WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Two powerful new books say today's global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years," by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. "The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change," by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.
Singer and Avery note that most of the earth's recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth's last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments and layered cave stalagmites.
"Unstoppable Global Warming" shows the earth's temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings. The book cites the work of Svensmark, who says cosmic rays vary the earth's temperatures by creating more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that cool the earth. It notes that global climate models can't accurately register cloud effects.
"The Chilling Stars" relates how Svensmark's team mimicked the chemistry of earth's atmosphere, by putting realistic mixtures of atmospheric gases into a large reaction chamber, with ultraviolet light as a stand-in for the sun. When they turned on the UV, microscopic droplets-cloud seeds-started floating through the chamber.
"We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons [generated by cosmic rays] do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei," says Svensmark.
"The Chilling Stars" documents how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun's irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth's temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth's atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane and the planet warms.
"Unstoppable Global Warming" documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. "The Chilling Stars" explains the why and how.
The Center for Global Food Issues, a project of Hudson Institute, conducts research and analysis of agriculture and the environmental concerns surrounding food and fiber production.
Center for Global Food Issues
