Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges

Data on cloud cover from satellites, compared with counts of galactic cosmic rays from a ground station, suggested that an increase in cosmic rays makes the world cloudier. This empirical finding introduced a novel connection between astronomical and terrestrial events, making weather on Earth subject to the cosmic-ray accelerators of supernova remnants in the Milky Way. The result was announced in 1996 at the COSPAR space science meeting in Birmingham and published as “Variation of cosmic-ray flux and global cloud coverage – a missing link in solar-climate relationships” (Svensmark and Friis-Christensen 1997). The title reflected a topical puzzle, that of how to reconcile abundant indications of the Sun’s influence on climate (e.g. Herschel 1801, Eddy 1976, Friis-Christensen and Lassen 1991), with the small 0.1% variations in the solar irradiance over a solar cycle measured by satellites. Clouds exert (on average) a strong cooling effect, and cosmic-ray counts vary with the strength of the solar magnetic field, which repels much of the influx of relativistic particles from the galaxy. The connection offers a mechanism for solardriven climate change much more powerful than changes in solar irradiance. During the past 10 years, considerations of the galactic and solar influence on climate have progressed so far, and have found such widespread applications, that one can begin to speak of a new paradigm of climate change. I call it cosmoclimatology and in this article I suggest that it is already at least as secure, scientifically speaking, as the prevailing paradigm of forcing by variable greenhouse gases. It has withstood many attempts to refute it and now has a grounding in experimental evidence for a mechanism by which cosmic rays can affect cloud cover. Cosmoclimatology already interacts creatively with current issues in solar–terrestrial physics and astrophysics and even with astrobiology, in questions about the origin and survival of life in a high-energy universe. All these themes are pursued in a forthcoming book (Svensmark and Calder 2007).

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