About The Cloud Mystery

About The Cloud Mystery

Since 1998 the Danish film producer/director Lars Oxfeldt Mortensen has filmed the work of Henrik Svensmark and his team repeatedly, even when no programme was in production, to build up a remarkable historical record of discovery in progress. Svensmark has appeared in two resulting Mortensen TV programmes:

• The Climate Conflict, about the role of the Sun in climate change, 2001
• The Cloud Mystery, about the effect of cosmic rays on clouds and climatic history, 2008. (Nigel Calder was script consultant.)

Mortensen Film’s description of The Cloud Mystery

Svensmark views low clouds from a mountain in Tenerife

‘Our clouds take their orders from the stars,’ says the Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark. That’s the amazing and provocative discovery reported here. Most experts thought the idea was crazy.

The film records ten years of effort by the small team in Copenhagen that, in the end, solved the mystery of how the Galaxy and the Sun interfere in our everyday weather.

It’s provocative because Dr Svensmark’s revelations challenge the belief of most climate theorists that carbon dioxide has been the main driver of global warming. As a result he has faced never-ending opposition.

But strong support for the cosmic view of climate change comes from astronomer Nir Shaviv and geologist Jan Veizer. In the film they tell how the Galaxy has governed the Earth’s ever-changing climate over 500 million years.

The Cloud Mystery is aimed at a wide audience. Astonishing pictures from our Galaxy, the Sun, and cloud formations are mixed with spectacular animations to simplify the science. Comments by astronomers, geologists and climate experts convey their sense of adventure, and give scientific weight to the discoveries presented. The audience is taken on a trip around the world, where scientists from Denmark, Israel, Canada, the USA, and Norway contribute to this exciting story.

Linking all the discoveries is the non-stop rain of cosmic rays – energetic particles from exploded stars that battle with the Sun’s magnetic field to reach the Earth. Central in the story is an experiment in a Copenhagen basement. It showed how cosmic rays help to make chemical specks in the air on which water drops condense to make clouds.

The story concludes that clouds are the main driver of climate change on Earth.

The documentary follows Henrik Svensmark in his struggle to find the physical evidence of a celestial climate driver. The film demonstrates that science can be a rough place to be if you are in opposition to the established “truth”.

The Cloud Mystery (52-minutes) was co-produced with Arte France and has been distributed for broadcasting to eleven countries: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Israel and Iran. Efforts to place it with a UK broadcaster have been unsuccessful so far.

Latest broadcasts: 2 April 2010 Germany ARTE 21:45 France ARTE 22:05

Buy The Cloud Mystery DVD : http://thecloudmystery.com/The_Cloud_Mystery/Get_the_DVD.html

Preview clip http://thecloudmystery.com/The_Cloud_Mystery/Introduction.html

Some scenes in the film can be see on ClimateClips http://climateclips.com/

The Cloud Mystery website http://thecloudmystery.coml

Mortensen Film website, with contact details http://mortensenfilm.dk/

Mortensen’s ClimateClips http://climateclips.com/