As a prelude to a new book, Nigel Calder (who was the editor of
New Scientist for four years in the 1960s) has written an op-ed
for the Times (UK) basically recapitulating the hype over the
Svensmark cosmic ray/climate experiments we reported on a couple
of month ago (see Taking Cosmic Rays for a spin). At the time we
pointed out that while the experiments were potentially of
interest, they are a long way from actually demonstrating an
influence of cosmic rays on the real world climate, and in no
way justify the hyperbole that Svensmark and colleagues put into
their press releases and more ‘popular’ pieces. Even if the
evidence for solar forcing were legitimate, any bizarre calculus
that takes evidence for solar forcing of climate as evidence
against greenhouse gases for current climate change is simply
wrong. Whether cosmic rays are correlated with climate or not,
they have been regularly measured by the neutron monitor at
Climax Station (Colorado) since 1953 and show no long term
trend. No trend = no explan