Dr. Nicola Scafetta writes:
Anthony, I believe that you may be interested in my last published work.
This paper suggests that climate is characterized by oscillations that are predictable. These oscillations appear to be linked to planetary motion. A climate model capable of reproducing these oscillation would outperform traditional climate models to reconstruct climate oscillations. For example, a statistical comparison is made with the GISS model.
Here’s the abstract at Sciencedirect:
Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications
Abstract: We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 $^oC$ and 0.25 $^oC$, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21$^{st}$ century. It is found that at least 60\% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators.
A free preprint copy of the paper can be found here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4639 (PDF available in right sidebar)
Basil Copeland and I made some similar observations in the past, but we did not examine other planetary orbital periods. Basil also did a follow up guest post on the random walk nature of global temperature.
This paper opens up a lot of issues, like Barycentrism, which I have tried to avoid because they are so contentious. I ask that commenters keep the dialog respectful and on-topic please.
NOTE: Updated at 10PM PST to add Figure 12, plus some changes to the introductory text per the request of Dr. Scafetta. – Anthony
I’m giving this paper a close reading at the moment.
No matter what the climate does, GISS will probably continue to show increasing temperatures. Eventually they may have only one station left (in a parking lot) and will have to extrapolate the rest of the planet on 12,000 mile smoothing.
I see, astrology predicts climate.
@E.Gislin
Shurly Shome Shpelling Mishtake: Ashtrology for Astronomy??
Scafetta is walking on already well trodden ground.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-CETfiles.htm
But IPCC were holding back, lol. :p
And Hansen and Schmidt will outdo everyone in the end, if one is to believe in them. Just imagine that if they could live a thousand year, or well to the next ice age, they’d be the first ones standing on top of three miles of ice shouting it’s all! Because! Of the global warming!
As a forced oscillatory system, what makes climate formidably complex is the large number of periodic forcings of different magnitude and nature. Is climate simply passive to all these forcings? In that case, unweaving and analysing the forcing components would be complex enough. But what if the system is a “reactive medium” such that periodic forcing results in nonlinear pattern formation, i.e. new emergent and intrinsic oscillations with periodicities completely different from (although still ultimately caused by) the external periodic forcings? i.e. if it behaved like a reaction-diffusion system of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky or Brusselator type? In such a case, you might have a reasonable chance of modeling it if there was just one (or maybe 2) periodic forcing frequencies. But dozens of different periodic forcings? The resultant complexity could be described – adapting a Churchill quote, as “dynamic chaos inside a bifurcating cascade wrapped up in a non-equilibrium pattern landscape”. Or alternatively .. a “dog’s breakfast”.
“It is found that at least 60\% of the global warming observed since 1970 ” What data is being used to determine the warming? Is it GISS? If yes, any warming unaccounted for is probably an artifact of data collection and analysis, – correct??, and then 100% of the warming would be accounted for by the celestial model. Please advise. Murray
Nicola Scaffeta: Outperforming the GISS Model E is easy. Does your celestial model outperform a simple integral (a running total) of NINO3.4 SST anomalies at reproducing the Global Temperature Anomaly curve?
http://i39.tinypic.com/2w2213k.jpg
Discussed here:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/reproducing-global-temperature.html
vukcevic says:
June 4, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Scafetta is walking on already well trodden ground.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC-CETfiles.htm
Vuk – I find that so many of your curves are so inadequately labelled and/or titled that as an non-initiate I cannot use them. You would add greatly to your credibility and useability by assuming that your readers do not know what you know, and label everything so it would get a passing grade in a high school science report. Thanks, Murray
Eric Gisin says:
June 4, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I see, astrology predicts climate.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
“Dr. Nicolas Scafetta writes…” – his (correct) name appears to be: Nicola Scafetta! 🙂
REPLY: Yep, I know too many people named Nicolas. Thanks for catching my error. -A
I’m very interested in the work of Scafetta. I’m not interested in rocking the boat unnecessarily. I’m concerned, though, that he’s previously been accused (by Gavin?) of refusing to “show his workings”. If I’m to berate CRU et al for data and methodology concealment, I feel I must hold Nicola Scafetta to the same.
Could someone/anyone update me on the current state of play regarding Scafetta’s willingness to share his data/methods? Or was the whole thing just more fiction from RC in the first instance? I’d be delighted to have my concerns allayed in this respect.
Eric Gisin says:
June 4, 2010 at 2:01 pm A Viking astrologer?
I appreciate that the IPCC and GISS calculations are flawed. However, on from this, it would be interesting to know what are the causal affinities between celestial (and lunar) forcings and climatic effects. Since, it is said, that at least 60% of the warming since the 1970’s are attributable to celestial forcings, then it can reasonably be concluded that 40% are climatic feedbacks from celestial/lunar forcings, mainly from oceans, which govern the air temperature?
@ur momisugly SimonH
It’s very easy, download the JPL ephemeris data and analyse it in comparison to temperature data. Several of us have been doing this for a couple of years now and we are all making interesting discoveries. Nicola Scafetta has been in email contact with most of the planetary theory proponents who have contributed to this blog and others. They are mostly running their own blogs now. I keep a list on my own blog: click my name.
This paper is an excellent summary of the work of several of these people, both published and unpublished, and sets out the roadmap for further investigations by anyone who has the time and inclination.
Viva Nicola! Fortissimo!
I had come across this Scafetta paper on the HockeySchtick blog a week ago and have added information from it to this study of the 60-year climate cycle:
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm
This paper appears to be recycling the ideas of Landscheidt mostly (such ideas used to be out of favour here?). In chapter 6 “Possible physical mechanisms”, it is mentioned “spin orbit transfer phenomena” which appears to be the same “spin orbit coupling” idea promoted by Landscheidt.
The spin orbit coupling idea assumes angular momentum is constant within the solar system, but transferred between the planets and the Sun as the “solar orbit radius” changes (re. fig 4. of the paper). However, if you perform the calculations, you will find that there is no missing angular momentum to drive any variation of solar spin. The Sun is also in free fall and feels no forces anyway, as Leif has explained many times.
I do not exclude the possibility of some astronomical connection, but spin-orbit coupling it isn’t, and I would need to see a credible physical mechanism to be convinced, and this paper does not present anything like that. As it says in the conclusions: “The physical mechanisms that would explain this result are still unknown”.
Correlations are just correlations.
Ashtrology?
The new rankings are due out any day. The smart money’s on the horoscope guys losing the “ology”, and the telescope guys taking over their job title. There’s concern that too many dud predictions bring science into disrepute, and therefore wishy-washy disciplines are to be downgraded to “ography” or worse. They say that Climatology’s been offered a plea-bargain: if they can guess next year’s temperatures to within a couple of degrees they’ll settle for demotion to Climatography.
It is very close to claims of Landscheidt and his current adherents. It means probably the barycentrism but why take it as controversial?!
http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/
Would the upward trend from 1850 to 2010 largely disapear if a period of say 1820 to 2010 were used. 1850 to 2000 goes from the bottom of one 60 year cycle to the top of a later one. I think Chiefio has shown a temperature curve from ca 1820 to 2010 that has no uptrend, and would have a downtrend if data collection and analysis artifacts were removed.
Dr. Scafetta, what a good paper. I feel somewhat vindicated. I have spent a decade studying that very area outlined in your paper but was never able to draw it together so beautifully as you have. Well done.
Viewing your figure 14, I have come to somewhat the same conclusion. We are now near a peak, I showed it occurring a few years sooner and placed the blame on lag, and should start feeling the influences as drawn out in your paper in the following decade. Whether something along the lines of 1910 reoccurs seems to parallel into whether the sun is entering a minimum period of some sort or not at the same time as being in phase. Of coarse, we will just have to wait to see, studying the solar system is much like watching molasses pour, only much worse!
I am waiting for someone to shed some light on the reason so many monitored SS bodies showed the same warming and how such tiny factors as you outlined can manifest and magnify themselves into a much larger measurable reality.
Paradoxical that on the one hand the GISS model, which is based on the mechanism that climate oscillations are driven mainly by GHG, produces a poor fit to reality. On the other hand, an empirical model based on celestial mechanics, but with no proposed strong physical mechanism, does give a good fit!
Perhaps the physical cause is lots of little nudges to our chaotic, non-linear climate from many different overlapping quasi-cycles which reinforce or cancel each other and so produce the climate oscillations we observe. I suspect that we know some of the things which cause some of the nudges, but I suspect there are many others that are unknown to climate science at this moment in time.
Science in general is still very bad at getting to grips with complex systems which are driven by deterministic chaos. Although difficult, this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
1. I hope that Dr. Niki is more willing to share his code and data this time around. or will he use the same tactics he has in the past? The last go round we had with him he was as bad or worse than Jones or Mann.
2. People need to decide if they want to throw out the temperature record or use it.
One cannot both criticize the record ( or the idea of a global temp average) AND use it.
the lack of coherence between the NH and SH is not simply explained by waving a wand as the paper tries to do.
3. WRT cycles in GCMs. whatever natural cycles a GCM produces are almost always guaranteed to be somewhat out of phase with the observational record. Spinning up a GCM to a equilibrium ( no drift ) state will make reproducing short time scale processes/cycles difficult, if not impossible.
4. Because of #3, your best bet is probably to take an ensemble of results that is larger than the few runs that ModelE does.
5. What does this ” model” retrodict for the MWP?
6. what does this model predict for OHC? or precipitation.
numerology, gotta love it.
Mod: My post disappeared?
[Rescued: RT – Mod]