In this paper we give a short description of global natural disasters for the Earth’s civilization from space: 1) Galactic and solar cosmic ray (CR) influence on the atmospheric processes; 2) Impacts of great space magnetic storms during big Forbush-effects in CR, 3) Impacts of great radiation hazards from solar CR during flare energetic particle events, 4) Great impacts on planetary climate du...

The maximum cosmic ray energy achievable by acceleration by a relativistic blast wave is derived. It is shown that forward shocks from long GRB in the interstellar medium are powerful enough to produce the Galactic cosmic-ray component just below the ankle at 4 × 10eV, as per an earlier suggestion (Levinson & Eichler 1993). It is further argued that, were extragalactic long GRBs responsible for...

An understanding of how the heliosphere modulates galactic cosmic ray (GCR) fluxes and spectra is important, not only for studies of their origin, acceleration and propagation in our galaxy, but also for predicting their effects (on technology and on the Earth’s environment and organisms) and for interpreting abundances of cosmogenic isotopes in meteorites and terrestrial reservoirs. In contras...

We perform Monte Carlo simulations of cosmic-ray induced hard X-ray emission in the Earth’s atmosphere. We find that the shape of the spectrum emergent from the atmosphere in the energy range ∼25–300 keV is determined by Compton scattering and photoabsorption and is virtually independent of the incident cosmic ray spectrum. We provide a fitting formula for the spectral intensity as a function o...

It has been proposed that Earth's climate could be affected by changes in cloudiness caused by variations in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays in the atmosphere. This proposal stems from an observed correlation between cosmic ray intensity and Earth's average cloud cover over the course of one solar cycle. Some scientists question the reliability of the observations, whereas others, who acc...

INTRODUCTION Research has suggested that work as a flight attendant may be related to increased risk for reproductive health effects. Air cabin exposures that may influence reproductive health include radiation dose from galactic cosmic radiation and solar particle events. This paper describes the assessment of radiation dose accrued during solar particle events as part of a reproductive health...

This paper presents an overview of the main advances in the Key Questions identified by the Task Group ‘What is the Solar Influence on Climate’ by the SCOSTEP CAWSES-II science program. We go through different aspects of solar forcing from solar irradiance, including total solar irradiance (TSI) and solar spectral irradiance (SSI), to energetic particle forcing, including energetic particle pre...

The observation of cosmic–ray events above the Greisen–Kuzmin–Zatsepin (GZK) cutoff of EGZK ∼ 5×1019 eV challenges orthodox modeling. We discuss a possible solution which uses standard hot Big Bang cosmology and Standard Model (SM) particle physics augmented only by < ∼ eV neutrino masses as suggested by solar, atmospheric, and terrestrial neutrino detection. In this scheme, cosmic ray neutrino...

Clusters of galaxies have not yet been detected at gamma-ray frequencies; however, the recently launched Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly known as GLAST, could provide the first detections in the near future. Clusters are expected to emit gamma rays as a result of (1) a population of high-energy cosmic rays fueled by accretion, merger shocks, active galactic nuclei and supernovae, and ...