Skip to main content

The Chilling Stars – Henrik Svensmark & Nigel Calder *****

Every once in a while you come across a book that really makes you think, because it presents a theory that’s a surprise, yet the more you read the text, the more it seems to make sense. The Chilling Stars is just such an book. In it, science journalist Calder and scientist Svensmark put forward a striking case for the argument that cosmic rays – high speed particles from outside the solar system – have a huge impact on our global temperature.
At first sight this seems crazy, and Svensmark and his colleagues had to put up with a huge amount of resistance when they initially came up with their theory, but with time, many observations have raised the likeliness of this theory to something like that of dark matter – one that we aren’t certain of, but has a lot in its favour.
The idea is that these high energy particles (or more precisely the secondary particles that are generated when the cosmic rays impact the atmosphere) act as triggers for cloud formation. When there are a lot of cosmic ray particles getting through, there are more clouds, when there are less cosmic rays there are less clouds. This is significant for climate change because low clouds cool the planet. This is frustrating for climate change modellers because, though mostly recognizing that low clouds do have a cooling effect, climate change models can’t predict cloud effects, so tend to ignore them.
The level of cosmic ray bombardment we suffer is largely in the hands of two mechanisms – the sources out in the galaxy from which the cosmic rays originate, and the Sun. The solar wind provides us with a barrier that significantly reduces cosmic ray impact on the Earth. Variations in both mechanisms have resulted in big changes in the cosmic ray impact on the Earth. Svensmark and his colleagues have evidence that strongly suggests a link between cosmic ray levels and historical warming and cooling. The result is a whole new take on global warming.
Perhaps the only unfortunate aspect of the book is a bitter approach to conventional climate change scientists, who are portrayed as having a vested interest in showing that carbon dioxide levels are the only driver of global warming. It’s particular sad that the book was used as part of the basis for a much criticized and highly unbalanced TV documentary that didn’t do justice to Svensmark’s theories because of its negative attitude to human-caused climate change theories. It seems likely that both mechanisms have contributed to recent climate change effects – and Calder and Svensmark don’t do enough to reflect the increasing reality of climate change impact on the world – but it’s not surprising they are a little defensive after the reception this theory first received. It’s important to stress that this book’s theory could well provide an explanation for the cycles of heat and cold that have happened in the Earth’s past, but that cosmic ray climate change cannot be used in an attempt to dismiss the major contribution of human-caused global warming: this is now pretty well universally accepted.
I would also say, although Calder uses the tricks of a good science writer, bringing in a human touch on a regular basis, The Chilling Stars doesn’t always sparkle as a great popular science book should – but I think the importance of the subject and the fascinating nature of the tie-in of cosmic rays to Earth weather is more than enough to overcome this and make this a well-deserved five star read.

Hardback 
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos - Joe Tidy ****

Anyone like me with a background in programming is likely to be fascinated (if horrified) by books that present stories of hacking and other destructive work mostly by young males, some of whom have remarkable abilities with code, but use it for unpleasant purposes. I remember reading Clifford Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg about the first ever network worm (the 1988 ARPANet worm, which accidentally did more damage than was intended) - the book is so engraved in my mind I could still remember who the author was decades later. This is very much in the same vein,  but brings the story into the true internet age. Joe Tidy gives us real insights into the often-teen hacking gangs, many with members from the US and UK, who have caused online chaos and real harm. These attacks seem to have mostly started as pranks, but have moved into financial extortion and attempts to destroy others' lives through doxing, swatting (sending false messages to the police resulting in a SWAT te...