Position: Head of Sun-Climate Research Centre, at Danish National Space Center (DNSC), Copenhagen, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected].
Education
Ph.D. degree from the Physics Laboratory I, Technical University of Denmark, 15. September 87.
Master of Science in Engineering (Cand. Polyt), Physics Laboratory I, The Technical University of Denmark, 1. February 85.
Professional employment
January 2004 – present. Head of Sun-Climate Research Centre, at Danish National Space Center (DNSC). http://www.dsri.dk/sun-climate
November 98 to December 2003. Research position at the DNSC.
January 96 – November 98. Research position at the Solar–Terrestrial Physics Division, Danish Metrological Institute.
November 93 — 95. Research position at the Section for Meteorological and Oceanographic Research, Danish Metrological Institute.
November 92 — November 93. The Center for Chaos and Turbulence Studies, the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, and Institute for Physics and Astronomy, Århus University.
September 90 — November 92. Post doctoral fellow at Nordic Institute of Theoretical Physics.
March 88 — September 90. Post doctoral fellow at the Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, with the late Professor L.M. Falicov.
Reseach:
Experimental achievements
In 1996 discovered a possible link between solar activity and Earths climate through the influence of cosmic ray ionisation on Earth’s cloud cover. This result received large interest from both scientist and media. It gave rise to large controversy mainly due to the political interest in manmade Global warming, which received the above idea as a competing theory.
In 1997-1998 the first initiative was taken to test a potential microphysical mechanism, linking cosmic rays and clouds experimentally.
In 2001, took initiative to build and perform an experiment in Copenhagen. The next three years work went into, making a new laboratory at DNSC, designing the experimental set-up, building the apparatus, and most importantly finding funds to finance the experiment.
In 2004 efforts was used at testing and calibration of the experimental set-up.
In 2005 real experiments began. The experimental set-up, and performance of the reaction chamber is unique and is the only one in the world. It has unique ion-control features and trace-gas control which permits for the first time to do experiments at ion-densities and trace-gas concentrations relevant for the Earth’s atmosphere.
In 2006
Theoretical achievements
Consequences of a cosmic ray link to climate have been traced to climate variations covering millions to billions of years. My latest work suggest that the cosmic ray climate link has had influence over whole 4.6 billion year history of the Earth, which in turn have had impact on the biological evolution. The results suggest that the evolution of the Milky Way and the Earth is closely linked.