Cosmic Pattern to UK Tree Growth

[pete]

BBC are just reporting on the results of a new study:

news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8311000/8311373.stm

"The intensity of cosmic rays also correlates better with the changes in tree growth than any other climatological factor, such as varying levels of temperature or precipitation over the years.

"The correlation between growth and cosmic rays was moderately high, but the correlation with the climatological variables was barely visible," Ms Dengel told the BBC.

When the researchers looked at their data, they found that tree growth was highest during periods of low sunspot activity, when most cosmic rays reached Earth.

But growth slowed during the four periods of cosmic ray-blocking high sunspot activity, which have occurred between 1965 and 2005
"

[radiant]

I see that there are water emissions present in sunspots and they are sufficiently strong they can be measured at terrestial sites dispite having to pass thru the water vapour present in the air above the observers

adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000IAUJD...1E..15B

Water vapour appears to have a relatively massive role in the earths climate and yet surprisingly there have been no thorough examinations of waters atmospheric IR spectrum from earth from the 15 to 100 micron range. Kind of odd. What do they do up in the space station??

esto.nasa.gov/conferences/estc-2002/Papers/B4P2(Mlynczak).pdf

The far-IR spectrum beyond 15 mm was
last measured from space on two Russian Meteor
spacecraft launched 26 years ago and over 30
years ago by the IRIS instruments on the NASA
Nimbus III and IV spacecraft, and then only
to 25 micron (400 cm-1) with relatively coarse spectral
(several cm-1) and spatial resolution.

Anyway NASA are planning a launch to remedy the gap in our knowledge of water.

www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/FIRST-chile.html