Cosmic rays and space weather: effects on global climate change

Abstract

Abstract. We consider possible effects of cosmic rays and some other space factors on the Earth's climate change. It is well known that the system of internal and external factors formatting the climate is very unstable; decreasing planetary temperature leads to an increase of snow surface, and decrease of the total solar energy input into the system decreases the planetary temperature even more, etc. From this it follows that even energetically small factors may have a big influence on climate change. In our opinion, the most important of these factors are cosmic rays and cosmic dust through their influence on clouds, and thus, on climate.

An analysis of large Forbush decrease events using phase diagrams of view channels of the Nagoya multidirectional muon telescope

“…This is explained by a massspectrometer like effect of the diffusion coefficient on CRs propagation, which in turn depends on the spectral density of IMF turbulence during a FD event (Alania and Wawrzynczak, 2008). Thus the rigidity dependence of FD amplitude is related to fundamental properties of the solar wind and IMF, which are important for space weather and astrophysical applications (Dorman, 2012).…”

Evidence for cosmic ray modulation in temperature records from the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly region

“…Therefore, cloud formation and their consequence on climatic variables can depend on the Sun's magnetic field, but the Earth's magnetic field is also variable and can reduce the GCR incidence. The simultaneous action of the heliomagnetic and the geomagnetic fields has been one of the difficulties in determining clear evidence of the effect of solar activity on climate variation (Dorman, 2012;Lockwood, 2012). Furthermore, there are many studies based on climatic and proxy data analysis that are in agreement with the GCR-climate relationship (e.g., Miyahara et al, 2008;Souza Echer et al, 2012;Svensmark, 2012) and other studies that disagree with this relationship (e.g., Wagner et al, 2001;Overholt et al, 2009;Erlykin and Wolfendale, 2011).…”

What characterizes planetary space weather?

“…Moreover, the further from the sun, the less intense this "modulation" effect. Studies of the effects of solar modulation on the GCRs have been carried out for several solar cycles while measurements by spacecraft at various heliocentric distance have verified the theoretical predictions of the modulation effects, e.g., Dorman (2009). The solar wind also affects SEP transport.…”

“…Electrons from 10s of keV to 100 MeV are also part of this population. A distinction between the cosmic rays coming from the Sun, i.e., the solar cosmic rays or solar energetic particles (SEPs), and those coming from the galaxy, the galactic cosmic ray (GCR), is usually made (Dorman 2009). In the following, we will not distinguish between SEPs, solar energetic particle events or high-energy protons.…”

“…Several studies suggested that GCR play a role in aerosol creation and thus cloud formation, linking GCR fluxes to the climate (Svensmark et al 2009;Enghoff et al 2011;Dorman 2012), but the importance of these processes is highly debated (Erlykin et al 2009(Erlykin et al , 2010Laken and Calogovic 2013).…”