Proponents of the notion that global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions attach little importance to solar activity, maintaining that variations in the sun’s brightness are too small to explain climate changes.  Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark has found evidence challenging the conventional wisdom.  He argues that the sun has a powerful influence on climate because its magnetic field affects the flow of cosmic rays toward the earth.

Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.
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Mr Svensmark claims that the number of cosmic rays hitting the Earth changes with the magnetic activity around the Sun. During high periods of activity, fewer cosmic rays hit the Earth and so there are less clouds formed, resulting in warming.

Low activity causes more clouds and cools the Earth.

He said: "Evidence from ice cores show this happening long into the past. We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years.

His findings have been published in scientific journals during the past five years, and a full account of his experiments is soon to be published in his book, The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change (co-authored by Nigel Calder).

A large experiment using a particle accelerator to test this new theory is now being prepared by an international team of 60 scientists in Geneva.  They hope to replicate the effect of cosmic rays striking the earth’s atmosphere to see what effect radiation has on cloud cover.

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