A small win for Svensmark
Sep 5, 2013
Bishop Hill in Climate: Models

Anthony reports on a new paper by Henrik Svensmark and colleagues, which provides support for his theory that galactic cosmic rays, influenced by the behaviour of the sun, can change the amount of cloud in the sky.

One of the critiques of the Svensmark hypothesis has been that once a cosmic ray has caused an initial chemical reaction between sulphur dioxide molecule and water, the tiny sulphuric acid droplet formed would be too small to seed cloud formation. But in Svensmark's latest experimental replication of conditions in the atmosphere such droplets continued to grow even after the initial reaction. It seems that there is another chemical reaction going on as well, although quite what this is is a mystery at the moment.

I'm not sure it's confirmation of Svensmark's theory, as Anthony's headline suggests, but it's certainly not a problem for it.

 

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