Henrik Svensmark

Henrik Svensmark (born 1958 ) is a Danish physicist and climatologist.

Life and work

He was active in 1988 to 1993 at the University of California, Berkeley, at the Nordic Institute of Theoretical Physics and the Niels Bohr Institute, then he worked at the Danish Meteorological Institute. Svensmark was published together with Eigil Friis -Christensen 1997 for her work to a correlation between cosmic rays and climate change, they made this before as Kosmoklimatologie. Svensmark examined the relationship between cosmic rays and cloud formation in the lower atmosphere as well as between solar activity and cosmic rays. In both cases he sees partially overlapping contexts. In the case of sunspots this had been suspected earlier, already by William Herschel using the Maunderminimums and their parallelism to the Little Ice Age in the 17th century. Some modern predecessor to the thesis work were presented the 1975 's by Robert E. Dickinson at a glance.

Svensmark, the first very cautiously expressed a correlation between cosmic rays and climate, and on a " collection " of his thesis in the controversy surrounding global warming initially reacted very negatively, became internationally known in connection with his position as a climate skeptic. The confrontation with supporters of a mainly man-made global warming was harder in the wake, as argued Svensmark 2007 in a replica on an opposing study already a continuous current warming from.

Between 1998 and 2004 he led the Sun -climate group at the Danish Space Research Institute ( DSRI ). Since 2004 he is Director of the Centre for Sun - Climate Research of the Danish National Space Center ( DNSC ), which was combined in 2007 with parts from Technical University of Denmark (DTU ) from the National Space Institute (NSI or the Department of DTU Space).

Role in the climate debate and further research

In a 2012 published by the Royal Astronomical Society study Svensmark posited a clear link between biodiversity of plate tectonics, in particular their impact on the extent of coastal areas and the number of supernovae in the Earth environment over the last 500 million years. Basically, the biodiversity of the sea from the sea the extent of ecologically important coastal areas and derived from the occurrence of Supernovaerate cosmic radiation rate CGR was dependent. The Primärbioproduktivität of the sea, the net growth of photosynthetic bacteria can be explained only with the CGR there. In addition, is to be found an inverse relationship between increased Supernovaeerscheinungen and carbon dioxide fractions of the atmosphere, the Svensmark leads back to increased ocean in colder areas bioproductivity.

Studies on Svensmark theses see others in the context of the launched in 2006 at CERN project called CLOUD ( Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets ), under the direction of Jasper Kirkby instead and have also been studied by Svensmark during the Danish SKY project. An overview study on research and results on the relationship between cosmic rays and climate was published in Space Science Reviews, 2007.

According to Urs Neu of the Swiss Forum for Climate Change, the theory is used by the influence of cosmic rays on climate change from people who deny the influence of humans on climate change.

In a published study in 2010 of Calogovic et al. could not be traced postulated by Svensmark mechanisms of action.

. A further study of Laken et al, also from 2010, going from a smaller, but statistically significant correlation between fluence of cosmic rays ( GCR flux, English galactic cosmic ray -. Flux ) and cloud cover from medium width. The authors see a paläoklimatologischen influence, describe the relationship between GCR and climate but as highly uncertain ( "highly uncertain" ).

Publications and notices

• In 2007 he published together with the British science writer Nigel Calder, the book The Chilling Stars - A New Theory of Climate Change (Eng. see below ) that the thesis - a popular science - very strongly represents. From various content such as the analysis developed in this book are sharply attacked.

• The Cloud Mystery ( The Secret of the clouds) is a Danish documentary about Svensmark work, which aired in 2010 and 2011, the Danish TV2 in 2008 and the station ARTE.
• In the book The cold sun. Why the climate disaster does not take place by Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Lüning he wrote a guest post.