As a long time proponent of the "cosmic rays are driving climate" myth, I am not surprised to see one of our local deniers joining the right wing blogosphere misinformation campaign surrounding the Nature article by Kirby et al, 2011.

Yes, it is well known (and accepted by real climate scientists along with the politically driven pseudoscientists) that cosmic rays might affect nucleation/cloud formation, and therefore they might play a role in climate change (one way or the other). IPCC AR4 actually discusses this.

The CLOUD project at CERN is just beginning to determine what, if any, effect there is. Kirkby et al's results do show that more cosmic rays may mean more nucleation in the mid-troposphere. But they also find that the effect is smaller at lower and warmer levels – which is incidentally the place where cosmic ray climate myth proponents have always said the effect is greatest (oops, the right wing bloggers didn't tell you that did they?).

In fact Kirby himself has responded to the right wing spinsmeisters:

"[The paper] actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step."

That is the author himself, not some right wing commentator, and not "CERN" (as if the institution can speak).

So, the results suggest mechanisms by which cosmic rays might assist cloud formation, but it is very very far from any kind of proof that cosmic rays actually do significantly affect climate change. Even if it was, before any rational person accepts the "cosmic rays drive climate change theory" they ought to require that all of the evidence against cosmic ray induced climate change must still be refuted (e.g. the lack of correlation between paleoclimate and paleo cosmic ray intensity from numerous studies). And they have not been.

What Kirby et al are really saying is that they have found a way that cosmic rays might locally affect cloud formation at some levels in the atmosphere. It is pure speculation, opportunism and bullshit to say that this paper contradicts IPCC in any way. Kirby says outright that this is just the beginning of the project, so you deniers might get an "I told ya so" at some point. But this ain't it, and you reveal your prejudice and unscientific approach by leaping so far ahead with this.

Read it yourself before you argue with me:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10343.html

BTW, if you don't have an academic affiliation or a personal subscription, you may not get to the full text with this link, but you can buy it online.