Today means a second early start for me this week. This time I’m off to London for a meeting.  I’m hoping to get some time in the afternoon to take a look around and maybe visit a couple of bookshops in London.

My meeting is scheduled for 11am to 1pm, though I may have to work a little beyond that to catch up with emails.  I’m booked on the train to return at 4pm so I should have a little time to browse around.

I’m an avid reader, have been since I was a child but I don’t bother much these days with fiction, unless it is science fiction.

I haven’t bought a novel in quite some time, though I’ve borrowed the odd one from the library. I’m much more interested in ideas in a range of areas such as psychology and science. I have a pronounced weakness for self-help, books though I’m applying a lot more scepticism to my choices in that area now.

Of course, we all know that he is, so the question is this: Are Freud’s theories of psychology dead? Probably not, at least not yet. But they do seem to be becoming less influential. More scientifically based explanations for human behaviour are taking centre stage.

Looking back, I find it a liitle strange how large an influence Freud had, and how quickly he achieved it. I say this because I can’t see how he could have done the same in another area of study. Not without having real, repeatable proofs.

Perhaps it was because we are so intrigued by stories and his case studies were full of stories. But the theories he developed had no connection to testable reality. Essentially they too were stories, very good stories.

More precisely, the question is whether human activity is primarily responsible for the warming of the Earth we are witnessing now. The fact that the Earth is getting warmer is not in dispute.

The book, ‘The Chilling Stars, A New Theory of Climate Change‘, argues that there is a better explanation for global warming than the accepted dogma that we are producing too much carbon dioxide.

In brief, the authors, Svensmark and Calder, assert that the major factor governing the the temperature at the Earth’s surface is the amount of cloud cover. Specifically that it is the amount of low-level clouds that is the most important factor. These clouds are typically spread over much of the world’s ocean areas.

These low-lying clouds reflect back a significant proportion of the sunlight hitting the Earth. A key point is that the amount of these clouds varies over time.

The implication of these facts is that higher average cloud cover means average temperatures fall and lower cloud cover results in global warming. But what causes these changes in the quantity of clouds at lower altitudes?

The surprising answer is cosmic rays, specifically high-energy cosmic rays. These constantly rain down on the earth from catastrophic events in our galaxy. For example, massive stars at the end of their lives explode and give off copious amounts of cosmic rays.

When these rays hit our lower atmosphere they produce free electrons which facilitate cloud seeding. So higher levels of cosmic rays produce more clouds. Why then do the levels of cosmic rays impacting the Earth vary over time?

The major influence of the level of cosmic rays reaching the lower atmosphere and producing clouds is the Sun. The Sun’s enormous magnetic field deflects cosmic rays which are charged particles. But the Sun is not as static as it appears to us. Besides the 11 year sunspot cycle,.it undergoes longer term variations. In addition to the Sun there are other sources of variation in the rates of cosmic rays hitting the Earth. in the form of cataclysmic explosions in our galactic neighbourhood.

Given what seems to be the sound scientific basis for these theories, the question is how large is the cosmic ray effect in comparison from the rise in greenhouse gases that is the current favourite explanation for global warming? If I understand them correctly, the authors’ estimate is that cosmic rays have around a tenfold larger influence.

If greenhouse gas emissions are not in fact the major influence on global warming that current thinking assumes, we can expect that the forecasts of a continuing disastrous rise in temperatures are wide of the mark. As the cycle of the rate of cosmic ray rates turns, we can expect global warming to moderate and at some point reverse.