Talk:Henrik Svensmark

Dispute tag

I have serious problems accepting that the SKY experiment and the original 1997 research have anything to do with each other - i tagged this because i don't have the time right now to correct it. I'll look at it later (tagged rather than delete). --Kim D. Petersen 18:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

Originally, and I believe this is well before 1997, Svensmark, Friis-Christensen et.al. were able to show a correlation between the Sun's activity and the temperature of the Earth. This then led Svensmark to theorize, that if solar activity influenced cosmic ray intensity (well established, I believe), and if cosmic ray intensity influenced cloud formation (not known at that time), and if cloud formation rates influenced Earth surface temperatures (relatively well established, I believe), then the link should be there.

Svensmarks experiment then concentrated on finding out how incident radiation influences formation of water aerosoles in the presence of certain condensation nuclei.

So the link is there, although it is explained rather shortish in the article. I therefore believe that the dispute tag should be removed.

Oz1sej 09:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, here's a popular account:

• He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier. (The Sunday Times) - February 11, 2007

I should ask my buddy at the British Antarctic Survey about this - I'm sure he reads this paper. --Uncle Ed (talk) 04:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not understand why a popular account is out of place. I'm going to put in the slightly more technical Sunday Times summary of his work, unless Wikipedia has some rule against reporting what scientists are up to when it conflicts with the dominant scientific paradigm. --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason why this should be repeated ad nauseam - the science is already described on the page. Nigel Caulder has some claims about Svensmarks research in this book blurb (sunday times), that isn't supported in/by the book (Chilling Stars) - nor from any of Svensmarks research. Book blurbs and other such advertising material is not reliable sources. Caulder is actually quite cautious in the book (as opposed to the earlier book). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that the Sunday Times description of Svensmark's findings is inaccurate? --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Calder (as usual) goes beyond what Svensmark says. He is a fellow Dane, so i'm quite familiar with him - both from Danish TV and radio - as well as from his research. Calder's did this in his other book about Svensmark's research "the Manic Sun" as well. (which is quite funny in retrospect with regards to the conclusions that Calder draws at the time).

But this is not really the issue in this particular case - the "article" is not an article but an advertising blurb from the author - and is not a reliable source. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Further studies

I don't understand the meaning of this section heading. The plain English meaning would seem to point to more work along the same lines as Svensmark's paper and book. You know, like evidence supporting his view, or other non-anthropogenic cause of global warming.

The language of the section is unclear, with this bit

• negative correlation between cosmic-ray flux and air temperatures

... being one of the simpler buzzword phrases being thrown around. I gather that "further studies" is code for critcism or debate or controversy.

It would serve our readers best if we just came right out and stated Svensmark's hypothesis, and what data he offers in support of it.

We could follow that with as much mainstream debunking, disagreement, etc. by opponents.

Basically, isn't he saying that the sun's magnetism caused changes in the intensity of cosmic rays hitting the earth's atmosphere, which in turned caused changes in cloud formation, which in turn affected how much sunlight hit the ground, which (we all know) affects surface air temperature?

If so, then we should maybe put this into the form of bullet point or better yet a diagram. --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Galactic Cosmic Rays vs Cloud Cover, this p value should be statistically significant?

found a statistically significant (p<0.05) short term 3% association between Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) and low level clouds over 22 years

From what I know about statistics, a (p<0.05) correlation means almost no correlation and this is anything but statistically significant....!? --Hg6996 (talk) 12:20, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

A p<0,05 means that it is significant at a 5% siginificance level. The interpretation roughly is that there only is a 5 % chance of this correlation being a coincidence. Therefore it is in fact quite a significant correlation that has been found.

What's going on with the Laut article?

Anyone else see the article on Peter Laut? Wow. Apparently a very recent article. Here are a few quotes I found today.

"over a number of years where he engaged in climate debate under the pre-tense that he was an independent scientist, while he was being employed and funded by the Danish Energy Agency."

"This recent work is worded in an openly biased way, and provides no new scientific updates, merely the political position of the author (he then references his 2003 publication at the end). It is to be noted that Peter Laut has been paid, at hourly rates of 400 Dkr., for thousands of hours worth of clima-related work by vested interest groups (The Danish Energy Agency).[10]"

Looks like the denier community is hard at work again. 4.246.206.16 (talk) 16:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is the Peter Laut aticle: http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Laut2003.pdf Unless Svensmark can respond in a maeaningful way, this very thorough analysis by Laut of Svensmarks apparant arithmatical errors cannot simple be dismissed with Svensmark's airy reply: "They don't understand my work". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tholzel (talk • contribs) 00:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

How can an article published in 2003 be used to criticize an article published in 2007? That makes absolutely no sense... Khuft (talk) 22:49, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

A blog is not a Reliable Source for WP:BLP

RealClimste is a blog and a blog is never a Reliable Source for a Biography of a Living Person. "Never use self-published books, zines, websites, forums, blogs or tweets as sources for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below)." Madman (talk) 15:47, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course it isn't a reliable source, I don't even have to look to know who has included certain biased language and links in this article - and who will likely remove/alter this comment as well71.220.196.4 (talk) 01:47, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

pacemaker incident

If we can find a more reliable source, the article could be expanded with a sentence stating that S has a heartcondition and that it has caused him problems. Thats all. Everything else is simply bad taste, and gossip material. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The reliable source is here but it was an ICD, not a pacemaker per se. You may recall a similar case earlier this year when Belgian soccer player Anthony Van Loo was shocked by an ICD during a match. I personally think it's notable. MoodyGroove (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2009 (UTC)MoodyGroove

I wouldn't exactly call BT a reliable source. Its a danish tabloid/scandal newspaper (together with EkstraBladet). The information might be correct, it certainly fits what we saw on TV. The incident is irrelevant to a biography - it's a news-blurb and WP is not the news nor are we here to document trivia - about the only biographical info that can be extracted from it, is that Svensmark has a heart-condition. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:05, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I really don't care enough about it to argue with you Kim. MoodyGroove (talk) 03:33, 15 December 2009 (UTC)MoodyGroove

Having a heart attack on live television would be considered a notable event to most people. I added a couple sentences about it. I tried to be very tasteful about it. Jwesley₇₈ 02:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps if he had been a TV-personality, or a public persona - but he isn't - he is a scientist, and that is what he is known for. It is trivia and we are news or tabloids. It has no encyclopaedic value. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 07:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

You have got to be kidding. Of course it's a notable event. Many article record when the subject has a heart attack. (I can find many examples.) That's part of their life story. It's even more notable when it happens during a climate change debate on live television. Jwesley₇₈ 12:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

That "other stuff exists" is a very bad argument. And the question here is: Are we trying to write a tabloid story about a someone who incidentally also is a scientist, or are we trying to write a biography of a scientist. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Where do you get that him having a "heart attack" is "tabloid material". It's not. He was on television because he is a scientist. He was performing the duty of a scientist, by educating the public and debating alternative viewpoints. He had a heart attack during the debate. Nothing about it is tabloid. (If he was having an "affair" or something else about his personal life, that would be tabloid.) Jwesley₇₈ 13:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• We're not talking about his personal life. We're talking about an event that occurred on live primetime television. It's an event that affected the climate change debate that he was participating in. We shouldn't pretend that the event never happened. Jwesley₇₈ 13:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Not sure I want to weight in here, but this is an insignificant aspect of this person's biography, which is chiefly of interest due to his scientific work. If someone were to go to the trouble of writing a book-length biography, the event might deserve a line or two. hgilbert (talk) 17:20, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

In this case, I see no reason for the inclusion of "Svensmark uses a pacemaker because of a heart-condition." It's not relevant to his work as a scientist. Jwesley₇₈ 19:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Recent Warming But No Trend in Galactic Cosmic Rays

As noted on the NPOV board - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Henrik_Svensmark_-_Undue_weight - I am concerned that this article seems to overemphasize blog posts by two RC authors (Gavin Schmidt and Rasmus Benestad), when a peer reviewed critique by Schmidt is already referenced earlier in the article. This is not questioning their credentials, which are well established, but the purpose of this section of the article.

The volume of the references (3 in a row), granting this analysis its own section in the article, and putting it at the end of the article seems to indicate that this is an authoritative last word on the subject - i.e. I believe this is an undue piling-on to get the last word at the end of the article WP:UNDUE. I also question the choice of blog posts which are majority restatements/summarizations of issues raised in sources already cited in the article.

The article does quite well in my reading, without the disputed section, of informing the user of the debatable nature of the subject's work and conclusions. Arnold.A.D. (talk) 23:58, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks like someone else removed the section in question. Can we call this closed? Arnold.A.D. (talk) 16:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments from EPA Endangerment on CLOUD, etc

[1] answers the various comments on the recent EPA Endangerment Finding. See Comment (3-36) on p.37 (of PDF, but printed as 32), summarizing the various wishes to emphasize cosmic rays.

The Response (3-36) starts on p.38 (33) and discounts cosmic ray influence, and includes (Bold mine):

"The CLOUD experiments at CERN are interesting research but do not provide conclusive evidence that cosmic rays can serve as a major source of cloud seeding. Preliminary results from the experiment (Duplissy et al., 2009) suggest that though there was some evidence of ion mediated nucleation, for most of the nucleation events observed the contribution of ion processes appeared to be minor. These experiments also showed the difficulty in maintaining sufficiently clean conditions and stable temperatures to prevent spurious aerosol bursts. There is no indication that the earlier Svensmark experiments could even have matched the controlled conditions of the CERN experiment. We find that the Svensmark results on cloud seeding have not yet been shown to be robust or sufficient to materially alter the conclusions of the assessment literature, especially given the abundance of recent literature that is skeptical of the cosmic ray-climate linkage reviewed in the previous paragraph."

I've reviewed Duplissy is (p.53, labeled 48), and I think EPA's comment is reasonable, i.e., cosmic ray effects were minor and various effects had to be carefully controlled:

"The presence of background vapours is also inferred from the observation that small (of order 0.1C) increases of temperature invariably trigger nucleation bursts, which is attributed to the release of unknown vapours from the chamber walls."

Duplissy, J., et al. (2009). Results from the CERN pilot CLOUD experiment, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 9:18235-18270. Available [2]

H/T Eli Rabett: http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/04/eli-can-retire-part-iii-svensmark.html

A plausible hypothesis may be advanced, written about, promoted heavily ... but sooner or later, the evidence has to pile up for it, not against it, or continued adherence to it may cross into pseudoscience. Some kinds of claims (like Psi research) have often been based on fairly minor effects that disappeared with better-controlled experiments. Some effects may exist, but the argument is then over the size of the effect.

I'm not sure that this hypothesis has become pseudoscience yet, but the prognosis does not seem good. JohnMashey (talk) 00:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's an interesting discussion of a recent presentation by Svensmark, by Andrew Orlowski at The Register: [3]. Orlowski was impressed with his presentation, and with Svensmark. I think your speculation that the Svensmark cosmoclimatology hypothesis is trending toward pseudosciece is uncalled for. --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:21, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Disgrace

This page is a disgrace for wikipedia - how can it present nonsensical statements such as that the global temperature has not risen in the past 10 years stand as if it were fact? Climate and average temperature are defined over 30 years period, and is a highly irregular stochastic process. Anybody who makes claims that climate has a significant trend based ont he last 10 years is obviously not a scientist, or makes politically-motivated statements. And this is what this pageis full of, politically-motivated statements presented as scientific fact - completely biased POV by climate change denialists. 82.212.59.227 (talk) 11:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I have moved this to the end, where new comments normally go. You might note that Nigel Calder, not Svensmark, is the person who claimed that there was no warming since 1999; any complaints should go on his page. hgilbert (talk) 13:26, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

non-sensical? Oh, because it disagrees with your beliefs even when data is shown to prove it?

CLOUD

I'm having some trouble with the CLOUD section. The CLOUD website itself seems to be dead. Solomon's notorious series is not a RS, and there is no other source even mentioning Svensmark and CLOUD in the same article. Does anyone have a good source for the connection? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:34, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Should it not be mentioned that, the CLOUD team leader has stated - "At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step,". The Nature article (http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.504.html) also mentions Svensmark. 58.172.212.27 (talk) 21:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Svensmark, Enghoff, Pedersen 2013

One (or several) IP users insist on adding an indirect reference to Svensmark et al, Response of cloud condensation nuclei (>50 nm) to changes in ion-nucleation to the article, originally claiming it refutes Sloan and Wolfendale, Cosmic rays, solar activity and the climate. This claim is false (and obviously so) - the first paper was published November 8, 2013, the second November 7, 2013. No journal is that fast. Now they insist on adding "According to the study, solar activity is responsible for c. 50 percent of temperature variation." However, the Svensmark et al paper makes no such claim - it strictly deals with the effect of different kinds of radiation on aerosols in the controlled environment of a climate chamber (basically a large cloud chamber). This might have an influence on cloud formation in the real world, but, as far as I can tell, this is extremely tentative, and there is no quantitative claim on the effect in the article at all. The IP in question does not cite the original article, but rather this Danish language popular science web site. My Danish is a bit rusty, but, as far as I can tell, that article also does not support the claim - it only states that Svensmark thinks the solar effect may be responsible for 50% of warming, but also cites several scientists that disagree. How can we sort this out amicably? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:53, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Your Danish is obviously really poor, since the article does support the claim! Also, there is no "might" in the article; is says that the experiment showed, that cosmic rays does in fact have a direct link to cloud formation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KryhlMJ (talk • contribs) 11:50, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

My Danish is indeed quite poor (I can understand hey, tak, and pølser, and whatever Google Translate can do for me). But regardless of what the Danish article says on cloud formation (and I'd argue that in context it only gives Svensmark's opinion), the edit in question talks about warming, not clouds. Moreover, the original peer-reviewed article that the edit refers to is again much more tentative ("This unpredicted experimental finding points to a process not included in current theoretical models, possibly an ion-induced formation of sulfuric acid in small clusters."). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:29, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Thats not correct. There is a maybe, the text says [Henrik Svensmark is quoted]: "»Det bliver mere og mere konsistent, at Solens kosmiske stråler har en indflydelse på klimaet. Over de seneste 100 år har Solen måske været årsag til 50 procent af opvarmningen af klimaet. Solens aktivitet påvirker klimaet, og vores teori giver en mulig forklaring på, hvordan den gør det,« fortæller han.". (måske = maybe). And he doesnt say 50 percent, he says up to 50 percent. Its a maximum. But its correct that he says (more or less) that there are a direct link to cloud formation. Christian75 (talk) 14:24, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

BLP noticeboard

Section = 109 BLP articles labelled "Climate Change Deniers" all at once. This article was placed in a "climate change deniers" category. After discussion on WP:BLPN and WP:CFD the category was deleted. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

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