Update on the CLOUD experiment at CERN | Watts Up With That?: "The latest results of the CLOUD experiment in CERN are published: http://science.orf.at/stories/1717291/. It’s a German article with the following statements of Jasper Kirkby (head of the CLOUD experiment):You can pretty much bet from this that Jasper Kirkby is the prime target in an internal civil war at CERN right now. This suggests he's found something the Lysenkoists don't want to swallow.
At the present time we can not say whether cosmic rays affect the climate. What we have investigated so far, is the production of condensation nuclei for cloud droplets, namely those arising from gases: The technical term is “gas-to-particle conversion”. They make up about half of condensation nuclei in the atmosphere. The remaining germs come from soot and dust.
Which gases are involved in this process? We first looked at sulfuric acid and ammonia. The results of the first tests were: the cosmic rays enhance the formation of condensation nuclei from gases by a factor of ten. But that alone is not enough to significantly affect the formation of clouds. According to our previous experiments, there must be other gases or vapors that enhance this process. Presumably organic substances.
Which substances?
The results are currently under review in a journal. Unfortunately, I can not say more about it. Only this: The results are very interesting. During the year some results will be published."
I wonder if it could even be as crazy as a finding that we really need more air pollution to cool the planet. Or that CO2 or maybe just the biosphere is key to cloud seeding in some way!
We need to be patient apparently...
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