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By now , it ’s pretty unmortgaged that carbon dioxide , released by burning fossil fuel , is responsible for most of the thaw seen throughout the world in late decennium .
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in September , it is " exceedingly likely " thathuman activities have make most of the warmingof the planet ’s surface since the 1950s .
An artist’s concept of the shower of particles produced when Earth’s atmosphere is struck by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.
But theories to the perverse linger . One of the more persistent is thatglobal thaw is do by cosmic raysand changes in levels of solar radiation sickness . As the theory goes , cosmic ray of light — which are cogitate toemanate from supernovas , explosions of distant star — can increase the number of cloud in Earth ’s atmosphere by fill the atmosphere with charged atom , upon which water vapour condenses . The cloud , in turn , ponder some sun and cool down the earth .
However , during times of increased solar radiation , few cosmic rays enter the atmosphere , as they are obviate by charged subatomic particle spit out from the sun . When this happens , the earth warms , as the thinking goes , both because there is more solar radiation to heat up up the ambiance and because there are fewer cosmic ray and thus fewer clouds to reflect incoming light .
A new subject field published today ( Nov. 7 ) in the journal Environmental Research Letters looked for grounds to support that theory . It found almost none .
" We could n’t find anything to substantiate this theory , " enunciate Terry Sloan , a retired atom physicist at Lancaster University in England who now analyse the climate . [ The realism of Climate Change : 10 myth Busted ]
In the discipline , Sloan and his co - writer Arnold Wolfendale looked for grounds that cloud cover can exposit with an increase in charged particles , which can be cause by cosmic shaft of light as well as atomic bomb , Sloan tell LiveScience . After look to see if there were more cloud observed after events that created tons of charge particles , such as atmospherical nuclear mental test and theChernobyl atomic catastrophe , the scientists did n’t encounter any increase in cloud cover during these events , Sloan said .
The scientists also calculate at historical criminal record of global temperature and incoming levels of solar radiation . In several representative , they found a weak nexus between global surface temperature and incoming cosmic rays , although this warming take place one to two days prior to the increase in cosmic ray , Sloan said .
All in all , the scientist conclude that variations in solar radiation and cosmic ray could n’t have cause more than 10 per centum of the warming observed in the twentieth century . Thus the phenomenon is not a " substantial underestimated contributor to the spherical warming , " as some have claimed , the scientists wrote in the study .
Another subject published in the same daybook in September recover light grounds that cosmic rays work any role in global warming . " I chance little evidence of the cosmic rays having a discernable affect on a range of coarse meteorological elements : temperature , the barometrical pressure or precipitation , " study source Rasmus Benestad of the Norwegian Meteorological Institutetold Physics World .
A 2010 reputation by the National Academy of Sciences as well found that " a plausible physical mechanism [ for cosmic rays effecting global thawing ] has not been demonstrated " and that " cosmic rays are not regarded as an important climate forcing . "
" The conclusions come as no surprise , " said Raymond Bradley , a research worker at the University of Massachusetts who was n’t need in the subject area . " Numerous studies have concluded that solar forcing can not excuse recent warming . "
