CERN Clouds Climate Science – Confirms It Is “Highly Political”

People are discussing the instructions made by CERN Head Rolf-Dieter Heuer not to interpret the results of the CLOUD experiment on cloud formation, read here.

What follows is a translation of the relevant text in the article that appeared in DIE WELT here.

Welt Online: Also the results of the so-called Cloud experiment are being awaited with much excitement, where cloud formation is being researched. These results could indeed be important for understanding global climate change?

Heuer: Indeed this is about better understanding cloud formation. In nature there are many parameters that influence this, among them temperature, air humidity, aerosols and cosmic rays. The Cloud experiment examines the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation. The rays for studying this come from the accelerator. And inside the experimentation chamber it can be examined under controlled conditions how the formation of droplets depends on radiation and floating particles. The results will be published soon. I’ve requested my colleagues to clearly present the results, but not to interpret them. That would mean immediately entering the highly political arena of climate change discussion. You have to be clear that concerning cosmic rays it is only one parameter of many.”

Personally I agree with Dr. Heuer. CERN is not a climate research institute, and so the interpretation of results (with regards to impact on climate) ought to be left to experts of atmospheric and climate sciences. Last I heard is that CERN is a research institute for particle physics, and not climate. And we’ve all seen what happens when other kinds of physicists start acting like climate experts and start modelling future climates.

If they do not wish to interpret the results, other scientists from the appropriate fields certainly will. And if they don’t, the bloggers will.

Heuer also admits that climate science is highly politicized, and so one can’t blame them for not entering this poisoned arena. After all, telling the truth would mean a cut-off in funding. Finally it doesn’t hurt to remind some us that a vast number of parameters are involved in cloud formation and climate change, and that it doesn’t all get boiled down to a single dominant factor (like CO2).

Thanks for reminding us of that, CERN.

14 responses to “CERN Clouds Climate Science – Confirms It Is “Highly Political””

  1. DirkH

    I don’t agree. If you want to have any chance of getting new breakthroughs or dicsoveries it doesn’t help much to prohibit free thinking. It is a helpless submission under the dogma of AGW; i expected more spine from the mighty physicists at CERN.

    Another EU failure.

  2. Casper

    @ DirkH
    I think they don’t want to risk the subventions and grants for their activity. Don’t forget we are having a crisis at the moment…

  3. Green Sand

    I think all is good. These comments have done nothing other than highlight that the data release is coming soon, which will be quickly followed by mass interpretations from all disciplines, all angles, all beliefs, a lot of which are already written!

    Nothing wrong with a bit of publicity, buy popcorn, sit back and enjoy. Nothing like a bit of “thou shalt not” to ensure the opposite.

  4. Bob in Castlemaine

    Certainly assessing the climate implications is not CERN’s bread and butter. But I would have thought that with access to collaborators such as these CERN would have been well placed to produce a comprehensive, relevant and objective first assessment. Is it wise to simply publish the data and allow the scientists of the CAGW orthodoxy to set the public agenda?

  5. Ed Caryl

    I agree with Green Sand. Their results will be interpreted to death. By that, I mean that papers that interpret the results correctly will be buried in the noise.

  6. Ulrich Elkmann

    Hmmm – remember that we were warned that CERN might produce something that “would destroy the world as we know it” (they were betting on quantum black holes, as usually forgetting to expect the unexpected). For the AGW crowd, it looks as if there’s truth in that bit of crystal gazing.

  7. Time Traveller

    Pierre – interesting times.

    Have you seen this? http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html

    Regards

    1. mindert eiting

      So it is and look at this initiative: ‘Postma and Nahle join long-standing GHE skeptics, Alan Siddons and Hans Schreuder as they prepare to formally launch a new global research association, Principia Scientific International (PSI) recruiting untold numbers of conscientious scientists sickened by endemic corruption within science’. http://climaterealists.com/?id=8073

      See for the English version of Rescue from the climate saviors: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/rescue-from-climate-saviors.html

  8. DirkH

    Heuer says that cosmic ray influence is only one of many factors. So it crossed my mind, can GCM’s simulate the wind systems of the Earth, so i asked google: “Can climate models simulate the westerlies” and this is one of the hits. A paper from 2006 that compares two model runs with slightly different increase of the Southern Westerlies intensity in a warming world. Even this single difference leads to wildly varying projections.
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI3984.1
    “The quality of the present-day simulations
    of Southern Hemisphere westerlies and Southern
    Ocean circulation differ in the two models, with Climate
    Model, version 2.1 (CM2.1), comparing quite favorably
    with observations. The westerlies are located
    too far equatorward in Climate Model, version 2.0
    (CM2.0)—a weakness seen in many other AR4 models
    (Russell et al. 2006).”

  9. Den globala uppvärmningen lyser med sin frånvaro | The Climate Scam

    […] som bevis för eller emot AGW, med tanke på de politiska konsekvenserna. Allt enligt bloggen No Tricks Zone så sent som […]

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