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from the tek-tek-tek-tek-tek-tek-tek-tek dept.
Unlike electromagnetic radiation, which consists of massless and accelerated charged particles, galactic cosmic rays (CR) are composed mostly of atomic nuclei and solitary electrons, objects that have mass. Cosmic rays originate via a wide range of processes and sources including supernovae, galactic nuclei, and gamma ray bursts. Researchers have speculated for decades on the possible effects of galactic cosmic rays on the immediate environs of Earth's atmosphere, but until recently, a causal relationship between climate and cosmic rays has been difficult to establish.
A research collaborative has published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that mathematically establishes such a causal link between CR and year-to-year changes in global temperature, but has found no causal relationship between the CR and the warming trend of the 20th century.
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-cosmic-fluctuations-global-temperatures-doesnt.html
[Abstract]: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/02/23/1420291112
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 11 2015, @11:55PM
HUH? How the fuck do they figure that the fluctuations in temperature don't affect climate?
Different temperatures in different areas lead to different air pressures. Different air pressures in different areas lead to different weather systems forming. Different weather systems forming affects the climate.
Why would different weather affect climate? It's a different scale. And why would it affect climate in a relevant way?
Now, if cosmic rays happen with a high enough density that the "fluctuations" are omnipresent and substantial permanent perturbation of climate, then that's a different thing.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @11:57PM
It's like how microeconomic forces affect macroeconomic forces, and vice versa. We may separate these systems when we analyze them, but in reality there is just one single system involved.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 17 2015, @09:43PM
It's like how microeconomic forces affect macroeconomic forces, and vice versa. We may separate these systems when we analyze them, but in reality there is just one single system involved.
But we can separate these systems for purposes of analysis. Differences of scale are one of the primary means for breaking up a complex system into more understandable pieces.