[Gothmog]

@batteryacid, the correlation between sunspot activity and temperature is pretty weak and only occurs at long timescales (at least it isn't occurring in the last 50 years as I show in the OP). That there is any correlation is still in dispute because it depends in part on what proxy data bases are used and what timescales addressed.

It does seem to me that there is some correlation at millennial timescales though.

These are pretty old hypotheses, the milankovitch cycles and their relation to ice ages have been studied since the mid 1800's, and of course the connection between solar activity, aerosols, clouds, and climate forms the basis for the Gaia hypothesis as formulated by Lovelock in the 1960's.

H. Svensmark is doing the chamber studies, but it's at the Centre for Sun-Climate Research in Denmark. The new publication that's been misinterpreted in the press is (H. Svensmark et. al., Proc. R. Soc. A (2007) 463, 385-396). The paper it's self is pretty good, but has problems. Svensmark is also involved in the CERN experiment, known as CLOUD I believe. It is worth studying no doubt.



Here I am going to digress on cloud formation.

Cloud formation is pretty complicated.

In the atmosphere basically all condensation is heterogeneous, that is it occurs on the surface of a pre-existing liquid or solid.

A cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) is an aerosol that acts as a center for condensation at low supersaturation (a few percent), this is typical of supersaturation measured in actual clouds.

In the absence of CCN water vapor will reach high levels of supersaturation (200-400&#37 before forming droplets. The particles that act as centers for condensation under these conditions are known as condensation nuclei.

Now there's all sorts of particles in the atmosphere: sea salt, dust, inorganic salts such as ammonium sulfate, and carbonaceous aerosols (bacteria, bits of plants, soot, etc.). Actually most all aerosols in the atmosphere are a combination of these.

It seems that condensation nuclei actually become CCN as they interact with the atmosphere (chemical reactions, photochemical oxidation, coagulation, etc.). So from a modeling perspective the question becomes what mechanism of CCN formation dominates under a given set of conditions.

One mechanism that influences CCN formation is ion mediated nucleation, which forms condensation nuclei that are thought to be predisposed to becoming CCN due to their charge (and so favorable interaction with the dipole present in molecular water).

Sea salt condensation nuclei are also good though, and so is photochemically aged dust and soot. So there is a competition.

If you look at the Marsh and Svensmark paper (Hypothesis 4 in the OP) they are only claiming a change in low cloud amount of a 2-3% for a 15-25% change in GCR flux.

Here are a couple key references on ion mediated nucleation.

Yu F and RP Turco, 2001. From molecular clusters to nanoparticles: Role of ambient ionization in tropospheric aerosol formation J. Geophys. Res. 106 (D5): 4797-4814

Yu, F and RP Turco, 2000. Ultrafine aerosol formation via ion-mediated nucleation, Geophys. Res. Letts., 27, 883.

 

[Gothmog]

Really it's one of the basic problems with trying to communicate the science behind anthropogenic climate change to the public.

There are lots of boring, complicated, and hard to understand details.

These are also by their nature easy to gloss over and use to reach bad conclusions.

 

[Whomp]

@Whomp - hybrids still burn oil. AFAIKT we are still going to burn every last bit of oil and coal, unless/until it becomes not economically viable to do so. The only question is how fast and remember that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is a couple few hundred years depending on oceanic and biospheric responses.

Understood but quite an improvement over gasoline engines, no?

The University of Chicago and Argonne Labs did a study on energy intensities and emissions profiles of various power trains. Baseline gasoline engines emitted nearly ~475 grams/mile but gasoline hybrids, plug in hybrids and electrics are half of that even with today's dirty power plants. Nuclear, solar and wind would improve these numbers for plug ins and electrics.

If 50% of oil consumption is transportation I'd think this would be an easy first step.

If you're interested page 36-38 of this report discusses the Argonne/U. Chgo. findings.
http://www.calcars.org/alliance-bernstein-hybrids-june06.pdf

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Cloud formation is pretty complicated.

In the atmosphere basically all condensation is heterogeneous, that is it occurs on the surface of a pre-existing liquid or solid.

A cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) is an aerosol that acts as a center for condensation at low supersaturation (a few percent), this is typical of supersaturation measured in actual clouds.

In the absence of CCN water vapor will reach high levels of supersaturation (200-400&#37 before forming droplets. The particles that act as centers for condensation under these conditions are known as condensation nuclei.

Now there's all sorts of particles in the atmosphere: sea salt, dust, inorganic salts such as ammonium sulfate, and carbonaceous aerosols (bacteria, bits of plants, soot, etc.). Actually most all aerosols in the atmosphere are a combination of these.

It seems that condensation nuclei actually become CCN as they interact with the atmosphere (chemical reactions, photochemical oxidation, coagulation, etc.). So from a modeling perspective the question becomes what mechanism of CCN formation dominates under a given set of conditions.

One mechanism that influences CCN formation is ion mediated nucleation, which forms condensation nuclei that are thought to be predisposed to becoming CCN due to their charge (and so favorable interaction with the dipole present in molecular water).

Sea salt condensation nuclei are also good though, and so is photochemically aged dust and soot. So there is a competition.

Yup, I was aware of how important is nucleation in cloud formation. The physical reason for it can be explained using the Kelvin equation. Vapor does not condensate alone even when temperature/pressure conditions are more than enough for it because microscopical droplets are too convex surfaces and vapor pressure is locally too low on such surfaces. Some porous and irregular solid providing concave meniscus or already formed large drops providing less convex surfaces are needed to allow condensation. For instance in some industrial proccess i have worked in active carbon microparticles are used in painting chambers in order to make possible droplet formation and condensation of the paint in uniform fogs. It is called capillary condesantion.
What i didnt know is that dipolar interactions were able to form drops large enough to allow condensation. In any case it must be mostly insignificant compared to those "classical" mechanisms involving solid nuclei, doesnt it?

 

[Gothmog]

@Thorgalaeg

The capillary approximation (based on Gibbs free energy) is pretty good for nuclei approaching micrometer size, but it fails for smaller nuclei, which we know exist in the troposphere and which may be important contributors to CCN number density under certain conditions, and can be important to the radiative properties of the atmosphere.

Typically cloud resolving models assume some background level of ultrafine particles based on observations, and which does not deplete or change.

These smaller nuclei (below about 20nm) are known as 'ultrafine' aerosols. In the transition region between ultrafine and micrometer their character (ability to act as CCN) depends sensitively on their composition.

Aside from ion mediated nucleation there are other possible mechanisms for ultrafine aerosol formation. These include binary homogeneous nucleation (involving H2SO4 and H2O), ternary homogeneous nucleation (involving H2SO4, NH3, and H2O), and sea salt aerosol formation in breaking waves (whitecaps).

In certain environments (such as the remote marine boundary layer) production of ultrafine aerosol may be important to CCN number. This is still an open scientific question.

You can also imagine that the specific size distribution of aerosols (along with their hydrophilicity) would be important to the radiative properties of a parcel of air or cloud. This is important for understanding the relative contribution of the direct and indirect aerosol effects.

There is empirical evidence for ultrafine particle production in various environments, and pretty good evidence that ion mediated nucleation is important in some of those documented events.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Very interesting. It seems that cloud formation is a very complex phenomenon indeed (as meteorology in general btw). Must be difficult to include all that into a reliable model.

 

[batteryacid]

A collegue of mine does nucleation experiments with more than one vapor (waper/propanole, ethanole and with to non-mixable combinations) etc)with soluble (=salt) or insoluble (silver or gold) particles, he is physician, and now he enters the wonderful world of of my field (chemistry) with all the nasty dG and dHterms and mixture enthalpies and entropies

He does this experiments (in cooperation with some Finnish groups ) because it is not clear, if some organic vapors have some helping effect in cloud formation, especially in the beginning of droplet formation
One huge term that prevents droplet formation is surface energy, which is high for pure water but drops rapidly when some organic compounds mix in.

 

[Gothmog]

Organic vapors are also important in some situations, for example we know that in forests ultrafine particle formation is dominated by organic containing aerosols, because these particles are then entrained and transported they can be important contributors to neighboring or overlying areas. There have been studies off the coast of the pacific northwest suggesting that CCN number density is regulated by this mechanism.

Note that the surface energy you mention, batteryacid, is the same as the capillary approximation mentioned by Thorgalaeg. It's a model based on the Gibbs free energy change as water is added to a condensation nucleus of a given composition. One problem with this model is that it assumes an equilibrium distribution of nuclei composition, in the atmosphere many times nuclei composition is actually kinetically limited (i.e. limited by the number of encounters).

 

[batteryacid]

Main problem is that surface tension , surface contact angle and nuclei radius goes into most nucleation theories, which then fail extraordinary for molecule clusters of 10-100 molecules (I mean you cannot talk about Surface area , contact angles or average radius for those small molecule clusters which begin to attach on the on the aerosol particle surface)- I think the nucleation rate is about 2-3 orders of magnitude false below 2 nm particles

But Molecular dynamics for building droplets out of the gas phase costs at the moment too much calculation power, so at the moment a lot of fuzzy corrections are implemented, and even most important papers on this topic don´t agree, thus nothing can be valued more than good experimental data, which is also not that easy achieve ; my collegue who did his PhD and his Post Doc project on this theme can sing a song about it

 

[Ayatollah So]

Could more aerosols be produced on purpose, to try to offset some of the effect of greenhouse gases? I realize that the thermal consequences would not be geographically matched to those of CO2, but still... Would that be an environmental disaster all its own? Would it be expensive?

 

[ainwood]

H. Svensmark is doing the chamber studies, but it's at the Centre for Sun-Climate Research in Denmark. The new publication that's been misinterpreted in the press is (H. Svensmark et. al., Proc. R. Soc. A (2007) 463, 385-396). The paper it's self is pretty good, but has problems. Svensmark is also involved in the CERN experiment, known as CLOUD I believe. It is worth studying no doubt.

In what way do you believe the press is misrepresenting it? (ie - what is the press saying, and what do you believe the correct meaning to be?)

Here I am going to digress on cloud formation.

Cloud formation is pretty complicated.

that's why I want the clarification - my understanding was that the Svensmark work was demonstrating that there was a strong correlation between cosmic radiation & cloud formation (something that was unknown, and missing in climate models).


Eidt - and was it actually svensmark? The article I have in mind was an experiment that showed cloud formation, not merely correlations.

 

[The Last Conformist]

@Whomp - hybrids still burn oil. AFAIKT we are still going to burn every last bit of oil and coal, unless/until it becomes not economically viable to do so.

As the amount of oil left in a field goes to zero, the marginal cost to extract it goes to infinity, or close enough. This, incidentally, means that all fears that oil will suddenly "run out" are misplaced - prices will just keep rising higher and higher till nobody can be arsed to buy the stuff anymore.

 

[Goa]

As the amount of oil left in a field goes to zero, the marginal cost to extract it goes to infinity, or close enough. This, incidentally, means that all fears that oil will suddenly "run out" are misplaced - prices will just keep rising higher and higher till nobody can be arsed to buy the stuff anymore.

All depends on the definitions: Saying that prices are going to infinity is in my book not very different from saying that we are running out.
And the term suddenly depends on the characteristic time-scale. In this case the characteristic time scale is our capacity to mitigate to alternatives, which I would estimate to be of order of 10-20 years, So If oil-prices "explode" on a time scale of less than this, the term suddenly is perhaps exaggerated, but not completely false either. I of course have no idea what will happen, but I'm not yet sure whether peak-oil theory is completely false...

Oh, and sorry for getting off topic, but unfortunately the ones which put forward cosmic radiation as a counterargument to global warming don't show up in this thread, but this will certainly not hinder them to reuse this argument again and again. But hey, who is interested in science if there is an inconvenient fact to debunk.

 

[Bast]

Thanks. Some really interesting information there. This is bad news for us.