A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia titled:
Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle?
contains a warning about earthly climate change not immediately obvious from the abstract:
Based on our claim that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun’s orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun’s meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.3 yr), the overall 178.7-yr repetition period for the solar orbital motion, and the 19.86-yr synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn.
According to an interview with Andrew Bolt, of the Australian Newspaper, Herald Sun, Ian Wilson, one of the authors explained:
It supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 – 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by ~ 1 – 2 C.
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Hmmm, I’m not sold on this idea. This is a lot like what Dr. Theodor Landscheidt proposes. I have a little bit of trouble understanding how the “mass at a distance” gravitational effects of Jupiter and Saturn could have much effect on the solar dynamo.
I’m sure both my readers, and Dr. Leif Svalgaard, who regularly monitors this blog, will have something to add to provide additional insight. – Anthony
Leif Svalgaard (14:21:40) :
“Here is a thought experiment: Add a pea to the solar system orbiting at some distance. The addition of the pea will alter the position of the barycenter. Not by much, though. Now, slowly move the pea away from the solar system. This will move the barycenter a bit further out. Still not by much. Since there is no [in my Newtonian thought experiment] limit to how far away we can move the pea, there is no limit to how far away we can move the barycenter, then watch the sunspots grow and GROW and GGRROOWW as we continue to move the pea away.”
The pea is obviously very small compared to the Sun and the planets. It will not change the location of the barycenter more than a nanometer or less. If you move it outwards you need to reduce the pea’s orbital speed in order to maintain a constant solar system angular momentum. At some point you approach zero orbital speed for the pea, and you can’t go further without changing the solar system angular momentum. Then you just have a tiny static offset of the barycenter. I think. The rest of the argument is the same.
Btw. in the simulator at http://arnholm.org/astro/sun/sc24/sim1/
I include all the planets from Mercury to Neptune, including also the now demoted Pluto. I could include your pea if you provide its mass and orbital location as a function of time, but I don’t think it would change anything.
Luke: I was setting up a simple thought experiment to show the principle. By putting more stuff we just make it harder to get the idea across, so let’s keep it simple. This is the power of a gedankeneksperiment as Einstein taught us.
To repeat myself:
The center of mass [or barycenter] of a system of particles is a resulting vector that is the average of their position vectors weighted by their masses: R = sum(m[i]*r[i])/sum(m[i]), which grows without bounds if one of the r[i]s [that for the pea] increases without bounds, so the answer to your question is “no”.
The closing remark of my starting comment in this series was: “I have found in discussions with many, many faithful that none of my above arguments carry any weight whatsoever with them”. MikeC’s comment is a good illustration of that.
Carsten: in my Gedankeneksperiment I’m allowed to alter the angular momentum. I already did that by adding the pea, so there is no requirement for keeping the angular momentum constant. I can now add you to the list which started with MikeC. It will be interesting to see how long it will get 🙂
Leif,
Ah! But if your demon starts moving the pea from cup to cup, the sun and pea will no longer orbit the barycentre!
The reasoning is that if the pea is a long way off, it must orbit very slowly, so it is pulling in one direction for a very long time. This can yield a very large change in velocity, albeit with a tiny acceleration. So the sun has to be moving quite slowly but in a very large circle to compensate.
The thought experiment doesn’t really help in this case, although I enjoyed the few moments it took me to work it out. You need to get across the idea that in free fall you can be moving about as violently as you like and you’ll never feel it, because the gravity cancels the inertial ‘forces’ you expect almost perfectly. The effects Jupiter has on the sun is quite big, but because the overall result is the difference between two large numbers – the gravitational tug and being thrown about the barycentre – nothing is felt. The problem is people are only seeing one and not the other.
The problem is getting across this idea of large effects almost exactly cancelling out, and the pea doesn’t help because (considered over any reasonable interval of time) it isn’t a large effect.
He was thinking of Jolly Green Giant peas, yanno, the one’s the size of Jupiter
Leif, you have it the wrong wayn around, I’m usually on the side of the money, the other side is the faithful. However, your behavior does correlate with the faithful of the church of Al Gore in that you distract with anything possible (well, based on this one discussion). Do you care to get into any specifics? My discussion was purposefully simple, I’m sure ya understood it. Perhaps using 9 peas?
Leif Svalgaard (15:14:29) :
“Carsten: in my Gedankeneksperiment I’m allowed to alter the angular momentum. ”
But somehow you will have to follow at least some of the laws of physics and put the pea in a stable orbit, or else it will fall into the sun or leave the solar system alltogether (i.e. not be gravitationally bound). In any case the result will be the same as before after a short time. As you move outwards, the pea’s orbital velocity will have to approach zero anyway.
Given the Australian subject, perhaps others have already pointed to
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
wherein the shift of the solar system baricenter changes the Sun’s orbital motion, sometimes quite violently.
Is it not conceivable that this would have an impact upon internal solar dynamics?
OK sorry for the last post. I see now the third post in this thread mentioned the same.
The important thing is that, unlike the “real”climate boys, the deniers have a potential mechanism to explain WHAT.IS.ACTUALLY.HAPPENING.
O/T:
Ooohhhhh, I am so frustrated by the buillshit I get daily from the mass media. Listening to a Czek radio program last night, I hear: “The planet is dying”. For crying out loud!@ur momisugly Sheesh!
John-X @ur momisugly 20:44,
The current theories of the stellar interior are untested. Perhaps these facts, and baricentric orbital motion is a fact, can help us analyzse the solar interioir and mechanisms a bit more.
Robert Wood,
Yes, the effect can alter the sun’s orbital motion quite violently, but no, it has no effect, because the force causing the violent shifts exactly cancels the inertial effects you would expect from such violent shifts.
It’s the same reason astronauts are ‘weightless’, despite remaining in what is essentially full Earth gravity. It’s properly called free fall, and the principle is one of the foundations of relativity theory.
Carston Arnholm, Norway @ur momisugly 1:20
You took the words from my mouth; expressed my half-developed thoughts precisely. Is it correct? I don’t know; it certainly is plausible.
Lief –
You may well be right; I haven’t given the multi-body problem much thought. I started off explaining what the theory was, and by the end I’d convinced myself. But I haven’t sat down and done any real math, and until then I’m just blowing smoke. I agree that the tidal forces are minimal, I’ll have to sit and think awhile about the barycentric motion.
I’ll have to give this one much more thought. And a lot more math, but more than almost none really isn’t that much…
But my gut instinct is still telling me that: The barycenter orbits the Milky Way, and the solar system can be assumed to orbit the barycenter. Yes, the sun moves relative to the barycenter, yes it has to transfer angular momentum, does it automatically transfer to the other planets? Hence the need to sit and do math… A million opinions are not equal to one case of finding out, as Heinlein said. But I’ll settle for integrating a 3-body problem, going to 5 or more seems pointless…
Anna V @21:33 Imagine the baricentre being a great christmass pudding stirring paddle, mixing up the convection cells and deep internal currents that produce the solar magnetic field.
“I’m sure both my readers, and Dr. Leif Svalgaard, who regularly monitors this blog, will have something to add”
You have more than two readers1 (LOL)
Leif Svalgaard (14:31:15) :
jeez: the point was to show that having the Sun orbit the barycenter with the added pea moving away from the sun would create ever growing sunspot activity if you believe that the Sun’s movement around the barycenter is the cause of the sunspot cycle. If you don’t believe so, there is no need to ponder the experiment any further.
But isn’t that the whole point. We can do a test of hypotheses. So, let’s do the observations of stellar behaviour. Let’s get to thiniking how tidal movements will impact the stellar internals.
And, while we are at it: let’s win the loterry so I can go diving in the Coral Sea for two weeks.
Carsten and others: I do not have to follow the laws of physics. I can put the pea where I want when I want. What I tried to show was the absurdity of the barycenter theory of sunspots. I realise that I have failed, as so often before, as I have already remarked. The predicable next step is accusations of ulterior motives, hidden agendas, holocaust denials, AGW, Al Gore church fellowships, unsavory oil industry money, etc, etc. We don’t need any more of that, so, maybe, this is enough for now.
The Sun has no influence on the Earth’s climate.
Discuss!
How rediculous the global warmers are in front of these intellectual headlights.
[…] Astronomical Society of Australia publishes new paper warning of solar quieting and global cooling [image] A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia titled: Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the […] […]
Hey Lief … I was waiting for you post!!
Me being more of a chemistry guy .. on your post regarding effects of the moon on earth tides, vs that of the planets on the sun … I’m just curious if there is a flaw in using an equation that calculates a force on water, vs calculating a force on what ever the elements are on the sun?? I’m no solar expert, but as I recall, the sun is primarily hydrogen and helium .. which are orders of magnitude lighter and different chemically from water.
What is the possibility that the equation you plugged into doesn’t apply??
Deanster: gravity does not care what the chemical composition of the material is; a pound of feathers and a pound of lead exert the same gravitational force.
Mike C (15:02:27) :
“The sun is in freefall around the barycenter? As a reader pointed out in a later post, other stars have wobbles. That’s how we know that there are planets around other stars.”
You know the stars wobble, astronomers know the stars wobble, Leif knows the stars wobble, but do the stars know they’re wobbling? The stars may know there are tides (miniscule to be sure, but if the whole star is in a constant gravitational field it has no way to know it’s accelerating.
It sounds like Steveo is getting it.
Imagine you’re an astronaut in the ISS. How do you know you’re in orbit around the Earth and hence accelerating toward the Earth at nearly 10 m/sec/sec? How do you know you’re not traveling in a straight line outside of the solar system? The easiest check is to look out a window toward Earth – stars don’t have eyes.
Dr_Mike (16:14:42) :
“But my gut instinct is still telling me that: The barycenter orbits the Milky Way, and the solar system can be assumed to orbit the barycenter.”
I’m not certain what the definition of barycenter is, but I’m tempted to argue that when you start talking about the Milky Way’s barycenter, then that wobbles as a result of location of the planets. You might be able to get away with saying that the solar system’s barycenter orbits the Milky Way’s barycenter, but I’d be inclined to include all the stipulations to make things a 2 body problem – i.e. include the black hole at the center, the solar system with planets much, much closer to the Sun than the black hole, and disregard all the other stars, nebulae and other contaminating influences.
With the gravity gradient,
as earth one did round,
fat men would stand upright;
fems upside down.