SKY experiment: cloud nucleation by cosmic rays

This is an update about the CLOUD story. A Danish experimental team has experimentally demonstrated that negative ions created by high-energy cosmic rays increases the creation of nuclei of the clouds.

Recall that the significance of this finding is that because the increased solar magnetic activity has reduced the cosmic rays in the last century, it has also decreased the amount of clouds and positively contributed to the temperature.

The observation of this effect may upgrade the cosmic rays theory of the climate to a competitor of the greenhouse gas theory, to say the least.

More facts:

• Nir Shaviv's sciencebits
• JunkScience
• SpaceDaily
• Foxnews
• Danish press release
• A description of the experiment
• A Copenhagen description
• The peer-reviewed paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society A
• Animation (compressed)