People send me stuff.
Tonight I got an email that contained a link to a paper that takes on the wonky claims related to barycentrism and Earth’s climate, specifically as it relates to Nicola Scafetta’s 2010 and 2012 papers. This new paper taking on the Scafetta claims will be published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, April 2014. The author is Sverre Holm Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway.
Abstract, some graphs, and discussion/conclusion, along with a link to the paper follows.
Abstract
It has recently been claimed that there is significant coherence between the spectral peaks of the global temperature series over the last 160 years and those of the speed of the solar center of mass at periods of 10-10.5, 20-21, 30 and 60-62 years. Here it is shown that these claims are based on a comparison between spectral peaks in spectral estimates that assume that the global temperature data contains time-invariant spectral lines. However, time–frequency analysis using both windowed periodograms and the maximum entropy method shows that this is not the case. An estimate of the magnitude squared coherence shows instead that under certain conditions only coherence at a period of 15-17 years can be found in the data. As this result builds on a low number of independent averages and also is unwarranted from any physical model it is doubtful whether it is significant.
…
Discussion and Conclusion
Scafetta (2010) claimed the global temperature series for the last 160 years to have
spectral lines at 21, 30 and 62 years. Time–frequency analysis shows that the lines are
time-varying (Figs. 1 and 2) and very different from the nearly constant lines in the
time–frequency plot for the speed of the center of mass of the solar system (SCMSS)
(Fig. 3).
The supposed periodicity around 30 years in Scafetta (2010) is not really
present in the climate series at all and could be an artifact due to a combination
of model overfitting and smearing due to the time-invariance assumption which has
been forced on the data. The claimed spectral peaks by Scafetta (2010) for the global
temperature series are therefore not reproducible if proper consideration is taken of
the time-varying nature of the data. The only significant coherence between the cli-
mate series and the sun’s movement that was possible to find was at 15-17 years (Table 1). However, both the low number of independent averages that it builds on as well as the lack of a physical explanation for this coherence, makes us hesitate to claim that it is significant.
===============================================================
Looks to me like “game over” for claims of Barycentrism controlling Earth’s climate. Clearly this was a case of pulling a signal from noise that is just an artifact of the process, much like Mann’s special brand of math that made hockey sticks from just about any red noise input data.
Full pre-print of the paper here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1307.1086.pdf
and then …
Buriedcentrism.
I don’t see how either sides claims hold up. Temp data has been so adjusted/deleted/tampered with the mere claim that you’ve used it to prove/disprove/show anything other then the data is worthless is a bit of a stretch
Game over? Isn’t that a little bit like saying that the “debate is over?” 🙂
REPLY: Oh, people will still debate it I’m sure. Tallbloke and his group of cyclists will try to prop it up, but I’d say it pretty much has reached the end of credulity as a workable theory.
Some years ago I thought the theory had some merit, and I dabbled with it a bit, but then just like with CAGW, things didn’t quite add up. Now I’m quite convinced it’s junk. – Anthony
WUWT is a fantastic site for weather and climate. As for debating the Electric Universe…this is a fantastic site for weather and climate. That is all.
I particularly liked “due to a combination of model overfitting and smearing” sounds a lot like yet more data torturing to fit the required results.
Jbird says: Game over? Isn’t that a little bit like saying that the “debate is over?” 🙂
Or as Sir Christopher of Belchley would put it:
“I am going to show you the latest science that now doesn’t leave the question unsettled anymore. This is now settled science. It is now settled science that there is not a problem with our influence over the climate. The science is in, the truth is out and the scare is over.” (2009)
I also looked at this some years ago, and found that the idea of spin-orbit-coupling is almost certainly wrong. I don’t see a need to call it ‘wonky’ or anything else, though. ‘Wrong’ is sufficient.
Similarly, the idea of CO2 having any effect at all on the climate is also almost certainly wrong. As with barycentrism, empirical evidence is missing.
Scafetta theorized that variability in some of the sun’s spectra are caused by magnetic disturbances which are multiplied by the small wobble caused by interplanetary pull.
One is left to presume that the Earth’s stratosphere would provide provide further amplification.
While mapping the exact position of the sun back through time is well beyond current methodologies, he argued that the magnetic pull of Jupiter and Saturn would cause a wobble analogous to climate variation over the past millennium.
It’s rather difficult to disprove an idea that has not been fully developed in the first place, and then offer nothing to replace or to improve upon that idea.
I just want to make sure that Anthony doesn’t look like a lonely tyrant. I also think that these theories were ludicrous, for physical reasons.
Such an influence would heavily violate the equivalence principle (all bodies accelerate at the same rate in a gravitational field – so on Earth, you can’t locally measure the potential or gravitational acceleration but only the next derivative, the tidal forces), something we experimentally know to be extremely accurate (better than a part in trillion) and that seems to be exactly required for general relativity to be consistent. So it can’t be surprising that all the empirical support for such correlations had to be an accident that has to go away after a closer scrutiny. This was discussed e.g. under an interview with a “barycentrist” here
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/06/interview-is-climate-change-caused-by.html?m=1
Search for “equivalence principle”, to get to my comments.
It is like saying “the debate is over” except that we have strong theoretical *and* empirical reason for stopping being interested in such potential explanations. People may discuss about everything but science isn’t an unrestricted babbling. Science eliminates ideas that disagree with known experiments or observations. Some barycentrists may fail to do so, and climate alarmists also fail to do so quite often, but Anthony usually doesn’t and I want to support him in his “blasphemous” decision to disagree with these explanations. Theories can’t be viable just because they are alarmist or just because they are “skeptical”.
It is not improper to look for patterns in physical observations, for they may (or may not) reveal a physical law.
It would be interesting to know, for instance, what causes the 30-year periods of warming followed by 30-year periods of cooling that seem to characterize the global mean surface temperature anomaly record since 1850 that are in phase with the great ocean oscillations.
I do not say that these cycles – if they are more than mere coincidences – must be caused by the infinitesimal gravitational influence of the planets on the Sun. However, that the planets are capable of influencing each other gravitationally if the influence is exerted for long enough is suggested by the coplanarity of nearly all the planetary orbits.
And it is climate science that first gave us the notion that has come to be known as mathematical chaos – the observation that in certain objects, the climate arguably among them (Lorenz, 1963, Giorgii, 2005), even the most minuscule perturbation of the initial conditions at any chosen t-zero can exert a disproportionately large influence on the evolution of the object over time.
In short, both theory and observation indicate that it is not impossible for the planets to influence the Sun and, via the Sun, the Earth/Moon system. However, merely because it is not impossible, it ain’t necessarily so.
[snip – off topic, your usual ploy -mod]
It would be more weird if the sun, moon and planets did not influence climate and weather patterns in a cyclical way. Science has yet to explain how that could be.
It is not enough to find ways of debunking what one researcher may have found to be evidence of something cyclic and call that scientifically superior. All that we know of nature operates in cycles, and even electromagnetism, and so probably geomagnetism which starts with the sun and planets.
This leaves us with the reality that we would find more real science lurking in cycles than in debunks, which often have the scent of operator bias on them. I’m not saying this is the case here but the author Holm may be looking in the wrong place.
There are always ways to disprove anything – ask a good lawyer. Scafetta’s work is basically sound – he is suggesting repeatability. Perhaps he did not get the exact nature of the repeatability, but that is to be honed by others. The basic brief of science has always been to look in observations for reliable patterns, which means cycles, which then can be used to make predictions. Anything else departs from science and would have to come under some other label.
It is why highlighting anomalous weather patterns and calling it climate change is to cherrypick observed results to, with politics thrown around in good measure, come up with a case for funding, and will not in the long run of looking for truth, advance knowledge much, if that is our intention.
Ken Ring
The predictions from Landscheidt’s 2003 paper are all coming true: temperature, solar cycle 24, negative PDO to at least 2016.
And climate models?
Dear Lord Monckton, you wrote that “It is not improper to look for patterns in physical observations, for they may (or may not) reveal a physical law.”
A priori, you are right. A posteriori, you are not. Before 1666 AD, any signal observed on Earth could have revealed a physical law describing the influence of planets on each other. But since 1666 AD, the actual law governing the mutual influence of planets on each other has been known, verified with a huge accuracy, and it unquestionably implies that the relative positions of Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun, or the center-of-mass of the Solar System cannot measurably influence any observation done locally on Earth. The whole Earth just accelerates according to the average vector of gravitational acceleration (caused by the Sun, the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and others) in its volume, and only deviations of the local gravitational acceleration from the average one – i.e. the tidal forces – may imply new effects measurable by those who are moving along with the Earth through space because they tend to push pieces of the Earth in different directions.
Similarly, the Sun itself is only affected by the tidal forces caused by the planets etc. Already the acceleration from Jupiter – that still doesn’t matter for the internal processes in the Sun – is about 10 billionths of the gravitational acceleration on Earth only. The tidal forces go like 1/r^3 and they imply “relative accelerations” of pieces of the Sun that are smaller by additional two orders of magnitude or so, like 10^{-9} m/s^2. This is vastly smaller than any other source of acceleration that actually operates within the Sun.
The right law describing the forces exerted by one planet or star or another have simply been known (and Einstein’s refinements to Newton’s theory in the general theory of relativity are demonstrably too small to matter at the level that one could “feel”, e.g. through the climate), so it is misguided to look for or to expect completely different, incompatible explanations of the same kind of effects (forces exerted by one planet on another). It doesn’t mean that there can’t be any repeatable 30-year periodicity. But it does mean that if there is such a periodicity, the correct explanation does not include the forces exerted in between different celestial bodies of the Solar System because such influences have been ruled out by the same experiments that have confirmed Newton’s law of gravitation.
Chaos may be relevant for producing various hard-to-predict patterns. But it must be chaos in the “internal processes” in the Earth’s atmosphere (plus oceans) and I am afraid that by definition, “chaos” is the opposite than what you suggest. (Deterministic) chaos is when the past determines the future but the approximate past does *not* determine the approximate future. In effect, it means that it is impossible to determine the future because it depends – pretty much randomly – on *every* (exponentially) tiny variation of the initial conditions. And the negligible variations in the barycentric etc. quantities are not the only tiny variations. There are other, also tiny, but larger effects that matter. In effect, you are saying that one may restore the controllable predictability of the Earth’s climate etc. (following a simple law that may be described in these papers) by studying some details about the initial conditions. But that’s exactly what chaos prohibits if it is present.
I don’t think this is “game over.” From my perspective (a background in Systems Science) it doesn’t seem surprising that you would find “wobble” in the timing of the response (climate) to a highly regular stimulation (astronomical tidal effects), because of the influence of other (chaotic) factors.
What’s more, systems in which there are delayed feedbacks (either positive or negative!) are prone to oscillation, but in such systems you can expect drastically different effects of small periodic forcing depending on the frequencies of those forcings. Small forcings at or near resonant frequencies may have large effects, even though much larger forcings at anti-resonant frequencies have very little effect. That’s why one should not dismiss astronomical cycles as climate forcings simply because of their small magnitudes.
Here’s a famous example of a system in which a small forcing, combined with unfortunate resonance modes, led to dramatic oscillation:
REPLY: Oh I have no doubt the wobble is there, it is just that it is small by comparison to the solar system and doesn’t manifest itself as a viable signal in Earth’s climate – Anthony
Lubos Motl, I think you have fallen into the same mire about gravitational pull as other no-solarists and nonlunarists, intent on establishing that Earth is entirely nonaffected by extraterrestrial bodies, and this because the debate might begin to look more kindly upon and even favour astrology. One cannot take the gravitational laws arising from when an apple falls from a tree to the ground and apply this to extraterrestrial bodies having potential effects on each other, and on everything on each other, like the sun or moon on the e.g. tide of the atmosphere or ocean. The initially stationary apple falling to the stationary ground set of equations do not adequately describe an apple that was always moving, impacting to the tree and ground both also in constant transit.
Lubos Motl makes the mistake of assuming that someone with no piece of paper to say he is a scientist knows nothing about science. I am well aware that chaos is deterministic though not necessarily determinable, for instance, having co-authored a paper on it with Fred Singer. Precisely because the planets move according to well-established laws, if there be any chaos arising in the relative motions of the planets, then indeed we know the initial conditions sufficiently to determine the future by observing the past – which is what physics does.
And I am also well aware of the laws of gravitation. That is why I was cautious in my approach, and I did not say, as Lubos Motl seems to imagine, that there is a detectable influence on the Earth’s climate arising from the influence of the planets on the Sun. I raised a not uninteresting question about the cause of the ocean oscillations and of the apparently-associated cycles in global temperature. I often raise such questions here, not because I wish to make a point but because I want to know the answer.
We must not fall into the same poisonously intolerant attitude as the true-believers in the New Religion, who are unwilling to allow any discussion that they might regard as heretical. But the history of science is precisely the history of those who came along and said they did not agree with “settled science”. Mr Motl mentions Newton’s laws of gravitation as though they were inviolable, but it was a patent clerk from Switzerland, in a non-peer-reviewed paper containing some errors of notation, who demonstrated that – whether Mr Motl likes it or not – Newton’s was not the last word in the matter.
Let us be gentler with one another, and not be too harsh with those who advance theories that appear incompatible with what we think we know. The stifling of intellectual enquiry that the New Religion seeks to impose is bad enough. We must not be corrupted by it. In science, an open mind is of near-infinitely greater value than an open mouth.
Does this not all seem a little contrived? I don’t know of any natural signal that is stationary does this suggest that global spectral analysis is a lost cause in the Earth Sciences.
On a general point, what surprises me is that there is no discussion or qualification of whether the approach was – in the context of the times series which they didn’t even present – narrow or wide band in nature; just enough to say that it is based on a sort of arbitrary judgement and that their approach was super. From their discussion it seems clear that they were aiming for a narrow band approach and good frequency resolution – their time resolution is so poor that they are picking up very localised changes in amplitude (tut, tut…) which can inflate the predominance of anomalies, which by nature are localised: non-stationary. Surely, as the subject of the paper is good practice they should try practicing what they’re preaching and discuss whether this could overstate the case against Scafetta’s work (which I haven’t read).
Oops scratch that…should be:
From their discussion it seems clear that they were aiming for a narrow band approach and good TIME resolution – their time resolution is so HIGH that they are picking up very localised changes in amplitude (tut, tut…) which can inflate the predominance of anomalies, which by nature are localised: non-stationary
And yet is it not so that Scafetta’s temperature forecast is the closest to actual observation? I know that doesn’t make his theories necessarily correct, after all, it may just be serendipity his observations just happen to follow another, unknown mechanism, however his predicted temperature evolution is the best.
With all that said the climate still warms and cools iin 30 year cycles (PDO) super imposed over a 60 year cycle (AMO). I wouldn’t exactly call it a death blow anymore than I would say the world cooled 40% in February!
I think the main problem with this study is the 60 year window that is chosen throughout most of it. Whilst I am fairly confident that periods lower than ~60 years are not significant in the data, I am NOT convinced that a signal of that length is not present.
All of the temperature data sets show a clear ~60 years signal in them. This is true of thermometer, satellite, AMO, PDO, etc.
I do not believe we have identified correctly where this cyclic variation comes from, but you cannot just says the cycle does not exist.
Temperature
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hadcrut-giss-rss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters1.png
ANO/NAO
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/esrl-reconstructed-monthly-nao-rnao-monthly-anomalies.png
PDO
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/pdo-reconstruction-1470-1998-shen-2006-with-gaussian-low-pass-30-and-75-year-filters-and-hadcrut-overlay.png
This is NOT a curve fitting exercise. It is using longer period low pass filters that will show what cycles, if any, are present.
There is most definitely something at ~60 years. The above treatment show it is present in Fig 1 & 2, but then says it is not present in Fig 3.
That just says the assignation/attribution is wrong, not the signal.
It was pointed out countless times in the past that the lines are time-varying. Now the message suddenly sinks in? Also, I would hardly call Scafetta’s views “barycentrism”. His approach might better be described as eccentrism, as it used any and all cycles, well beyond just the traditional barycentric ones. Leveling valid criticism at Scafetta’s work would be child’s play, but at wuwt we’ve seen time and time again attacks on Scafetta from people who don’t even understand what he has done. Sensible discussion just won’t happen here.
Lubos: I would be more convinced by your comment was it not for the fact that we do not seem to be able to accurately predict what the Moon’s orbit was going back even a few 100 years. The clockwork does not seem to be as precise as one would like.
The Moon, which has a large influence potential and real on climate here on Earth,
CAN be moved in its orbit by other bodies even though their influence directly here on Earth is tiny.
Principle of levers may then apply over what would otherwise be considered to be ignorable.
@- kenmoonman
“The initially stationary apple falling to the stationary ground set of equations do not adequately describe an apple that was always moving, impacting to the tree and ground both also in constant transit.”
Actually the Newton equations are sufficient to descibe ALL the motions of the apple, … unless it is travelling above 90% of lightspeed.
It is good to see WUWT finally become skeptical enough to join the mainstream and reject the non-physical fantasies of the barycentrists.
Rational challenges to the Equivalence Principle persist. http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
This thread seems to refer only to the sun’s centre of mass but I understood the barycentric theory as also leading to fluid movements within the body of the sun surrounding the centre of mass separately to the movement of the sun as a whole.
Planetary movements would then influence the internal solar cycle much more than they would move the sun itself.
Consider our moon not moving the Earth much but having measurable effects within our fluid oceans.
We are already accumulating evidence that on Earth there are responses that amplify solar variations across multiple cycles.
Personally, for my New Climate Model, I do not need to know how or why solar variations occur but it is interesting nonetheless.
***
Monckton of Brenchley says:
March 12, 2014 at 2:42 am
***
I’m an admirer of your courage, but when arguing physics w/Motl, you’re out of your league. Read and understand his link.
temp says:
“I don’t see how either sides claims hold up. Temp data has been so adjusted/deleted/tampered with the mere claim that you’ve used it to prove/disprove/show anything other then the data is worthless is a bit of a stretch”
Couldn’t agree more.
“homogenization adjustments now distort our perceptions” — Jim Steele
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/25/unwarranted-temperature-adjustments-and-al-gores-unwarranted-call-for-intellectual-tyranny/
Just to clarify an error stated above, the planets orbit within ~6 degrees of the ecliptic plane, but are not actually as coplanar as might be suggested, and the main reason they are so close has to due with the method by which the solar system was formed. Protoplanetary discs start out with most of the mass orbiting near the same plane, the planets didn’t tug each other towards it from some wildly varying arrangement of orbits.
You could actually argue that the fact that they aren’t perfectly coplanar is more in favor of this sort of influence than the other way around, I’d think.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
— Bertrand Russell
“I think the main problem with this study is the 60 year window that is chosen throughout most of it.”
As the author of the paper let me comment on this statement. It is true that the plots republished on this blog are based on 60 year windows, but the conclusion is not based on that. These plots are just illustrations of the lack of stationarity in the data. The coherence plots in Figs. 4 and 5 and also in Table I are based on shorter windows. Otherwise the number of averages is too small to get any confidence in the coherence estimates.
” Monckton of Brenchley says: March 12, 2014 at 2:42 am
Let us be gentler with one another, and not be too harsh with those who advance theories that appear incompatible with what we think we know. The stifling of intellectual enquiry that the New Religion seeks to impose is bad enough. We must not be corrupted by it. In science, an open mind is of near-infinitely greater value than an open mouth. ”
Hear, hear!! Well said.
Monckton of Brenchley asks “It would be interesting to know, for instance, what causes the 30-year periods of warming followed by 30-year periods of cooling that seem to characterize the global mean surface temperature anomaly record since 1850 that are in phase with the great ocean oscillations.”
A sensible first step would be to see what can be plausibly explained by known forcings (solar, volcanic, aerosol, GHG etc.). The cycles are much less apparent if you look at the residual remaining after subtracting the plausible effects of the forcings, than if you fit cycles to the data and then look at the residuals to see what the cycles don’t explain.
Dear Lobos Motl, Newtonian center of mass analysis doesn’t apply to extended bodies under general relativity. Given that gravity is transmitted at the speed of light (or less), different parts of extended bodies “feel” the effects of another body in a particular position at different times, and the effects they feel at theorectically simultaneous times are from that moving body when it was a different points in space. Whether the effects of this body can or “cannot measurably influence any observation done locally on Earth”, is not a scientific truth but a technological question. The effects are real but perhaps too small to measure. The direct GR implications for processes on the earth are almost certainly to small to amount to anything significant, even cumulatively except perhaps on the earth/moon system. The ocean cycles might be a characteristic frequency of circulation interacting with their basins. The GR implications for the climate would have to be indirect through some kind of cumulative influence on the sun. The sun is extended body 4 light seconds in diameter, with an extended circulation (mass currents) and dynamo that perhaps has its own characteristic frequency. While even with Jupiter the GR impacts are so small as to be instantanenously insignificant, we’ve seen physical processes in other phenomena that allow small effects to accumulate and concentrate, and allowed to have significance through a fortuitous coupling of oscillators, hypothetically beat frequencies between the orbits of the planets and the cycle of the solar dynamo. As unlikely as this seems perhaps billions of years of interactions combine to actually make such coupling likely. like the locking of the moon’s rotation with its orbital period about the earth.
“Science” can be “settled” in so much as a hypothesis can be proven to be invalid. In real science, observations lead to a hypothesis. This hypothesis is used to make predictions. An experiment is run – sometimes being simply the passage of time — and the results are compared to the predictions. If the results vary from the predictions by more than measurement error, then the hypothesis has been proven to be invalid – SETTLED! This isn’t to say that the original hypothesizer cannot go back and rethink / modify the idea, and try again with a new version of the hypothesis, but the original one is indeed clearly disproven. That’s the thing about science. You can never 100% universally prove anything to be settled as being true for all circumstances, but you darned sure can settle something as being unequivocally false.
I’m not sure this particular hypothesis has been tested yet. Has it even been used to make any predictions?
too much noise (natural variation) … too little signal (periodic trends) …
Isn’t FUD wonderful? It creates so many opportunities!
(I must be feeling particularly loquacious today, for I’m going to chime in on this one.)
Now, my training in physics is sorely limited but Scarfetta’s ‘Beautiful Concept’ has always had the appearance of an interesting statistical result in desperate need of a workable physical theory. Any conceivable force that could give rise to a detectable spin-orbit coupling in solar dynamics seems breathtakingly small (notwithstanding the possibility of resonant amplification).
Like many, no doubt, I am enticed by the siren’s call of Scarfetta’s work but, sadly, but in the absence of a physically plausible mechanism, it seems more prudent to set this concept aside for the time being.
Martin Lewitt says:
March 12, 2014 at 6:06 am
—————————————
From the sun to Saturn you’re looking at a maximum of 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Sverre Holm says:
March 12, 2014 at 5:21 am
“As the author of the paper let me comment on this statement. It is true that the plots republished on this blog are based on 60 year windows, but the conclusion is not based on that.”
I was not challenging the conclusion as such, I was observing that the study did indeed find an ~60 year signal in the data, but was not able to assign it to the claimed factors.
As that ~60 year signal is very close to the window width it may not be well or correctly represented in the outputs. A longer 75 year or so window value would make that sort of complication less likely.
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/andersonmannammannloehlegisshadcrutrss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters1.png
dikranmarsupial says:
March 12, 2014 at 6:03 am
“A sensible first step would be to see what can be plausibly explained by known forcings (solar, volcanic, aerosol, GHG etc.). The cycles are much less apparent if you look at the residual remaining after subtracting the plausible effects of the forcings, than if you fit cycles to the data and then look at the residuals to see what the cycles don’t explain.”
Not really. If you do a standard low pass filter treatment of all of the data to date then the ~60 year signal is easily observable. You do not have to able to explain how it got there to be able to observe it is present.
http://climatedatablog.wordpress.com/combined/
RichardLH, it appears that you did not understand the point I was making. The climate responds to changes in the forcings, if TSI goes up, then global temperatures will follow; if we have more volcanos, the resulting aerosols cause a bit of global dimming and the earth cools. Increase GHGs and temperatures will rise. The basic physics of these things are rather well understood.
If you look for cycles in the data BEFORE properly controlling for these known forcings, then your model is implicitly assuming that the effects of these forcings are precisely zero. If the net effect of these changes in individual forcings happens to be correllated with some cycle that can be fitted to the data, the effects will be attributed to this cycle, rather than to the effects of changes in forcings which actually caused them.
In statistics this is called “omitted variable bias” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omitted-variable_bias). If you don’t include the forcings in your model, you run the risk of overestimating the effect of these nebulous cycles.
@ Monckton.
While I agree with you that keeping an open mind is important, as well as being gentle with new ideas, you’ve missed a very important point.
Like with some other people who have graced the pages here at WUWT, and met with an open mind initially, allowing publication and discussion of some of the ideas off the beaten path, Dr. Scafetta has had that privilege too.
His ideas didn’t hold up under discussion over many months, and then there was systemic off-topic thread bombing to tell anyone and everyone how his theory is the one that matters.
I’m fine with giving a look to new ideas, but if they don’t hold up, I’m not fine with the continual pushing of them even though it has been made clear we are moving on from them and they have become unwelcome. Witness Doug Cotton and the gravity theory of atmospheric temperature.
We can’t embrace such behavior when the science doesn’t hold up.
Scafetta’s Global Temperature prediction
Nicola Scafetta provides a phenomenological model that appears to provide far greater near term accuracy than the IPCC Global Climate Models where > 95% of the 35 year temperature projections are wrong – too hot.
Global Warming Prediction Model
The Knowledge Miner software has been applied to identify a phenomenological model of global warming at the Global Warming Project. Like Scafetta’s, its near term accuracy appears to be much greater than the IPCC GCMs.
The tasks now are to identify the underlying causes of the much greater near term accuracy of these phenomenological models and what causes the failures of the IPCC’s models despite their $ billions behind them.
Venus-Earth-Jupiter spin-orbit coupling
Lubos
Look forward to your evaluation of another tidal focused model by IRG Wilson:
The Venus–Earth–Jupiter spin–orbit coupling model, I. R. G. Wilson, Pattern Recogn. Phys., 1, 147–158, 2013 http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/1/147/2013/ doi:10.5194/prp-1-147-2013
Fail faster as to find sooner.
As Richard Feynman described the scientific method: “First we guess”.
Keep encouraging exploration, testing and civility.
Remember:
Thomas Edison. Spoken statement (c. 1903); published in Harper’s Monthly (September 1932)
Keep on guessing, testing, perspiring, validating and encouraging each other on with civility to the goal of discovering truth.
dikranmarsupial says:
March 12, 2014 at 6:52 am
“RichardLH, it appears that you did not understand the point I was making.”
No I understood all too well the point you were making. You can reduce things to not present by trying to assign parts of what is there to various factors and thus prove that there is nothing there. Sort of like the Cheshire Cat I suppose in reverse.
The fact is that there IS a ~60 year cycle to all of the data. The fact that you cannot find the components that make it up does not mean it is not present, only that you are unable to model it correctly. Not the same thing.
Poor Anthony,
some authors above have pointed out problems concerning the 60-year windows and the fact that my model is not based on “barycentrism” but on something else. Anthony has never understood this point among other things.
Let us not detail much the things. Just one point. In the above Figure 3 there is an analysis of the speed of the sun. Here no 60-year oscillation is observed! As a consequence, Holm does not find a coherence between the ~60-year temperature oscillation and the ~60-year astronomical oscillation.
It is curious. An astronomical 60-year oscillation has been known since ancient times by nearly everybody such as Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Babylonian up to Kepler and beyond. Indians called it the Brihaspati-Jupiter cycle, Babylonians used it to develop the 60-base numerical system that we still use in our watches.
Of course, 60-year oscillation are macroscopic in numerous astronomical records as extensively demonstrated in my papers and by many others.
The stability of the temperature lines has also been tested in my papers. For example, the model was calibrated in 1850-1950 and predicted the 1950-2010 records and vice-versa. Etc, etc.
Read my papers:
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/#astronomical_model
REPLY: Read Holm’s comment upthread: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/11/death-blow-to-barycentrism-on-the-alleged-coherence-between-the-global-temperature-and-the-suns-movement/#comment-1588394
-Anthony
… damn, and that was my favourite hockey stick.
dikranmarsupial says:
March 12, 2014 at 6:52 am
P.S. You seem to think that I am looking for a cycle and trying to fit it to the data. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do not expect to find ANY cycle in the data longer than 15 years. The data says that there is one. It could have fallen at any period longer than 15 years and it would show up in the output. These are broadband, flat topped, filters which will show anything that is present.
You have to come up with a reasonable conclusion as to how this wriggle got there, not me.
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hadcrut-giss-rss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters1.png
This is just the data and summaries of that data. No theory, just observation.
RichardLH, ironically, ignoring the forcings is exactly the sort of “Cheshire cat in reverse” approach that you seem to dislike. Of course those who want to argue that there is a cycle in the data do not want to see the evidence for those cycles diminished by controlling for the forcings. Now if there really is a cycle in the data, it will still be there after controlling for the forcings, if it isn’t that is because the forcings plausibly explain the apparent cycle.
An important difference is that we have well understood physical mechanisms underpinning the effects of the forcings. The causes of the cycles is rather nebulous, which is why they end up with rather tenuous explanations, such as barycentrism.
dikranmarsupial says:
March 12, 2014 at 7:34 am
So your explanation for these observations is what?
Temperature
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hadcrut-giss-rss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters1.png
PDO
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/pdo-reconstruction-1470-1998-shen-2006-with-gaussian-low-pass-30-and-75-year-filters-and-hadcrut-overlay.png
Co-incidence?
@-RichardLH
” The fact is that there IS a ~60 year cycle to all of the data. The fact that you cannot find the components that make it up does not mean it is not present, only that you are unable to model it correctly.”
The cycle is very difficult to find in the instrumental temperature data, falling well below the ENSO variations in magnitude. Longer proxy records do show a ~50-70 year fluctuation of varying period and amplitude. Rather like a small ENSO variation but with a much slower timescale. It probably is not a even, smooth oscillation but a chaotic fluctuation of variable period and size.
Ironically it can be duplicated in climate models and the cause of the ‘cycle’ identified as this old study shows.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s003820000075#page-1
Independent analyses of multicentury integrations of two versions of the GFDL coupled atmosphere-ocean model also show the existence of distinct multidecadal variability in the North Atlantic region which resembles the observed pattern. The model variability involves fluctuations in the intensity of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic.
Martin Lewitt says:
March 12, 2014 at 6:06 am
Newtonian center of mass analysis doesn’t apply to extended bodies under general relativity
Under the weak gravitational forces in the solar system, general relativity effects are exceedingly small. Are you suggesting that the ‘Scafetta Cycles’ are general relativity effects [on par with the perihelion advance of Mercury]?
“Wonky”…that’s cold dude. Let the papers speak for themselves if they have merit. Leave the emotional dribble out of it. Watts up with that?
RichardLH, this is getting tedious, I have already pointed out that the changes in forcings plausibly explain some, but not all of the apparent cycles in the data, I rather doubt the evidence for cycles in what remains is statistically significant, but I have an open mind. Of course ocean circulation is likely to be another component as the affect the reidstribution of heat in the system. The point is that the evidence for the existence of cycles is grossly overstated when it is derived without first controlling for known changes in the forcings for which good physical mechanisms are well understood. This is not rocket science, statisticians have known about omitted variable bias for many decades.
Hi Anthony,
I read the paper. I do not understand some of the data analysis methods argued in sections 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4.
1) “The purpose of this paper is to reanalyze the data for coherence. The main tools are time–frequency spectral analysis and the magnitude squared coherence.”
——
I cannot comment on whether these tools are the definitive mechanisms to appropriately resolve coherence. Why would they be? See below.
——
2) “The estimator finds relationships between data based on linear systems theory where the effect,
y(t), is a filtered version of the cause,x(t), with noise added. The smaller the contribution of the noise at a particular frequency, the closer the MSC will be to 1. If on the other hand there is a chaotic system coupling between input and output, the MSC will not be able to discriminate be-
tween that and additive noise. In such cases it is not so useful. However, there is nothing in Scafetta (2010) that indicates chaotic coupling, so the MSC should be an appropriate measure to use.”
——
I think Holm thinks MSC appropriate because Scafetta, in effect, did not exclude it. But why would he and why then would apply a method that yields a mask? Seems like Holm is sort of exploiting a gap so to speak. ie, Scafetta did say NOT to use this eraser. So I can use it.
——
3) “However, both the low number of independent averages [a] that it builds on as well
as the lack of a physical explanation for this coherence[b], makes us hesitate to claim that
it is significant.”
——
a) the method Holm uses achieves the reduction of averages so ok. but,
b) Scaffetta is not obligated to explain why a coherence is there.
——
So, IMO (largely influenced by ignorance) this is not a death blow, rather, a good showpiece for a deathblow that is selectively lethal.
I still have an open mind. Gravity seems to be sensitive enough to have worked it out so that Bary-centrism is observable to the eye, so it seems to me that if my eye can see it, why can’t the climate system? Where would time-varying gravitational signals be amplified on earth and cast into a record?
REPLY: We can also see comets and asteroids pass by that have a small gravitational effect, does that mean they also affect Earth’s climate? I think not. – Anthony
I could almost congratulate the Holm author of this article on finding a method of data presentation turning history into a grand mess (e.g. figure 2 and the others in his paper). Perhaps he could switch to daily sampling and a scatterplot to further aid maximizing mess, or to per-second weather data (if it was available) to add extra noise.
Why plot those spectrographs alone and never, ever, ever show the data more directly like the bottom section of http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm ?
The second to last graph there for the sun versus the center of mass is far from a full match to solar activity history, implying what is depicted couldn’t be the sum total of all going on (at most superimposed on other factors), but at least the originators don’t have to carefully avoid letting readers see the data in a conventional plot.
I don’t agree with everything Scafetta says, but, if someone could be judged by the enemies they make, his opponents would be practically a favorable recommendation. Some things should be red flags. Extra favoring GIGO computer models precisely because of superficial impressiveness and how nobody else is likely to spend vast hours checking all the code and input datasets, while not even providing them anyway, is one red flag familar in climatology. Resorting unnecessarily and deliberately to solely relatively opaque, messy methods of data presentation (while doing a poor job pretending to be unbiased even in writing style) is another.
When a methodology or method of presentation is applied to give a conclusion, the first step is to check the implicit assumptions in it, to check the methodology itself, whether the methodology would give accurate conclusions if used on other data. This reminds me of the example I did (about 1/5th of the way down within usual illustrations on a different topic, http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=62356_expanded_overview3_122_1094lo.jpg ) of how, with plotting data at a scale with a scale monthly or more frequent to maximize noise, while applying an opaque computer model or surplus statistical processing to impress the target audience, one can “prove” “no relationship” on almost anything.
This Holm article is supposed to be a “death blow”? To even start to make a conclusion like that, do what it didn’t do: Upload all data (including the SCMSS history before it is processed into a Holm figure 3 style mess) in a convenient manner, not something taking long enough to dig up and verify that the author knows perfectly well that next to nobody is really likely to do so. Abusing the inconvenience factor is something else I watch out for in general; the infamous Doran and Zimmerman 97% consensus BS was quite successfully propagated by the simple measure of how the number of readers who would look up the specific questions asked was a small minority compared to the number hearing the 97% consensus claim in a media article not even providing a direct clickable link to the paper, and that was a far lesser barrier than applicable here.
For that matter, where would the moon’s effect be cast into a historical record on earth? Is that observable?
dikranmarsupial says:
March 12, 2014 at 7:59 am
“I rather doubt the evidence for cycles in what remains is statistically significant, but I have an open mind.”
Well there can hardly be a statistical significance to a filter! Other than the inaccuracies that produce the figures it relies on and, to some extend the leak of higher frequencies through to the pass band.
So what is your explanation for the ~60 year wriggle that IS present?
My last comment on this: I would like Holm to use the same data analysis method to show that the moon yields no effect (re:coherence) on the temperature record. The moon, the thing that raises the water level in the Bay of Fundy 50 feet twice a day. Apparently, the moon doesn’t influence climate either. Well, in that case, neither do people.
izen says:
March 12, 2014 at 7:46 am
“The cycle is very difficult to find in the instrumental temperature data, falling well below the ENSO variations in magnitude. Longer proxy records do show a ~50-70 year fluctuation of varying period and amplitude.”
So this wriggle does not exist?
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hadcrut-giss-rss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters1.png
RichardLH sorry life is to short to indulge those who ignore the answers to questions if they don’t like them and merely ask the question again.
dikranmarsupial says:
March 12, 2014 at 8:28 am
As you consistently do. I accept that the world is very difficult to model. I do expect the models to conform to the observations though. Just because the models cannot explain the observations does not make the observations wrong, only the models.
A significant influence of the Sun seen from cycles of the solar magnetic field, and its apparent sharp decline from the 23 cycle. The trend is downward. Magnetic activity will be manifest itself in the stratosphere over the magnetic poles in the form of blocking polar vortex.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/Ap.gif
Dr. Svalgaard, No, I’m not convinced by Scaffeta’s results either, the ball appears to be back in his court. I just counter certain categorical arguments that are misunderstandings of the physics. Basically, “Gee, the lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here, uh… staggers me.” (Jurassic Park movie) Any solar system effects on our climate short of Milankovitch cycles would probably have to be modulated through variations in solar activity. I’ve believe there has been a paper arguing that any regular cycles in solar activity beyond the Hale cycle would require external forcing and I don’t see any mechanism other than the gravitational or magnetic interaction of the planets. All the candidate effects seem pretty small, whether Newtonian or GR. As surprising as these this coupling would be, I don’t know of any alternate hypotheses that would be less surprising.
@- RichardLH
“So this wriggle does not exist?”
-link to graph-
of course the wriggle exists, as does the overall trend and the short term variations.
But that ‘wiggle’ is entierly insufficient in defining a cycle with a fixed period and amplitude. A cyclic variation is not detectable from less than two full periods of a putative oscillation.
Just to make my point, RichardLH wrote “As you consistently do.” which is the sort of tiresome schoolboy retort that most of us eventually grow out of. Trying to deflect the discussion onto the models is just a transparent attempt at evasion. Criticising the models (while providing no evidence) does not change the fact that assessing the presence and strength of cycles in the observations should involve controlling for the effects of known factors such as changes in forcings (to avoid omitted variable bias). It is fairly obvious why RichardLH is unwilling to accept this simple element of good statistical practice.
Anthony seems to think I am endorsing the planetary-solar-Earth climate link. But I have been careful not to do that, for the absence of an explainable cause (other than in chaos theory) makes the hypothesis very difficult to verify.
Equally, I do not necessarily endorse some of the arguments against the theory that the planets influence the Sun and the Sun in turn influences the climate. But I do agree with Anthony that there has been some incivility on the part of one or two of the advocates of the theory, and that that has not been helpful.
Perhaps Dr. Holm would be able to help me with the following questions: and I say again that I raise these questions not because I want to make a point but because I am interested in the answers. In the words of Housman’s Greek chorus: “I only ask because I want to know.”
First, there is no 60-year oscillation in Dr. Holm’s fig. 3. Yet, astronomically speaking, an oscillation of 60 years or there by has been well attested to since ancient times (though I cannot say whether it is in phase with, or in any way causatively associated with, the 60-year cycle in the ocean oscillations).
Secondly, planetary-beat models such as that of Dr. Scafetta are based on tides, in particular the 12-year Jupiter tide beat with the 10-year Jupiter-Saturn spring tide with 61-year oscillations. This oscillation has been detected in solar and consequently in aurora records by numerous authors since the 19th century. Admittedly, the period of reliable data is short, and one bears in mind the possibility of an error akin to that which was perpetrated by the peddlers of the “biorhythms” scam 20 years ago. Take three mutually prime cycles and one can draw all manner of interesting but nonsensical conclusions.
Thirdly, it is possible to calibrate a planetary-beat climate model against a reference period such as 1890-1950 and then to predict the patterns in 1950-2010 with respectable precision, and vice versa. On the other hand, this kind of backcasting is what the general-circulation models do so well, whereas they fall down when it comes to forecasting.
Perhaps the fairest test would be to continue to watch the evolution of observed, measured global temperature change against the temperature change predicted by the GCMs on the one hand and by a planetary-beat model on the other. This method has the defect that both types of model may be inadequate: but it is not unreasonable to imagine the possibility that the planetary-beat model may prove less inadequate than the GCMs.
Fourthly, it is not clear to me that analysis of a single window only 60 years wide is sufficient to distinguish beats clearly enough. Dr. Holm’s variable patterns are simple beats.
I should be interested to hear Dr. Holm’s comments on these respectfully-presented points.
@- Paul Westhaver
“For that matter, where would the moon’s effect be cast into a historical record on earth? Is that observable?”
Barely, perhaps.
there is a hypothesis that the 18.6 year lunar nodal tide cycle may increase the vertical mixing of sea surface warmth but the effect seems very small.
There is little evidence for any other lunar effect on climate, or even on the weather!
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8321.short
Anthony, read my papers. Do not believe everything just for bias.
There are numerous persons that tried to rebut my papers and they were always found to have made serious errors in one way or in another.
Do you remember the cases of Benestad, Rypdal etc? Holm seems to be connected to these people, at least with Rypdal (father and son).
Moreover Holm is from the Department of Informatics, (no expertise in physics, nor in astronomy, nor in mathematics)!
He could not find a 60-year oscillation in the astronomical records despite this oscillation has been known since ancient times! See here
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/universo/siriusmystery/siriusmystery_appendix03.htm
And my models are based on tides not on “barycentrism”, which however is important too from the electromagnetic point of view.
Think about it.
REPLY: I have thought about it over months and years, and I’ve decided that since you refuse to show code and data, but continue your all purpose dodge mantra of “read my papers”, your work has no merit. It isn’t reproducible by anyone but you, and that makes it falsified. See Mosher’s response below. I await the predictable bluster of ego.
I suggest you respond to Holm directly, or are you afraid he has a point you can’t counter?
– Anthony
well they had a theory about a connection.. this guy tested it. No connection. theory false.
if only science were as automatic as Feynman thought or Popper thought. If only there were some rule that forced people to change their minds, their theories, their words… sorry
Now ,watch tallbloke and others : attack the method, attack the data, attack the author, attack Anthony.. In short they will do EVERYTHING BUT ‘question their theory”.
Of course there might be a way to save the theory.. some jiggery here, some jiggery there, new data, old data re jiggered, re jiggered data re re jiggered. New methods with no code provided..
plenty of ways.
In the end you either have to re do all the work yourself– or trust someone else… some paper, some post, some words ..some figures.
I’ve tried to re do scaffettas work. gavin has tried. McIntyre has tried. We all failed. We asked for code. he said no. who you gunna trust? Me? Leif. Why? its simple. He shows his work, he shares his data. When I check it I get the same answers. Is Trusting Leif an appeal to authority? No, its practical experience at work.
Building science is like building a house. You work on a foundation poured by other folks. After a while you come to understand who pours a good foundation.
Now of course some folks will continue to build a house on scafettas quicksand foundation. You cant stop them. All you can do is ignore them or laugh
RichardLH
Blimey just popped back after a while and I see you’ve got your horns locked in another battle.
This has to be one of the most contentious/acrimonious posting I’ve read on WUWT.
Right because variations and cycles in the overriding source of heat for the planet along with being a major influencer of electromagnetic activity has no or little effect on climate.
Even a layperson can see denying the sun as a major factor is nonsense.
Really, it’s no wonder some accuse Anthony of being controlled opposition ready to drive the debate step by step in favour of the alarmists.
Piers Corbyn certainly seems to get it right the vast majority of the time despite erroneous smear attempts.
Since there is no global temperature, the point is kind of moot. Or, maybe useless is the better word.
There’s a visually obvious bias in the estimates caused by using a support span that’s too narrow. It’s a trivial exercise to correct this bias.
dikranmarsupial says:
March 12, 2014 at 8:40 am
“It is fairly obvious why RichardLH is unwilling to accept this simple element of good statistical practice.”
The problem is that there is not enough data to do valid statistical analysis as you well know. The margins for/of error are just too wide.
There is more to the world than statistics though, which can draw valid inferences without needing the time periods that statistics require.
A simple filter to the data will provide information on a noisy signal long before the statistics will turn up an answer.
And models have so far failed to predict anything valid in the short term, or hadn’t you noticed?
Pacific Decadal Oscillation
There are tens of thousands of papers on the PDO. There may be multiple causes/drivers. e.g.
The Forcing of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation*
Such multiple drivers makes it difficult to sort out complex chaotic systems which have a general 50-70 year oscillation. Are there similar multiple affects masking the other oscillations?
cd says:
March 12, 2014 at 8:58 am
“Blimey just popped back after a while and I see you’ve got your horns locked in another battle.”
Well the data and summaries of the data does not change (except we ad another month – right on the trend line as well – purely by chance of course). Only the fact that people seem to be prepared to ignore what it shows. 🙂
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/uah-global.png
Carl Wunsch said in http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/thermohaline.pdf
“The conclusion from this and other lines of evidence is that the ocean’s mass flux is sustained primarily by the wind, and secondarily by tidal forcing,. Both in models and the real ocean, surface buoyancy boundary conditions strongly influence the transport of heat and salt, because the fluid must become dense enough to sink, but these boundary conditions do not actually drive the circulation.”
So tides DO affect the climate indirectly if not directly. It is not a big stretch from there to suggest that long term patterns in those will also affect things.
Modelling it may well be beyond us though at present as he also observed.
Steven Mosher says:
March 12, 2014 at 8:58 am
You do need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater though. Even if Nicola’s derivation for a ~60 year cycle is not physically correct, that does not mean that a ~60 year cycle does not exist in the data. The observation of the cycle needs to be separated from the explanation.
Does so far it works?
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~christrask/Solar%20Activity%201600-2100.pdf
Nicola
I do not have a dog in this particular fight having no worthwhile knowledge of this subject.
However, it is obvious that you could immediately convert people to your views if you would produce your code so those with the knowledge can check and validate it.
As far as I understand you refuse to provide the code and people are therefore unable to reproduce your results and remain sceptical of them.
This could all be cleared up very quickly by producing your code. Why do you refuse a reasonable request?
tonyb
RichardLH
So tides DO affect the climate indirectly if not directly.
We know that the tidal range has changed through geological time (Moon moving further away due to tidal surge). Is there some dependence between climate and tidal range through geological time? If there is then it would seem likely that gravitational oscillations, no matter how small may play apart.
Anthony How do you and Lubos explain the Milankovitch cycles which are observed in the Geological record back for hundreds of millions of years. In fact Astrochronology and Cyclostratigraphy are commonly used in constructing the Geological time scale from the record of changing climate in the rocks .Interested parties will enjoy the beautiful example of the 100,000 and 405,000 year eccentricity cycles seen these Chinese Permian rocks (near to the Great Extinction)
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130913/ncomms3452/full/ncomms3452.html?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20130918
Here is a quote from the paper
“Strong ~405 kyr cycles predominate in both U–Pb age-calibrated series, which we interpret as evidence of forcing from Earth’s 405-kyr orbital eccentricity cycle. This cycle originates from interaction between Venus and Jupiter orbital perihelia, and is stable over long timescales owing to the great mass of Jupiter. The 405-kyr cycle has been adopted as a ‘metronome’ for the astronomical tuning of the Cenozoic–Mesozoic stratigraphy.”
There are of course other periodicities in the system which have been discussed in various papers by Scafetta and Wison.
It is best to stay close to the climate data as for example see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
where the 60 and 1000 year periodicities are used to forecast the coming cooling.
REPLY: Periodicity is one thing, I have no qualms with Milankovitch cycles, as they are easily calculable and broadly reproducible to show the variation in watts/m2 on the surface of the Earth over those time scales.
Claims like Scafetta that are only reproducible by him, where he says everybody else is wrong while not sharing his data and code to allow others to test it, don’t rate any serious consideration in my mind. We don’t let Mann, Jones, and others get away with such stuff, why should Nicola rate a pass? – Anthony
See Fig 5 in the link in my 9:44 post
“In short, both theory and observation indicate that it is not impossible for the planets to influence the Sun and, via the Sun, the Earth/Moon system. However, merely because it is not impossible, it ain’t necessarily so.”
Its not impossible that unicorn farts influence the climate.
When the most celebrated proponent of a theory refuses, flat refuses, to SHOW HIS WORK to share his code, when he hides his unicorn and then demands that we believe in his private experience of this unicorn, we are rationally obligated to dismiss his work. Obligated to dismiss it.
He writes a nice story about what he did to find this unicorn, but until he actually shows his work and shares his code, we are compelled by reason to dismiss his work. Especially when others such as McIntyre, who has no patience with foolishness and no shortage of grey matter, was unable to conjour up Scafettas unicorn.
Skeptics have place in the climate debate. Nic Lewis has shown folks how to make an impact.
share your data. share your code. Steve mcintyre, Anthony watts, troy masters, Odonnel, McKittrick.. They all have show you the way: do the science. share your data. share your code.
When you comprehend that solar cyclesis short-and long-term changes in the solar magnetic field. Number of solar magnetic radiation does not change, but will change the amount of radiation Galactic, which is evident in geological research.
Mosh
I am rather bemused as to why Dr Scafetta does not kill the controversy by showing his code. It seems illogical to me unless the code is not as robust as he hopes
tonyb
@climatereason ditto. If somebody not connected with his group can reproduce his work, and show why it’s either right or wrong, I’ll adjust my opinion accordingly.
“read my papers” doesn’t cut it. if McIntyre can’t reproduce it, it may very well be irreproducible.
Monckton’s new journal on unicorn farts looks stillborn.
what would mr feynman say? The barycentrists had a theory. everyone gets to have a theory. I like the unicorn fart theory. have an open mind.. yes the open mind argument.. anything is possible. So, that theory got tested in this paper. What was Feynmans rule again? ah yes,
the barycentric theory is at odds with these observations. And the science machine therefore says “theory false.” with barycentrism dead, perhaps we can focus research dollars on unicorn farts.
It could be true. Have an open mind. After all, Einstein was clerk which proves everything is possible
“Monckton of Brenchley says:
March 12, 2014 at 8:45 am
First, there is no 60-year oscillation in Dr. Holm’s fig. 3.”
It is not hard to reanalyze the solar movement data and see a ~60 year line, albeit a somewhat unstable one and much weaker than the dominant other peaks. It just needs more data than the 160 years and longer windows as mentioned by several here.
But, please look at Figs. 4 and 5 of the paper (the ones which are not reproduced in this blog). That’s where the conclusion comes from. The essence is that with only about 160 years of data for the temperature series, there is simply not enough data for making a claim of coherence at a 60 year period in the strict sense of a magnitude squared coherence which has a significant peak. My approach to this is not as a astrophysicist, but from the point of view of data analysis.
@Henry Clark
Re the increase in resolution to the point where ‘no correlation’ exists – Willis just did that a few days ago to show the ‘poor correlation’ between two data sets where one was smeared (smoothed) and the other was high resolution. By plugging them directly into a process to get a correlation coefficient, obviously it will be terrible. But what is proven by the calculated number? The tool used can hide the truth of a correlation, or reveal it. There are many examples of this but a couple from Monty Python come to mind like the witch-detector.
@dikranmarsupial says:
>If you look for cycles in the data BEFORE properly controlling for these known forcings, then your model is implicitly assuming that the effects of these forcings are precisely zero.
Well, as usual it is not quite a simple as that. Before demanding the removal of ‘all forcings’ one has to assume, for the sake of argument, that all are in some way dependent, not independent, then one by one prove they are not. For example there are many claims that solar conditions affect earthquakes and volcanism. It is known that electric currents can be used to trigger earthquakes and a weapon based on this knowledge is said to exist. Electromagnetic effects are not all understood. Testing the hypothesis can’t be done in a cartoonish manner by arbitrarily assuming these don’t matter but that does.
I am completely unmoved by arguments based on a ‘lack of a physical explanation’. Good grief do we still have to hear that? How can one look for a physical explanation before one knows what to look for as a predicted effect? First characterize the effect, then look for an explanation – which might take generations to nail down. Does anyone really need examples from history?
There seems to be undue haste to dismiss a poorly understood complex phenomenon that is working within a system filled with harmonics. Surely no one needs to be reminded that the position of the planets and their year-lengths are harmonic, and function as a single system?
The arguments against all barycentric ideas are overly simplistic. According to the ‘gravity is too small’ argument the moon can’t raise much of a tide on earth because the overall force is too small and spread over the mass of the Earth. Yet the ocean tides rise quite high cyclically because they are free to flow and hence rise far more than the land underneath (which also rises a little). The bodies are treated as if they are billiard balls. Basically the anti-claims are that all influence on the Sun has to be amortized over the whole solar mass, the cyclical influence will not appear in the fluid motion near the surface. There are papers describing how the butterfly pattern of sunspots is synchronized with the position of the Earth-Moon-Venus barycenter and the charts are pretty impressive. Maybe it is a coincidence. I could conclude ‘the effect is obvious to the eye’ but there are still people who would cry that the mass of the EMV system is too low, the sun is so huge, blah-blah-blah.
Yet the tides still move.
I would be much less impressed with barycentric postulations if the predictions of climate based on it were not so very much better than the ‘accepted’ and ‘consensus’ physical models of the universe. If there is a major drought in the USA in 2018 and again in 2025, consensus climate physics will have even more explaining to do.
cd says:
March 12, 2014 at 9:38 am
“We know that the tidal range has changed through geological time (Moon moving further away due to tidal surge). ”
Tidal friction rather than surge, but that is on a very long timescale. The point worth considering is in the range 10s to 100s of years and how, if at all, the alterations is the tidal factors here on Earth may or may not have affected things.
The Moon and Sun take a long while to return to the same positions as viewed from the Earth’s surface. That will, in itself, produce different outcomes from gravitational fields on the Earth’s surface. It will not require further ‘action at a distance’ or new physics. It will just be a simple variation on what happens each month/year.
Now if that is sufficient to get above the noise that the system already produces then perhaps we can start to explain why things change as they do – or not.
And the timings may well line up with what Nicola Scarfetta has demonstrated – though through a completely different mechanism.
You know the argument I like best..
Imagine that the molecules in the atmosphere were people in a football stadium.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/welch_slide7.jpg?w=562&h=391
Ok now lets do the same thing with gravitation forces.
tidal forces would be half of a peanut shell in section 42 row 15 under seat 34.
right next to the unicorn fart
Sverre Holm says:
March 12, 2014 at 9:58 am
“The essence is that with only about 160 years of data for the temperature series, there is simply not enough data for making a claim of coherence at a 60 year period in the strict sense of a magnitude squared coherence which has a significant peak. My approach to this is not as a astrophysicist, but from the point of view of data analysis.”
From a statistical point of view you are correct. There are more things than statistics though. A simple low pass filter will remove higher frequencies and display any cycle longer than 15 years which is what I have attempted to show.
This discovers an ~60 year signal in the data. It is not curve fitting, it is data reduction.
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hadcrut-giss-rss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters1.png
Backed up with a similar signal in the PDO that just cannot be pure co-incidence.
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/pdo-reconstruction-1470-1998-shen-2006-with-gaussian-low-pass-30-and-75-year-filters-and-hadcrut-overlay.png
This is just observational data. Nothing more.
“Anthony How do you and Lubos explain the Milankovitch cycles which are observed in the Geological record back for hundreds of millions of years. ”
Unicorn farts.
havent you read my paper? These phenomena are explanable by unicorn farts. My friends peer reviewed it. Nobody can reproduce it. If you dont understand it you are dumb. and no you cannot see my code, and no you cannot have my data. I have some sea front property for sale as well, would you care to buy it. here’s a picture, trust me.
It is ridiculous to think that the Earth and the Sun existed since the era of satellites.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013SoPh..286..609M
Two 9400-year long 10Be data records from the Arctic and Antarctic and a 14C record of equal length were used to investigate the periodicities in the cosmic radiation incident on Earth throughout the past 9400 years. Fifteen significant periodicities between 40 and 2320 years are observed in the 10Be and 14C records, there being close agreement between the periodicities in each record. We found that the periodic variations in the galactic cosmic radiation are the primary cause for periods 250 years. The spectral line for the Gleissberg (87-year) periodicity is narrow, indicating a stability of ≈ 0.5 %. The 9400-year record contains 26 Grand Minima (GM) similar to the Maunder Minimum, most of which occurred as sequences of 2 – 7 GM with intervals of 800 – 1200 years in between, in which there were no GM. The intervals between the GM sequences are characterised by high values of the modulation function. Periodicities < 150 years are observed in both the GM intervals and the intervals in between. The longer-period variations such as the de Vries (208-year) cycle have high amplitudes during the GM sequences and are undetectable in between. There are three harmonically related pairs of periodicities (65 and 130 years), (75 and 150 years), and (104 and 208 years). The long periodicities at 350, 510, and 708 years closely approximate 4, 6, and 8 times the Gleissberg period (87 years). The well-established properties of cosmic-ray modulation theory and the known dependence of the heliospheric magnetic field on the solar magnetic fields lead us to speculate that the periodicities evident in the paleo-cosmic-ray record are also present in the solar magnetic fields and in the solar dynamo. The stable, narrow natures of the Gleissberg and other periodicities suggest that there is a strong "frequency control" in the solar dynamo, in strong contrast to the variable nature (8 – 15 years) of the Schwabe (11-year) solar cycle.
RichardLH
I do not want to derail this thread but we do have CET of course which gives a very extended series from which a 60 year cycle could be detected, if it exists.
I have extended CET to 1538
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/11.jpg
A regional signal should show up just as well as a global signal. Is there a 60 year cycle in your view?
tonyb
‘You do need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater though. Even if Nicola’s derivation for a ~60 year cycle is not physically correct, that does not mean that a ~60 year cycle does not exist in the data. The observation of the cycle needs to be separated from the explanation.
There is no cycle IN THE DATA.
the data is the data
There is no trend in the data
There is no mean in the data
The data is the data. nothing more and nothing less. It is what it is and nothing more.
When you CHOOSE to apply a method to the data you create a result. That result is not in the data. the result comes from your decision to apply a technique to the data. That technique like all methods has assumptions. So what we want to see is your work. because it is your work what you actually DO to the data that produces this result. Describing what you do, is not sufficient
You must show what do. You must show your assumptions. You must show your actual work.
And to be really diligent you should question the sensitivity of your results to your assumptions.
Most proxies used in historical reconstructions are highly unreliable. Uncertainties are inherent when you look for a weak signal in a strong noise; it may be present when using one statistical method and absent with another method. You can “prove” whatever you like.
“Anthony Watts says:
March 12, 2014 at 9:56 am
@climatereason ditto. If somebody can reproduce his work, show why it’s either right or wrong, I’ll adjust my opinion accordingly.”
If we’re talking of the paper Scafetta, “Empirical evidenceforacelestialoriginoftheclimateoscillations
and itsimplications” http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf then I have been able to reproduce all figures in that paper but one. That was his Fig. 8. (Power spectra of the speed of the Earth relative to the Sun and of the speed of the center of mass of the Earth–Moon system relative to the Sun).
Reproduction or not is not the point of my criticism of the paper, it is the method used and the assumptions that have been made.
TonyB:
Well there is a cycle which has ~60 year components to it. So the answer is yes, but not in a sine wave sort of way.
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/cet-monthly-with-full-kernel-gaussian-low-pass-annual-15-and-75-years-filters-with-a-15-year-savitzky-golay-projection.png
Anthony you say “Periodicity is one thing, I have no qualms with Milankovitch cycles, as they are easily calculable and broadly reproducible to show the variation in watts/m2 on the surface of the Earth over those time scales.”
I think we do well to look for the patterns i.e periodicities in the data itself without worrying too much about the underlying processes. That is where the modelers go wrong – they assume they know how the system works and build their models accordingly.
The chief uncertainty in my cooling forecasts is where we are with regard to the 1000 year periodicity. I think we are just a little past the peak . This is supported by Figs 3 and 4 in the last post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
I would appreciate your opinion on this working hypothesis.
Steven Mosher says:
March 12, 2014 at 8:58 am
In the end you either have to re do all the work yourself– or trust someone else… some paper, some post, some words ..some figures.
. who you gunna trust? Leif. Why? its simple. He shows his work, he shares his data. When I check it I get the same answers. Is Trusting Leif an appeal to authority? No, its practical experience at work.
______________________
Excellent, Steven. Not only is Leif’s work verifiable, but his statements in re scientific reasoning and methods, bolster confidence in his works (not that confidence adds to the science.)
For instance, someone recently praised Dr. Svalgaard’s “position” about an issue as being correct. Leif responded that a “position” is meaningless and only the data counts.
RichardLH
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-latest.gif
Steven Mosher says:
March 12, 2014 at 10:13 am
“There is no cycle IN THE DATA.
the data is the data
There is no trend in the data
There is no mean in the data
The data is the data. nothing more and nothing less. It is what it is and nothing more.”
True(ish) – but definitely misleading.
There is a daily cycle in the data.
There is a monthly cycle in some data.
There is a yearly cycle in the data.
There may well be more than a yearly cycle in some data.
How you treat the data to display it will serve to hide or emphasise those cycles. Normally it is common to use low pass filters to conceal both the daily and yearly signal.
If you use slightly longer low pass filters you can observe a ~60 year signal in the data. All that is being done is reveal what is present in the data
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hadcrut-giss-rss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters1.png
You want the R or spreadsheet methodologies for that? That has been done my me and others elsewhere but can be done here if required.
Dr Norman Page says:
March 12, 2014 at 10:16 am
“I think we do well to look for the patterns i.e periodicities in the data itself without worrying too much about the underlying processes. That is where the modelers go wrong – they assume they know how the system works and build their models accordingly.”
I agree strongly with that statement. Modellers presume that they know the answer to all the factors they need to consider then plug in values to make it all work. Does make the assumption that they have correctly identified all of the factors though.
ren says:
March 12, 2014 at 10:21 am
“http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PF-latest.gif”
Curve fitting is not something I am particularly comfortable with. It makes a wild assumption that some mechanism exists that gives it some meaning. Until that is shown then it is not a very useful exercise.
Martin Lewitt says:
March 12, 2014 at 6:06 am
cumulative influence on the sun.
——————————————-
Cumulative is a key thought. That is how the sea ice increase in Antarctica appears to me. I tried to explain that to some warmists in relation to what is happening in Antarctica holds greater significance to the globe than the changes in the Arctic. The southern sea ice increase is a cumulative affect which will be felt over time.
@RichardLH
And I think this is a great loss of information, daily temperatures have the cooling response of the surface when the Sun goes down everyday at every location we have a station, and the yearly data shows how temperatures “reset” to some minimum every year, land temperatures have little to no memory of previous years warming.
Some of the comments here typify the best of WUWT, which exemplifies the practice of the scientific method as I was taught it. Scaffeta has a barycentric hypothesis, gets some data, appears to confirm his hypothesis. Others point out two problems. One, inconsistency with well understood and well tested Newtonian gravity (or,mid you will, implausibly large effects from implausibly small forces without a plausible amplification (or resonant) mechanism. Two,Mathis new paper reanalysing the data and showing much of the prior result is apparently an artifact rather than real. Neither disproves completely the Scafetta hypothesis, but together suggest it very unlikely to be true. And so research properly moves on to more fruitful topics.
Lord Monckton points to a very important one, the source of the seeming 60 years cycle Akasofu and Loehle point to. To mutter about ocean PDO and AMO is to perhaps quantify the observation, but not explain it. Stadium wave is a similar quantification, but which goes further toward an explanation in coupled ‘resonant’ phenomena. All of which, failed hypotheses and sharpened questions both, is far advanced from the rather pathetic model based science is settled meme of the IPCC and mainstream climate science a la Dessler positive cloud feedback with r^2 of 0.02, Trenberth’s missing hiding heat, shindell’s if we fiddle the model forcings enough we can save high sensitivity contrary to what Lewis and Crok have shown, and on and on.
WUWT, Climate Etc., Climate Audit, and their equivalents are better with more severe ‘peer review’ than Science, Nature, Nature Climate Change, and all the other journals that Climategate emails specifically said would be coopted and corrupted.
The Internet changes everything for the better.
RichardLH says:
March 12, 2014 at 10:04 am
From a statistical point of view you are correct. There are more things than statistics though. A simple low pass filter will remove higher frequencies and display any cycle longer than 15 years which is what I have attempted to show.
This discovers an ~60 year signal in the data. It is not curve fitting, it is data reduction.”
We are not debating whether there are ~60 year cycles in the data sets. That is well known.
The issue is whether there is coherence between the data sets at that period and others. That could be the first step towards finding out if one is caused by the other. But correlation/coherence is not the same as causality, so it is only a first step.
Scafetta thinks there is coherence and causality. I didn’t find coherence despite being able to reproduce all the relevant plots in his 2010 paper.
I’m not remotely qualified to discuss the math here, but one thing confused me in the abstract of the paper, namely that it was analyzing the “speed” of the sun’s center of gravity over time. “Speed” is the magnitude of velocity, but either has to be measured relative to some reference point or reference frame. What’s the frame of reference for the speed of the sun’s center of gravity in this context?
My other confusion perhaps comes from an incomplete grasp of the barycentric theory for solar perturbations. As I understand it, the issue is not just that the velocity vector changes magnitude, but direction as well, and the center of mass of the system (which is what the sun itself is orbiting around) follows a highly eccentric path, ranging from passing through the sun’s nucleus to being as much as the radius of the sun outside its limb). Doesn’t the major hypothesized effect on solar activity involve this eccentric orbital motion in some way perturbing the sun’s body and internal processes?
Apologies if this has been covered amply elsewhere, but the reference to “speed” seemed odd to me, and limiting possible mechanisms and correlations to variations in speed vs motion of the orbital center seemed to be missing a good part of the point of the Barycentrists.
Thanks for any light anyone can shed on this for me!
New Zealand climate variability
New Zealand climate, particularly rainfall and wind patterns, shows systematic variations at different time periods. Due to the short instrumental record, most of the identified variation is strictly weather and not climate, and includes: a quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) associated with sea-level pressure and meridional (north-south) flow around New Zealand; the ENSO pattern with periods of 3-8 years; a decadal pattern strongly correlated with the 11 year Schwabe sunspot cycle; and cycles with periods of 18-22 years that also correlate well with the Hale magnetic solar cycle. A 70-80 year pattern linked to the PDO is also evident, which some have correlated to the 60-120 yea Gleissberg cycle that is associated with modulation of the Schwabe cycle amplitude. Proxy data also suggest
the presence of a 200-220 year de Vries solar cycle (also known as Seuss Cycle).
http://www.grassland.org.nz/publications/nzgrassland_publication_67.pdf
Is it possible to ignore that which is actually happening? Polar vortex moves per a few days over the Europe.
““I think we do well to look for the patterns i.e periodicities in the data itself without worrying too much about the underlying processes. That is where the modelers go wrong – they assume they know how the system works and build their models accordingly.”
I agree strongly with that statement. Modellers presume that they know the answer to all the factors they need to consider then plug in values to make it all work. Does make the assumption that they have correctly identified all of the factors though.”
###################
Both wrong. This is not how modelers work. There is no evidence that they work this way so your theory about how they work is un supported.
When we look at how they really work ( when you actually get off your ass and read their code, go to their conferences, listen to their talks, read their papers) you will see that
1. They do not PRESUME they know all the factors. They know there is missing physics.
2. You dont assume you know how “the system works”, you model what is known.
The earth rotates. you model that. It orbits the sun. you model that. The earth has oceans
you model that. It has land. you model that. it has mountains. You publish a paper saying that you cannot model the andian mountain range and you note how your model diverges from reality. The atmosphere has gases. you model that taking knowledge from the engineering
of radiative transfer. You note that you cannot use a LBL model and model transfer using a band model. You run comparions between LBL models and band models. For years you study this.
At every turn you note what you dont know. The earth has clouds. You try to model that. you fail.
You plug in a parameterization. An old engineering trick.
Bottom line neither of you has any idea how modlers work
Start here. dont be stuck on stupid
http://mitgcm.org/
The bottomline. You dont start assuming that you know everything. you start with what you know.
first principles physics. you turn that into code. you run the code and you find out that you
dont know everything. You find out that you need to add chemistry. you find out you need to model volcanos. If you dont understand something ( say cloud microphysics) you have to leave it out. yu know you leave it out. you actually DOCUMENT what you cant do and what you can
I am intrigued by this: “The coherence plots in Figs. 4 and 5 and also in Table I are based on shorter [than 60 year] windows. ”
Does that work?
Presumably, the coherence has been calculated using Fourier transforms? If so, how can you expect to find anything useful about the 60 year period if you do not include any 60 year cycles? My memory of such things is hazy these days but won’t that just lump more “noise” in with the signal and lower the coherence?
graphicconception’s comment about Fourier transforms reminded me of something important from my signal- and image-processing days: If you just grab a random time series, starting and stopping the interval abruptly, you’re going to get all kinds of artifacts from the rectangular “window function” you’ve applied. There are all sorts of window functions (Hamming, Hanning, Blackman, etc, etc) that attempt to minimize this by essentially fading in and then fading out the signal gradually within the interval of interest, to avoid spectral leakage caused by the window function itself. I didn’t see any mention made of what windowing was performed on the data as part of the spectrogram processing.
A modeler explaining what a model Cant do
RichardLH
‘Modellers presume that they know the answer to all the factors they need to consider then plug in values to make it all work. ”
Wrong. He can’t even be bothered to check whether his proclamation is true.
Of course its false. Just listen to a modeler describe the shortcomings of models
When you falsely portray your opponents of claims to knowledge,
When you accuse them of hubris,
When you accuse them of making stuff up.
be careful. you are likely spotting your own flaws.
Sverre Holm says:
March 12, 2014 at 10:49 am
“We are not debating whether there are ~60 year cycles in the data sets. That is well known. ”
Actually you will find that there are significant number of people who will dispute that the ~60 year signal exists at all. I get many such complains as though it is not there even though the graphs clearly show its presence. I apologise if you do accept it.
“The issue is whether there is coherence between the data sets at that period and others. That could be the first step towards finding out if one is caused by the other. But correlation/coherence is not the same as causality, so it is only a first step.”
Indeed. That is why I extended the set to include the Shen PDO reconstruction which does appear to continue the series out to the 1400s. Now what is needed is something that matches to that sort of periodicity and with a plausible mechanism.
Steven Mosher says:
March 12, 2014 at 11:34 am
The models allow for very little (if any) natural periodicity in their workings. They are completely unable to reproduce the observed ~60 year signal in the data. They make big assumptions that CO2 is the main driver for what has been observed. So far reality has not followed that path.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
March 12, 2014 at 12:21 am
It is not improper to look for patterns in physical observations, for they may (or may not) reveal a physical law.
…
And it is climate science that first gave us the notion that has come to be known as mathematical chaos – the observation that in certain objects, the climate arguably among them (Lorenz, 1963, Giorgii, 2005), even the most minuscule perturbation of the initial conditions at any chosen t-zero can exert a disproportionately large influence on the evolution of the object over time.
Thanks Lord Monckton for a good summary of the case. The chaotic-nonlinear Lorenz aspect is really the only chance for survival of the barycentric idea in any form. The system in question would be a weakly forced nonlinear oscillator. Problem is, it is the other sort, the strongly forced nonlinear oscillators (e.g. human heartbeat) which give more-or less constant frequencies amenable to wave analysis techniques. Weak forcing means possibly very complex relation between forcing and emergent frequencies, possibly making proof of cause-effect linkage impossible, at least by spectral analysis techniques discussed up to now. So an unprovable refuge, like CAGW, GMO harmful effects etc. in an ever more remote future.
Amatør1 – Thanks for your remarkably lucid and concise explanations(!) Very interesting about the orbital angular momentum argument; the spin-orbit coupling was indeed what I was thinking of. I had a mental image of the sun being slung around hither and to, “sloshing” as it were, but didn’t make the connection to describe my mental image in terms of changes in angular momentum.
It’s still a little hard for me to visualize there not being some sort of sloshing, when the center of the sun’s orbit keeps changing like that, but I don’t remotely have the math chops to calculate it out. (I was never any good at calculus in the first place, and the last time I did anything with it was 35-40 years ago, in college/grad school 🙂 You make a very good point, though, that the sun is basically just in free-fall, like any other orbiting body.
So, by definition, all that’s left are tides, which I assume are proportional to the vector sum of the gravitational pull of all the planets at that point. I wonder how much the tidal forces distort the shape of the sun? I suspect a relatively insignificant amount, compared to its overall dimensions. The apparent correlations between sunspot numbers or other measures of solar activity and global temperatures are nonetheless very intriguing; we just don’t know what the underlying mechanism is that gives rise to solar variability.
Thanks again for your exceptionally clear-headed explanations, they’re much appreciated!
@Steven Mosher: You describe how model development should work. Unfortunately, the practice is different. Two years ago I pointed out an incorrect treatment of water evaporation/condensation in CAM5 – you commented on it 6/29/2013. It is still there.
Anthony, I think a reasonable first step here is to look at the moon. You know, just pondering this a bit more. It has a huge gravitational effect on the earth, moving water, heaving the earth crust etc. Would it not make more sense to propose/test/rule out lunar gravitational effects as a model? Then expand a model into ares of decreased sensitivity and lower signal?
I live with the tide here out east. It effects everything. What I do not know is if it has been the subject of study in relation to climate. (Why not? Everything else has.)
IMO that is where Scafetta should move his modelling. Walk before running.
As far a him concealing his data? I don’t know anything about that since I am not close to the subject and the data exchange but that seems to have really put a burr under your saddle. I would say this, the idea that something a fundamental as gravity has something to do with the movement of the oceans and the effect on CO2/CH4/O2 production is not way out science. I think most reasonable people would agree with that as a general concept. A better man than me will have to do the research.
It seems to me that the paper is a bit of contrivance, a directed laser beam contrivance by somebody with an axe to grind. Particularly since we now have a commenter named “Holm”. The paper stands on its own, notwithstanding, and on its own it is more of the image of a body blow to an image of barycentrism.
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
.
My my, the rhetoric levels are running high. Sceptics to be stabbed with icicles, or at least labelled as ‘Deniers’ b y captains of industry and leading politicians, unproven deep ocean warming to be guessed in ‘Hiroshimas per second’ and now ‘Death Blows’ to work-in-progress theories.
Svere Holm.
Why write this paper? Of all the things to study, why this?
Moon’s role as a rudder to the earth’ spin.
This subject is simply fascinating to me. I have things to do but I had to look into the moon’s effects on the earth a bit more. One thing that leaps of the pages is the moon’s contribution to stabilizing the earth’s spin. To the celestial mechanics, having the moon in its particular orbit, forces the earth to remain in a 23 degree tilt thereby significantly and profoundly establishing a principle uniformity of exposure of the earth to the sun. Were it not for the moon the earth would tumble and roll and have a more chaotic behavior, apparently.
So in a very fundamental way, the moon sets the earth’s climate norm, in a similar way, at a lesser scale as does the sun.
In some way, the perturbations of the otherwise toppling of the earths stability is contributed by the gravitational interaction in real time. What is the nature of that “anti-perturbation” interaction?
It is even motre than that. The moon daily crosses the magnetosphere and generates dynamo-like potential differences which creates geomagnetic stress at ground locations particularly when in closer perigee impacting both the inner core which increases the Earth Tide at those points of nearer earth-moon contact and possibly the atmospheric tide through electrical charging. These can bring bearing on seismic events and electrical storms, particularly at lunar equinox in the declination cycle twice a month and for some reason more frequently at northern than southern declination. From the input of change in potential difference it is not unreasonable to suggest that huge deposits of iron ore may be forced to move within the earth in the manner of a solenoid. This would be only due to the moon although our geomagnetic field would undoubtedly be solar in origin.
Steven Mosher says:
March 12, 2014 at 11:34 am
I have spent many happy years modelling various things inside a computer. It is what I was trained for. I understand the limitations of what might better be described as computer games that you seem to think are precise instruments. They are not, they are gross approximations to a complex reality which they are very roughly constrained to follow.
They exhibit almost none of the observed reality and predict things which do not and have not occurred. Such is life with a computer game. Reality is just a little more complex than that.
Sverre Holm says: March 12, 2014 at 10:14 am
The frame of reference is the solar system barycenter, which is just fancy terminology for centre of mass.
You can at any time choose an arbitrary reference system, and compute the solar system centre of mass. This point is just an origin in a coordinate system and has no physical effect on anything. All bodies in the solar system, including the Sun, moves relative to this origin. You can plot the Sun’s movements relative to it as has been done, but the Sun feels no gravitational forces (other than tides), as it is in free fall just like all the planets.
It was discussed at length years ago on this blog. One idea was based on the principle of conservation of angular momentum (each object spins around its own axis, but also moves around the solar system centre of mass). The thinking was that since the solar orbital radius (relative to the solar system barycentre) was changing so much, then its orbital angular momentum variation had to be compensated by similar variation in the spin of the Sun around its own axis, to keep the total angular momentum constant. Presumably, this could cause some internal sloshing (or whatever) and influence solar activity. This is a short version of the so called spin-orbit coupling idea as I understand it. However, there is a major flaw in this argument: There is no need for the Sun to change its spin, because it can be shown that gravity perturbes the planetary orbits just enough to perfectly balance the Sun, and thus keep the solar system angular momentum constant at all times. No need to change solar spin, i.e. no mechanism to influence solar activity this way.
“the Sun feels no gravitational forces (other than tides)”
Wouldn’t that be enough to create solar cycles ?
Amatør1 says:
March 12, 2014 at 2:05 pm
There is no need for the Sun to change its spin, because it can be shown that gravity perturbes the planetary orbits just enough to perfectly balance the Sun, and thus keep the solar system angular momentum constant at all times. No need to change solar spin, i.e. no mechanism to influence solar activity this way.
Like tidal theory, perturbation theory has problems which are more or less dealt with by heuristics</i. However, the solar differential rotation has been empirically observed to vary on timescales consistent with planetary periodicities. Venus has slowed by six minutes in 15 years, which cannot be accounted for by perturbation theory. Saturn’s radio emission cycles, thought to relate to its rotation rate, have varied over the last three decades between 627 and 648 minutes. STandard perturbation theory can’t account for that either.
The observations in my recent papers show that the spin rates of the planets in the solar system are related by simple harmonic/resonant ratios, and that they also relate to the orbital periods of neighbouring planets. Whatever you think of any theory that might be presented, the brute facts of these observations stand.
What appears to be going on here is Fourier transform of time-series data into frequency series. This is very common in machinery vibration analysis. But there are all kinds of problems with that data transformation even in the much better understood area of machinery vibration. One has to be very careful about filters, data resolution, frequency ranges, etc.
The best way this has ever been characterized is in my favorite data acquisition book, “Real Time Programming – Neglected Topics” by Caxton Foster. In discussing Fourier analysis, he notes: “It says, in effect that any repetitive wave form may be viewed as being made up of a collection of sine waves, and further, with a sufficiently warped mind any signal is repetitive.”
We need either better data to see the repetitive signal or more warped minds!
Tallbloke – Thanks for the references to your papers, I’ll give them a scan. FWIW, in my book, phenomenology always takes precedence over theory and models. If theoretical models don’t match or predict reality, then there’s either a missing variable (or several), or the theory is wrong. If we can’t explain solar differential rotation or the other observations you mention with whatever models we’re capable of coming up with, we know that there’s something missing. If the variations are in fact correlated with planetary motion (I’ll leave that as an entirely separate discussion I’m not qualified to participate in; that seems to be what this abstract and thread are all about), I’d take that as a strong indication of an area in which to look for missing variables.
Dave Etchells says:
March 12, 2014 at 2:56 pm
So, by definition, all that’s left are tides
Ah, our old friend the missing variable.
A topic for which there is plenty of in depth research in the literature is orbital resonance. Astrophysicists know a lot about it, but it seems to have passed climate pundits by completely. It is capable of modulating and exciting quite enormous amounts of force.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance
I do understand why some people stick to mentioning ‘tiny’ tidal effects and ignore this elephant in the room though.
Neptune and Uranus exchange considerable amounts of angular momentum on a ~1.12myr cycle according to a big orbital element integration done on a Cray supercomputer way back when.
Since the outer planets hold around 98% of the angular momentum in the solar system, their potential effect on modulating solar differential rotation shouldn’t be ignored IMO. Especially considering the fact that cyclic variation in solar differential rotation at planetary frequencies has been EMPIRICALLY OBSERVED.
A PS to my reply to Tallbloke: I’m also moved to note that you can find a Fourier series with enough terms to match *any* time series. The question is to what extent it can forecast and hindcast, outside the interval you based your calculations on. I’m a little uncomfortable with extracting 5 or 6 or more dominant frequencies from a time series and claiming to have found signs of fundamental, underlying processes. (You might have; in fact, there’s a good chance there’s something significant there, as long as the dominant frequencies aren’t artifacts of the sampling/windowing process. But it’s not a given, and particularly the higher-order terms give me pause.) Perhaps you address this concern in your papers (which I’ll read), but a Fourier transform can transform any time series into frequency space and back again, so the simple fact of being able to do it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something profound in the results. – And apologies as I say this, I’m sure you’ve heard it many times before – I’ll go read the papers before any further comment on the topic. Thanks again for the references 🙂
Konrad says:
March 12, 2014 at 12:46 am
[snip – off topic, your usual ploy -mod]
———————————————–
OK yes, I understand how that comment may have met the technical criteria for that [snip].
It was however not just having a jab at those claiming the death of barycentrism, but also those like myself claiming AGW done and dusted.
“Whoosh”, as they say.
Perhaps my point could be better made without reference to any of my own work. The point here was an issue of, dare I say it, “pattern recognition”. The pattern that can be observed in this “death blow” to barycentrism is not dissimilar to previous “debunking” papers. Many readers will recall some papers rushed through pal-review dealing with modelling and Forbush decreases. Papers claiming a death blow to the Svensmark hypothesis rushed into publication before even initial results of the ongoing CLOUD empirical experiment were available.
With regard to solar science, we are currently engaged in a grand ongoing experiment dependant largely on empirical observation. Just as Dr. S had to wait years to see his prediction of SSN ~70 proved correct for cycle 24, there is another 2 decades to go with regard to empirical verification or dismissal of planetary influences on solar cycles.
There is one (of a very long list) unfortunate side effect of the whole global warming scare that effects all sides. A desire for answers in a rush, rather than correct answers.
The sun is slow. For some answers we will have to wait.
Not when the maximum tide is less than a millimeter tall.
I am not up to date on what you have done recently. Thanks for the heads-up. We may see things differently, but I’ll have a look at your work.
We should keep open minds so that we don’t become as inolerant as the CAGW establishment:
“In We must not fall into the same poisonously intolerant attitude as the true-believers in the New Religion, who are unwilling to allow any discussion that they might regard as heretical.”
Thank you, Christopher Monckton for your many words of wisdom.
To all and everyone
I think I was thrown nout here, excommunicated and labeled officially as a communist behind the iron curtain, simply for not behaving the worshipful way in regard to a certain Nicola Scafetta.
Dave Etchells says:
March 12, 2014 at 3:18 pm
Amatør1 says:
March 12, 2014 at 3:54 pm
———————
Thanks both for your open minded approaches. There is more we’ve discovered since the papers were published, the bleeding edge stuff appears on my blog from time to time. All ideas are open to properly formed criticism in reasonable debate. In fact we welcome it.
Thanks for the feedback! It is not an easy subject so I am pleased to see I was able to communicate the way I see it.
‘The global climate system is composed of a number of subsystems | atmosphere, biosphere,
cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere – each of which has distinct characteristic times, from
days and weeks to centuries and millennia. Each subsystem, moreover, has its own internal variability, all other things being constant, over a fairly broad range of time scales. These ranges
overlap between one subsystem and another. The interactions between the subsystems thus
give rise to climate variability on all time scales.’ http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/tcd/PREPRINTS/Math_clim-Taipei-M_Ghil_vf.pdf
The fact that the Earth system is complex and dynamic and exhibits behavior diagnostic of deterministic chaotic systems is not in doubt. The corollary is that cycles are a wrong interpretation of aperiodic shifts in climate state space. Statistically – all sorts of time series are non-stationary.
Typically we look at indices which – all of which exhibit abrupt change at interannual to millennial timescales. We may look at these as a network of chaotic oscillators on the underlying system. The PDO and ENSO are two of these. The PDO shifts on multi-decadal and probably longer scales. ENSO shifts sub-decadally but changes in frequency and intensity of ENSO states on centennial to millennial scales. The most obvious driver of these shifts is the state of the Northern and Southern Annular Modes driving more or less cold water south and north in the Californian and Peruvian Currents respectively. More cold water facilitates upwelling in the eastern Pacific which initiates the series of feedbacks in cloud, wind and currents that drive Pacific variability.
One of the drivers of SAM and NAM is stratospheric interactions of UV and ozone. High solar UV biases polar and sub-polar sea level pressures to positive states and vice versa. High solar UV biases Pacific variability to positive PDO and El Nino states. Changes in UV are related to changes in the Sun’s magnetic field. Low solar activity creates the conditions for La Nina and cold PDO dominance – over the next few hundred years as the Sun’s intensity falls from a 1000 year Grand Maxima. This pattern can be seen in millennial – and Holocene spanning – proxies.
e.g
It is presumed that variations in solar magnetism is related to the solar magneto.
‘Abstract – We present here a new theory of the solar cycle which is able to explain all relevant observations connected with quasi-periodic behavior of sunspots and other associated phenomena. It is based on the interaction between planetary movements and alignments and the evolving magnetic field of the Sun. The theory provides a very natural explanation for the roughly eleven-year change in polarity of the solar magnetic field and for the Maunder Butterfly Diagram. It overcomes all objections raised against other theories in this field, including those based entirely on magneto-hydrodynamics.’ http://tmgnow.com/repository/solar/percyseymour2.html
The multi-body problem of solar system orbits is definitely chaotic and aperiodic.
e.g. http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg.html?sort=3&o=150
Barycentrism may well be dead but at least we should give them credit for looking in a general area that was vaguely credible, unlike CAGW and CO2 which was a clear pipe dream from the start.
Us there anything that doesn’t affect the earth’s climate?
No.
What is the most salient influence?
Ah well now that’s a different kettle of monkeys…
Sverre Holm says to Antony:
March 12, 2014 at 10:14 am
“If we’re talking of the paper Scafetta, “Empirical evidenceforacelestialoriginoftheclimateoscillations
and itsimplications” http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf then I have been able to reproduce all figures in that paper but one. That was his Fig. 8. (Power spectra of the speed of the Earth relative to the Sun and of the speed of the center of mass of the Earth–Moon system relative to the Sun). Reproduction or not is not the point of my criticism of the paper, it is the method used and the assumptions that have been made.”
Holm’s statement is very important.
1) Holm stated that he was able to reproduce all my major findings and figure. The only problem he had was with figure 8 about the ~9-year oscillation of the solar-lunar tidal oscillation. To solve this problem Holm may try to read some introductory Astronomy book and he will easily figure out the existence of a ~9-year oscillation in the solar-lunar tidal oscillation.
Holm’s acknowledgment is very important, and I thank him for his testimony, because demonstrates people such as Mosher, Anthony, Willis etc, who have systematically claimed on this blog that my results are not reproducible, wrong.
Holm has testified that my results are reproducible with the appropriate study and competence, as I have always said. By the record, I never gave Holm any data nor codes. He could figure out these things by himself because evidently he is a competent person.
Thus, Holm has clearly demonstrated that more than one person on WUWT and on other blogs have systematically claimed to have a scientific knowledge that they clearly do not have.
2) Holm stated “Reproduction or not is not the point of my criticism of the paper, it is the method used and the assumptions that have been made.”
So Holm’s criticism is based on physical interpretation and mathematical analysis methodology.
This can be discussed.
Essentially the issue is: Which methodology is more appropriate? My analysis or Holm’s analysis?
Does my analysis contains flaws or is it Holm’s analysis that contain flaws?
I stand on the correctness of my analysis and methodology and interpretation.
I leave the reader of the blog to figure out the issue by themselves.
As I pointed above by addressing just one point, Holm was not able to find the 60-year astronomical oscillation in his figure 3. Which led him to not find the coherence between these cycle and the temperature cycle.
This points out one major issue with Holm’s analysis because the 60-year astronomical oscillation is macroscopic, it was known since ancient times and it is in phase with the temperature oscillations as shown in my papers. On this point it may be useful to read the comment from Ian Wilson who has an astrophysical background:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/death-blow-to-barycentrism-on-the-alleged-coherence-between-the-global-temperature-and-the-suns-movement/comment-page-1/#comment-71897
Other issues are present.
Carbomontanus says:
March 12, 2014 at 4:15 pm
To all and everyone
I think I was thrown nout here, excommunicated and labeled officially as a communist behind the iron curtain, simply for not behaving the worshipful way in regard to a certain Nicola Scafetta.
_________________
I do not think that is the case. Did you not just make a comment?
Carbomontanus says:
March 12, 2014 at 4:15 pm
To all and everyone
I think I was thrown nout here, excommunicated and labeled officially as a communist behind the iron curtain, simply for not behaving the worshipful way in regard to a certain Nicola Scafetta.
_________________
Did you not just make a comment? I doubt your claim. I can think of any number of reasons to toss your Scandinavian self overboard, but steering a tack counter to the main discussion isn’t one of those reasons.
Lack of cross-spectral coherence between the putative cause and the observed effect usually spells failure of the former to explain the latter. No doubt Scafetta over-reached in claiming to have found discrete spectral LINES via MEM analysis of HADCRUT3 data. That data, however, is a product of manufacture more than of measurement. And Holm’s use of periodgrams of overly short, windowed SNIPPETS of record leaves much to be desired vis a vis the reliability of low-frequency (multidecadal) coherence estimates. Wiener-Khintchine cross-spectral estimates based upon the ENTIRE length of actual measured record would tells us something more definitive. Unfortunately, the satellite record is much too short for that purpose.
By the way,
the first editorial of N.-A. Morner got published on the new PRP journal:
http://www.pattern-recognition-in-physics.com/?page_id=47
It strongly rebuts Copernicus publisher censorship attitudes.
Those interested in my research can download my latest general review:
The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system, N. Scafetta
Pattern Recogn. Phys., 2, 1-19, 2014
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/2/1/2014/prp-2-1-2014.pdf
which has been viewed and downloaded about 3500 time since its publication on 15/Jan/2014.
LOL! On one hand Nicola argues that his work is reproducible from the “read my papers” mantra, on the other he argues that Holm didn’t do it right, but he won’t say why or provide any guidance:
Nicola, you are welcome to stand by your correctness, but please just do it somewhere else, like at your new “journal” where you and your friends can review each others papers without any worry of adversarial commentary.
For my part, I’ll wait to see what happens in the real journal. For now, my interest in this amusing sideline of science is done.
He was doing it elsewhere Anthony you came here yourself, deriding his work personally and allowing space for someone else to disagree.
All the man did was show up to defend himself and you intimate he’s not welcome to do it.
You’re the one whose main deal in life is media Anthony.
The scientists you insult and laugh at are the ones whose work you’re not qualified to even peer review much less mock.
REPLY: Well you are entitled to your opinion, and I’m entitled to mine whether you like it or not. At one point I thought his work had merit, but no longer. Like Mann, Scafetta has adopted a “not falsifiable” mentality over the years, culminating right here, so it really doesn’t matter anymore. – Anthony
As we discovered with the so called scientists who started the CO2 craze: those who can’t: blog.
Those who can
aren’t allowed to talk on the formers’ blogs.
That is the way of the media sap.
There is a known 9:1 resonance between the synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn (19.858 years) and the period of change of the radius of curvature of the Sun’s path about the solar system barycenter (178.77 years). This resonance was described in detail by Paul D. Jose in his 1965 Astronomical Journal paper,
http://www.giurfa.com/jose.pdf
Jose also tabulated differences between sunspot minima and maxima averaging 178.55 years over a span of more than 343 years. Coincidence? Perhaps, but given the also apparent 3:1 resonance between Earth global temperature and the synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn, there would seem to be coincidence upon coincidence here. In any event, the periodic motion of the Sun about the solar system barycenter is very real, as is the Jupiter/Saturn/Sun synodic resonance.
tallbloke says:
March 12, 2014 at 3:21 pm
Especially considering the fact that cyclic variation in solar differential rotation at planetary frequencies has been EMPIRICALLY OBSERVED.
I don’t think so. You may enlighten me. A pertinent link would do. To be valid, more than one planet must be involved as you mention frequenci(es). Of course, combinations of frequencies don’t count either.
@Doug Huffman says:
March 12, 2014 at 4:32 am
Sorry to say but your link ( http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf) >>>Error 404 – Not Found
Is the poste dlink correct?
Thanks.
Anthony Watts says:
March 12, 2014 at 7:39 pm
LOL! On one hand Nicola argues that his work is reproducible from the “read my papers” mantra, on the other he argues that Holm didn’t do it right, but he won’t say why or provide any guidance.
Anthony, what are you saying?
I used method “A” (using a full record analysis) and found a specific result. Holm fully confirmed and fully reproduced my result as he stated above, but proposed a different method “B” (using a short window analysis methodology) and claimed to have found a different result. So, what?
I can tell you that I can fully reproduce Holm’s results quite easily.
However, I already explained you that Holm’s method “B” was not even able to confirm an evident astronomical oscillation, the 60 year cycle, that misleads one of his conclusions. Holm’s method “B” would likely also contradict the lunar origin of the ocean tides, by the way.
However, you jumped to the conclusion and made the decision that Holm is right. Fine!
It is you who must explain us why you think that Holm method “B” is more appropriate than my method “A” in finding the right result.
Let us listen your scientific reasoning.
Anthony,
I agree there is probably very little to barycentric work.
But for you to treat people who have been your friends and who largely agree with you on most issues the way you do on this is ironic.
Saw this on Rog’s blog and will put same note here:
“Rog, you might like to remind people that I have given an explanation for why certain planetary motions do affect the Sun through a previously not considered GR effect on Solar photons. This explanation gives results somewhat similar to barycentre but significantly different. In this case the result is possible to fully understand and make estimates of the amount of the effect. As you know, it is related to the z axis motion of the Sun as that is the only direction in which these GR effect on photons accumulate over time (as Solar rotation largely cancels out other components).
I also expect that the same calculations performed on Earth’s internals will explain the Earth’s magnetic field reversals. Certainly there is a massive energy exchange of the outer planets with 1.1 million year period and this period also shows up in Earth magnetic reversals.”
To give a little more details, Einstein showed that horizontal photons are accelerated (change in direction vector) twice as much as in Newtonian gravity. When this effect is calculated for photons in the Solar core (and they spend 10^4 to 10^7 years there according to various sources … surely it can be known more accurately) there is a significant acceleration of the core towards the massive planets. Most of this acceleration is canceled out over a solar rotation, except for the component in the direction of the solar poles (z direction) and this accumulates for years due to massive planets being above and below solar equator.
The mathematical result bears some resemblance to COM calculation with an extra term depending on how far planet is above or below solar equator. This calculation does work and is a known physics fact, although some physicists are confused about it.
hunter says:
March 12, 2014 at 8:53 pm
Anthony,
I agree there is probably very little to barycentric work.
But for you to treat people who have been your friends and who largely agree with you on most issues the way you do on this is ironic.
************************
My work is complex and based on multiple effects.
There are two possible forces: Gravity and Electromagnetism.
Gravity acts mostly through tidal forces, Electromagnetism through the relative speed movement between the sun and the planets which is approximately described by the barycentric speed of the sun. The two effects are coupled and superimposed.
Those who like Anthony oppose barycentrism are arguing having in mind the gravitational forces alone but they are ignoring the existence of Electromagnetism.
Anthony is making a mess due to his ignorance in physics.
Moreover, many times I told Anthony that when I refer to gravitational forces I am thinking to the tides. My papers on the tides are quite explicit in this but Anthony never got it and misleads himself and the readers of this blog .
REPLY: Well that’s your opinion, and you are welcome to it, even though it is rooted in your own inability to see that the theory, even if true, is inconsequential. As Mosher predicted, you are doing everything but questioning your own work.
@ Hunter, I am privy to some things that you are not, and thus that forms part of the basis of my change in opinion. For Nicola’s benefit I’ll leave that issue alone, but please note that while I’m calling Nicola’s paper into question with this post, he’s getting personal, essentially calling me too stupid to understand his work. That’s a difference worth noting. With this new Holm paper, he should be questioning whether his work is correct or not, instead of asserting it is. Per Feynman, always question yourself first as you are the easiest person to fool.
– Anthony
REPLY: Well that’s your opinion, and you are welcome to it, even though it is rooted in your own inability to see that the theory, even if true, is inconsequential. – Anthony
************
Anthony, I miss the logic of your argument. Expand your argument or acknowledge your errors.
Moreover I have not yet listen from you your reaction to the confirmation of my calculations by Holm, a fact that demonstrates the argument by Mosher (that is “Scafetta’s calculations can not be reproduced”) repeated again and again on your blog and on other blogs for years to be only a slander of a charlatan taking advantage of the lack of scientific knowledge of your readers and of yourself.
What do you have to say about this?
Are you understanding that during the last 2 years you have pushed away real friends and give credit to questionable individuals?
REPLY: Science is not friendship Nicola. Look, we’ll go round and round for days, so I’ll just make this the last comment on the issue. My position has been that Barycentrism/solar motion influences on Earth’s climate is falsified, and Holm has done a good job of showing why. You’ve done nothing to change that other than to claim everyone but you is wrong. That’s not science, but vanity.
BTW, to address your claim of ignorance, I’ll paraphrase a famous character: “I may not be a smart man, but I know what B.S. is”. – Anthony
Ray Tomes says:
March 12, 2014 at 9:37 pm
Ray,
Photon pressure is an Interesting possible factor in asymmetric sunspot development.
Also, I just read this:
60 Year Cycle in Global Sea Level
http://www.widgetserver.com/syndication/l/?p=1&instId=3c79823c-f41e-48f1-a609-54d59a91bd42&token=d85605a273f98d00089e4482cf369e97a54d8b0700000144b9d2c5a9&u=http%3A%2F%2Fcyclesresearchinstitute.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F11%2F07%2F60-year-cycle-in-global-sea-level%2F
Very interesting and, I feel, relevant to the present discussion.
Barycentrism describes the “why”. It describes the mechanism. Perhaps that is the problem, looking for the mechanism ahead of the prediction.
Early humans learned to predict the seasons long before they learned “why”. We still can’t answer “why” for a great many physical events, yet we can predict them with great accuracy.
Instead of Why, answer Who, What, When, Were. When you can answer those question, Why doesn’t matter.
Why is the sky blue?
1. because it reflects blue light
2. because it had to be some color, and that happened to be blue
3. because that is the way god made it.
What relevance is “why” when there is no way to determine which answer is correct?