Science

Apparently, the rate of change of the methane in the atmosphere seems to have gone from increasing to zero change. This must be disappointing to alarmists that claim that unbridled man-made emissions will continue to cause an increase in the levels of tropospheric methane in the 21st century.

Right: Level of Atmospheric Methane 1980-2004 – click image to enlarge.

A recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology shows the unexpected decrease in the atmospheric methane rate of change. Data from the study indicate a trend toward decreasing atmospheric methane.

The folks at CO2 Science analyzed the study:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has long predicted that earth’s tropospheric methane (CH4) concentration would rise dramatically throughout the 21st century; see, for example, Ehhalt and Prather (2001). So entrenched a place did this dogma come to occupy in both the popular and scientific psyches, in fact, that when real-world data suddenly suggested otherwise, Simpson et al. (2002) continued to vehemently contend it was “premature to believe that the CH4 burden is ceasing to increase,” even though their own data bore witness against them in demonstrating that such was in fact occurring, as we indicated in our Editorial of 8 Jan 2003. Newer findings, however, ultimately caused even them to recant (Simpson et al., 2006); and, now, Khalil et al. (2007) have essentially “put the nails in the coffin” of the idea that rising atmospheric CH4 concentrations pose any further global warming threat at all.

Continue reading Atmospheric Methane: The Good-News Trend Continues

Last weekend, I ran across a website originating in Norway that offers some compelling science that further debunks the hype about man-made global warming. The site, Global Warming And The Climate, is maintained by Per Strandberg of Voss, Norway. Per does a great job of tying several observed climate influencing phenomena together: Solar activity, greenhouse gasses and cosmic ray flux.

I discovered Per’s site after he left a comment on our post, Correlating Sunspots to Global Warming.

Actually I started to look at the cause for global warming by looking at the data. Here are my result. The leading climate scientists use misleading and deceptive methods when they analyze climate data.

Amazingly there are no repository and comprehensive information to be found at any location on the Internet over the existing two theories for global warming.
People should be able to make informative and objective judgment for themselves.

Therefore I collected this information here on my website http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com On it I have collected information and graphs covering both the greenhouse gas and the cosmic ray cloud cover theory and made analysis from the data.

Thanks to Per Strandberg for sharing his good work with us.

A Danish scientist, Henrik Svensmark, Director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research of the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, has conducted experiments and studies to validate his theory that interstellar galactic cosmic rays may have a considerable effect on global climate.

Right: Cosmic rays affect global cloud cover

The theory is that when cosmic rays hit the Earth’s atmosphere, they speed up the process where ions combine with sulphuric acid. These combine to form condensation nucleii, or tiny specs of matter that allow water droplets to form. The widespread condensation of water droplets accumulate to form lower-atmospheric clouds, which serve to reflect sunlight back into space and allow the Earth’s surface to cool off. In the absence of heavy cosmic radiation, fewer clouds form and the surface of the planet heats up again.

The Sun affects cosmic rays entering into the Earth’s atmosphere by virtue of particle emission (solar winds) and solar magnetic flux — when particle emission and the magnetic field is strong due to high solar activity, cosmic rays are deflected away and thus allow fewer clouds to form.

Svensmark concludes “it now seems clear that stellar winds and magnetism are crucial factors in the origin and viability of life on wet earth-like planets,” as are “ever-changing galactic environments and star-formation rates.” When you consider the context of this galactic radiation effect, the impact of CO2 emissions caused by humanity literally fade away into climatic insignificance.”

References:

CO2 Science — Cosmoclimatology: A New Perspective on Global Warming

Telegraph.co.uk — Cosmic rays blamed for global warming

Thanks to my colleague Rick for bringing this to my attention.