Probing the climatological impact of a cosmic ray–cloud connection through low-frequency radio observations

It has been proposed that cosmic ray events could have a causal relationship with cloud formation rates. Given the weak constraints on the role that cloud formation plays in climate forcing it is essential to understand the role such a relationship could have in shaping the Earth's climate. This issue has been previously investigated in the context of the long-term effect of cosmic ray events on climate. However, in order to establish whether or not such a relationship exists, measurements of short-timescale solar events, individual cosmic ray events, and spatially correlated cloud parameters could be of great significance. Here we propose such a comparison using observations from a pair of radio telescopes arrays, the Long Wavelength Array (LWA) and the Eight-meter-wavelength Transient Array (ETA). These low-frequency radio arrays have a unique ability to simultaneously conduct solar, ionospheric and cosmic rays observations and are thus ideal for such a comparison. We will outline plans for a comparison using data from these instruments, satellite images of cloud formation as well as expected cloud formation rates from numerical models. We present some preliminary results illustrating the efficacy of this type of comparison and discuss future plans to carryout this program.

► Cosmic rays may play a causal role in clouds formation.
► We propose radio observations of the ionosphere to study a cosmic ray–cloud link.
► We combine cosmic ray and TEC data with satellite and model measures of clouds.
► We demonstrate this approach for a solar event which occurred on April 5, 2010.