Usually, and that means in the past year, when you look at the false color MDI image from SOHO, you can look at the corresponding magnetogram and see some sort of disturbance going on, even it it is not visible as a sunspot, sunspeck, or plage area.
Not today.
Left: SOHO MDI “visible” image Right: SOHO Magnetogram
Click for larger image
Wherefore art though, cycle 24?
In contrast, September 28th, 2001
Leif Svalgaard (07:46:59) :
Geoff Sharp (01:49:57) :
So here is a question we need to get a solid answer on….we have 400 years of Astronomy to fall back on.
WHAT POINT DO THE JOVIAN PLANETS ORBIT?
———————————–
Why jovian planets? why not the Earth and every comet in the solar system?
Because they could be different….lets just stick with the Jovians. Answer?
idlex (13:06:19) :
But would I be right in thinking that Carsten can’t fool around with the solar system?
And he can only either wind it forward or backward?
You would be wrong. It is only a way to get proper initial conditions for real life planets in the solar system, so it is easier to compute interesting real life problems like we have done.
This does not prevent “fooling around” however. It can also take additional completely hypothetical objects to see what they might cause. For example, I made a heavy planet called “Nemesis” 🙂 and gave it an eccentric orbit in the inner solar system. It really creates havoc, by throwing out Mars and releasing the Moon from the Earth’s gravity field etc. It can be loaded from this XML http://arnholm.org/astro/software/ssg/redist/Planetary_Nemesis.xml
If I understand correctly how Carsten’s simulator works, he couldn’t do this.
Just download and try, you will see it can http://arnholm.org/astro/software/ssg
idlex (13:17:30) : Scrap my previous comment, then.
Ok, noted!
I believe Geoff & Leif were having a misunderstanding – a matter of semantics/nomenclature.
Geoff was citing %s based on the first power of the sun’s distance from the barycentre.
Leif was citing %s proportional to the second power.
The former stem from the definition of barycentre (weightings mr^1 in calculations).
The latter stem from the definition of AM (weightings mr^2).
This misunderstanding was only easy to isolate because I recognized the numbers being tossed around.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
idlex: “They don’t ‘orbit’ about any ‘point’. Or if they do, that’s what drops out at the end of all those millions of calculations […]”
One can devise various summaries (for example statistical) of the properties of dynamic “centres” to facilitate discussion between “camps” – (not necessarily worth your time (or of interest to you) though).
I worked with first-order approximations of Sun-BC distance & AM and compared them with Horizons output. One noteworthy item to report is the sensitivity to Saturn’s assumed orbital “period” (most of you know why I put that in quotes). I was actually able to estimate the “average period” of Saturn in the JPL Horizons model by adjusting my plots to match — my estimate was only off by 0.01 years (when I compared it with the orbital elements).
The point I’m making is mainly for non-physicists:
Don’t underestimate the value of a rough model as a learning aid.
For example, a statistician would toss away the “noise” in favor of parsimony. Interdisciplinary scientists can’t afford to get sucked into becoming specialists in every field, but they can invest their time wisely to extract the most salient points each field has to offer (i.e. take the easy hits from each field, but avoid getting sunk).
Even though I’m unwilling to get sucked into the black-hole, I enjoy following the discussion (& noting the evaded questions, the (seemingly deliberate at times) obfuscation/selective-focus in some answers, etc.)
– – – – – – – – – – – –
lgl (12:27:12) “because of a much smaller radius.”
“Provocative” comments lgl. It’s not just that it can be smaller – angles for different parts vary from 0 to 360 when r<1. Neither the de Jager bucket-of-cold-water nor the crushed fingers in Svalgaard’s door can extinguish the sociological momentum and the interest in striking phase concordances, so there is plenty of potential for the mill of assertions & rebuttals to keep churning for many years to come – what some might call “the barycentre industry” – just think of the number of publications that could come out of the counter-rebuttals alone (in a world with freedom of speech, that facilitates independent study & judgement of claims with the benefit of shaking stagnant paradigms just a-healthy-amount (not more, as too much instability can be dangerous)). And again – to be clear: I’m not arguing for spin-orbit coupling.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
If Landscheidt were with us right now (during the “economic crisis”), he might be putting forward “astrological” models to act as a much-needed baseline-check on economists.
Thank you to all for the various comments – very interesting discussion.
tallbloke (12:48:34) :
Now consider it’s not the whole sun suddenly jumping 300m but a small fraction of it’s mass and your mercury effect becomes truly tiny.
Most of the Sun’s mass is in the core. It’s not a small fraction.
lgl (12:27:12) :
I’m missing a mechanism for transferring AM from the planets to the Sun. There must be a bearer of all that energy.
The AM is not energy. And there isn’t any transfer of anything. What is happening is that we move the point with respect to which we calculate the AM. If we introduce a star moving close to the solar system [not so close as to disrupt the orbits of the planets – this is not so hard as it sounds – planets have moons and the orbits of these moons are not disrupted by another planet coming into conjunction] the BC of the bodies in the space around the Sun will move a lot, perhaps out on the outside of Jupiter’s orbit and the AM with respect to that BC we would calculate for the Sun and all the planets will change a lot, but no energy has been transferred from Jupiter to the Sun because of the passing star. What moves is not the AM but just the point we chose to calculate it around.
Correction to Paul Vaughan (14:58:29) – top part:
The contrast is r^1 vs. r^(1/2)
(Geoff, square Leif’s #s for related insight – if I have diagnosed the misunderstanding accurately.)
lgl (12:27:12) :
I’m missing a mechanism for transferring AM from the planets to the Sun. There must be a bearer of all that energy.
And we must look at this the right way: it is not the case that the Sun is anything special; it is not AM ‘transferred’ between the Sun and the planets. You could just as well calculate the AM of the Earth with respect to the BC and make a plot of that. Then calculate the AM of the rest of the solar system [including the Sun] and lo and behold it would vary as a precise mirror image of the Earth’s AM, so where is the mechanism for transferring AM from the Earth to the rest of the solar system? Nowhere, of course, because nothing is transferred except in our head.
vukcevic (08:36:05) :
I could not find any relating to what I call solar cycles’ anomalies formula.
http://www.geocities.com/vukcevicu/CycleAnomalies.gif
If a correlation is good it may merit a second look, but this one is no good. E.g. cycle 10 as you label low cycle is in the middle of a minimum in your curve, while being larger than cycle 12 which is in the middle of the maxima of your envelope. And many other discrepancies as well. If you say that the left hand side of the graph is lower than the right hand side in general [which is true] then we are back to the low number of degrees of freedom again.
Geoff Sharp (13:55:53) :
Why jovian planets? why not the Earth and every comet in the solar system?
Because they could be different….lets just stick with the Jovians. Answer?
Either all of them do or none of them do depending on your choice of coordinate system. All the bodies are in free fall in the combined gravitational field of all of them.
To claim that different bodies obey different laws is what makes this astrology.
Paul Vaughan (14:58:29) :
Thank you to all for the various comments – very interesting discussion.
There is, indeed, some entertainment value, but also a great deal of tedium.
Geoff Sharp (01:49:57)
“So here is a question we need to get a solid answer on….we have 400 years of Astronomy to fall back on.
WHAT POINT DO THE JOVIAN PLANETS ORBIT?
No guesses or hunches…solid data required. Newton’s theory according to others says the SSB. The answer to this question could explain the solid link based on physics for planetary influence.”
Geoff Sharp (13:55:53) “[…] Answer?”
Leif Svalgaard (16:04:15)
“Either all of them do or none of them do depending on your choice of coordinate system. All the bodies are in free fall in the combined gravitational field of all of them.
To claim that different bodies obey different laws is what makes this astrology.”
I believe Geoff raises the most salient point in this whole discussion, with a good awareness of Fairbridge’s motivation.
After integrating the presentations of a number of physicists who have been questioned similarly, my impression is that if you cut through the noise of all the fussy details towards what they would tell you if they were in an absolute hurry (like, say, if they didn’t have time to talk &/or your question was a “nuisance”), the lesser choice among “evils” would be to leave you believing the jovians orbit the BC and the terrestrials orbit the Sun (please don’t snip this out-of-context – thank you all).
While a “simplification” for “lay-people” (particularly with respect to the jovians, according to my understanding), it cuts to the very heart of what Fairbridge was trying to tell us – and resonates my point about confounding (for those who know what that is). I have seen this simplification supported by calculations in some forums – sorry I don’t have the links — perhaps someone can illustrate for us here (with a simple quantitative demonstration) why this is the best “lesser evil” among the very-crudest-of-models – so that all following along, regardless of physics-education, can extract what is perhaps a very salient point from this discussion.
A contrast of the relative merits of this “oversimplification” with respect to its portrayal of jovian & terrestrial orbits would also be valuable. For example, is the oversimplified-view of things most accurate for the terrestrials or for the jovians? – (the former according to what I’ve read in other forums).
These questions are no-doubt a nuisance to some physicists not wanting to oversimplify &/or get quoted-out-of-context, but the answers (about the “average” state of things – nuances of strange attractors aside for second – to assess a more global view) are essential to interdisciplinary investigators in getting around the confounding issue when interpreting “on average” the correlations & phase concordances with geophysical phenomena.
Perhaps it will be easiest if there is a starting-premise to attack:
See the “16 June. Australia” entry at
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=80&Itemid=1
& see
http://www.wxresearch.org/papers/orbit2004.htm
for example.
[Note for those interested in LoD/SIM links/confounding: Look in the higher directory hidden at
http://www.wxresearch.org/papers
for some “provocative” ideas — & note the dates of publications in the reference-lists – & compare them with the references in the Russian literature.]
Paul Vaughan (17:50:45) :
Geoff Sharp (01:49:57)
“WHAT POINT DO THE JOVIAN PLANETS ORBIT?”
“To claim that different bodies obey different laws is what makes this astrology.”
I believe Geoff raises the most salient point in this whole discussion
As we have now seen, this is completely irrelevant. Even if one assumed that, there is no AM transfer to the Sun and hence no coupling to solar activity except for the ineffectual tides. So this question is just a straw man to divert attention from the issue [and a nonsensical one at that as Nature does not select some bodies for different treatment]. The ‘problem’ arises from confusion about what ‘orbit’ means.
I’ll repeat my reply to lgl:
lgl (12:27:12) :
I’m missing a mechanism for transferring AM from the planets to the Sun. There must be a bearer of all that energy.
And we must look at this the right way: it is not the case that the Sun is anything special; it is not AM ‘transferred’ between the Sun and the planets. You could just as well calculate the AM of the Earth with respect to the BC and make a plot of that. Then calculate the AM of the rest of the solar system [including the Sun] and lo and behold it would vary as a precise mirror image of the Earth’s AM, so where is the mechanism for transferring AM from the Earth to the rest of the solar system? Nowhere, of course, because nothing is transferred except in our head.
Paul Vaughan (17:50:45) :
Geoff Sharp (01:49:57)
“WHAT POINT DO THE JOVIAN PLANETS ORBIT?”
“To claim that different bodies obey different laws is what makes this astrology.”
I believe Geoff raises the most salient point in this whole discussion
By introducing false picture which is beyond most people the pot is kept boiling and no solution is possible. It is a well known result from elementary logic that from a false premise any conclusion can be drawn and it would even be true.
A simple thought experiment illustrates the fallacy: assume that it is size that determines if a body ‘orbits’ the BC. Then start with a small planet that does not and slowly make it bigger, e.g. by capturing interplanetary material [as the planets actually did when they formed]. Then at some point it will transition to orbit the BC from not doing so. I consider the notion that it can ‘halfway’ orbit the BC as absurd, so the transition must be discontinuous, which also is absurd.
The link you provided http://www.wxresearch.org/papers/orbit2004.htm has Pluto as orbiting the BC, so clearly it cannot be size that is important, but must be location [inner or outer body], but there are bodies, like comets, that traverse the solar system and are in both regions, so they must transition abruptly too. The absurdities mount.
Leif Svalgaard (19:23:23) “The link you provided http://www.wxresearch.org/papers/orbit2004.htm […] The absurdities mount.”
I did not put that link forward as my position, but rather as a starting point for discussion. Your response has been informative.
Leif “well known result from elementary logic that from a false premise […] the fallacy: assume that it is size that determines if a body ‘orbits’ the BC.”
Nowhere have I claimed size is a sole factor determining time-integrated “orbit-centre” for individual bodies in a system. I will raise no issue with your claim about the elementary logic of false premises.
– – – – – – – – – – –
Leif Svalgaard (18:59:38) “The ‘problem’ arises from confusion about what ‘orbit’ means.”
I don’t estimate those contributing to this discussion to be so naive. There is more than just the calculations-time-step timescale – there is a spectrum of timescales to consider.
Leif: “[…] there is no AM transfer to the Sun and hence no coupling […]”
To again be absolutely clear:
I’m not advocating a spin-orbit coupling.
So tossing “straw man”, “irrelevant”, & a repeat of your response to lgl in here is distortion – I’m not involved in that battle, but I do appreciate your concerns about it.
– – – – – – – – – – –
Clarification regarding Paul Vaughan (15:39:10)
Sorry Geoff, it’s not quite as simple as just squaring. (Due to the unique masses of the components it’s not a simple scalar distributive.)
Nut-shell elaboration: I suspect that what is happening is that some people are thinking in squares while others are thinking in mean-squares – that would account for the discrepancies in the conversation, according to my calculations. (This is with regards to the scalar-prefixes on the component wave functions.)
What interests me most about the “misunderstandings” is not the technical details, but rather the capacity of minor irritants to trigger flares.
Paul Vaughan (17:50:45)
I believe Geoff raises the most salient point in this whole discussion
Maybe.
Right now my guess is that the world is divided into two schools. Firstly there are the people who work out the orbits of planets as ellipses with the barycentre at one focus of those ellipses. And secondly there are the people who work out the orbits of planets using Newton’s laws and numerical integration.
I’m a member of the second school. And so is Carsten Arnholm. And so is Leif Svalgaard.
But Geoff is a member of the first school. Or at least I’m pretty sure he is. There was an earlier post from him on this thread which set me thinking this way. I had just set up my (typical school 2) simulation model with a satellite orbiting the Sun at a radius of 2 solar radii, so that it passed quite near the barycentre. And the following was Geoff’s response:
Geoff Sharp (16:58:55) :
You could also try setting up the satellite so it orbits the solar system barycenter instead of the Sun, and then watch the Sun/satellite distance move.
That suggestion didn’t make any sense to me when I first read it, because the bodies in my simulation don’t ‘orbit’ anything: they just go where gravitational forces pull them. But his suggestion makes quite a lot of sense if Geoff believes (in typical school 1 fashion) that bodies orbit the barycentre in ellipses, with the barycentre at one focus.
I came across the same idea in Linkages between solar activity, climate
predictability and water resource development W J R Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe and N Willemse where Bailey wrote
Second, the earth orbits the solar system’s centre of mass (SSCM), and not the sun’s centre of mass.
That Bailey could so confidently assert such a thing is what leads me to believe that there is a whole school (school 1) of people who believe this idea, and have fully absorbed it as an unquestionable truth.
But the idea that the Earth or any other planet orbits the barycentre or SSCM is really a simplification. It’s sort of generally true, as a kind of general rule of thumb. Just like that, as a general rule of thumb, water freezes at 0 degrees C. Except this is not true if the water is a saline solution.
Anyway, this is what I suspect is happening. It’s not that anyone is being deceitful or purposefully obtuse. They are just quite honestly looking at things through very different pairs of spectacles. They are a bit like the Ptolemaic astronomers who regarded the Sun as going round the Earth, and the Copernican astronomers who saw it the other way round. But the present dispute is between those who believe that planets orbit the barycentre, and those who don’t.
That said, it’s just a guess of mine that this is how Geoff thinks. He says that Leif has got the angular momentum of the Sun wrong, but he won’t produce his ‘correct’ figures. I have produced figures for this. And so has Carsten. And we’re in fairly good agreement, it seems (although I think Carsten’s figures are more accurate than mine).
Leif thinks that if it can be shown that the total angular momentum of the solar system can be shown to be constant, with no wiggle room for ‘spin-orbit coupling’, that will be the end of the matter. But it won’t. I don’t think that it will end until the likes of Geoff and Bailey realise that they’ve been using a simplification, a general rule of thumb, rather than an accurate model of the way our solar system really works, once all the general rules of thumb about how it works have been set aside.
Paul Vaughan (14:58:29) :
I believe Geoff & Leif were having a misunderstanding – a matter of semantics/nomenclature.
Rather an issue of non-understanding, instead of mere misunderstanding.
Leif Svalgaard (18:59:38) :
Paul Vaughan (17:50:45) :
Geoff Sharp (01:49:57)
“WHAT POINT DO THE JOVIAN PLANETS ORBIT?”
“To claim that different bodies obey different laws is what makes this astrology.”
I believe Geoff raises the most salient point in this whole discussion
So this question is just a straw man to divert attention from the issue
I did not say that erected the straw man, but that the person who asked the question in CAPITAL LETTERS did.
I don’t estimate those contributing to this discussion to be so naive.
This is, however, a safe assumption as should be evident from the level of their contributions.
Leif,
1. When you tossed around estimated Earth tide magnitudes above, were you referring to the ocean or the atmosphere?
2. You seemed to minimize the role of temporal UV-variation in your response to anna v. I am curious to know if you dismiss the research that suggests it plays a role in climate.
I welcome comments from others.
Paul.
Paul Vaughan (21:28:28) :
1. When you tossed around estimated Earth tide magnitudes above, were you referring to the ocean or the atmosphere?
The tidal calculation refers to a ideal deformable body that does not resist being deformed. Atmosphere, oceans, and even the mantle of the earth actually respond about the same to the tide. For the atmosphere the word ‘tides’ is also used for ‘thermal tides’ caused by solar heating. These tides have nothing to do with the ‘true’ tides, but the wording can cause confusion.
2. You seemed to minimize the role of temporal UV-variation in your response to anna v. I am curious to know if you dismiss the research that suggests it plays a role in climate.
The classical paper on this is by Shindell et al. and they used as the solar input the obsolete Hoyt/Schatten TSI [of which UV is a certain fraction] which has a very much too large variation, so that research is, indeed, flawed or perhaps better: outmoded.
idlex (21:12:35) :
Right now my guess is that the world is divided into two schools. Firstly there are the people who work out the orbits of planets as ellipses with the barycentre at one focus of those ellipses. And secondly there are the people who work out the orbits of planets using Newton’s laws and numerical integration.
Hmm. I am a physicist and I do tend to look at solutions of gravitational equations reducing them to the two body mode. In that mode the general solution is the bodies orbiting their common barycenter in an elliptical form with one focus of the ellipse on the barycenter. That is the analytical solution of the problem, so no computers are required.
One can always reduce any many body problem to a two body problem, by taking center of masses and total mass into two effective bodies, so there will always be the analytical solution. This does not mean that the solution for the individual bodies has been found.
The confusion starts when the many body problem is attributed to orbits for each object similar to the two body problem. There it is easy to double count by hand waving, which cannot happen if you set up an iterative numerical solution in a computer as you have done.
Leif Svalgaard (15:03:29) :
tallbloke (12:48:34) :
Now consider it’s not the whole sun suddenly jumping 300m but a small fraction of it’s mass and your mercury effect becomes truly tiny. The effect on Venus orders of magnitude tinier.
Most of the Sun’s mass is in the core. It’s not a small fraction.
Depends how you define the core. We are not necessarily talking about a mass or volume contiguous with what is defined as the core in other contexts. The amount of mass moved, how far and the gradient’s steepness are still open questions. Where you made an assumption and an a priori judgement (and flung insults around based on them), I have demonstrated mathematically that the effect on Mercury and Venus’ orbits is negligibly small, and shot down your canard. Duck soup anyone?
which just shows how confused Ray is. Now add to the 400 km/s the 225 km/sec around the center of the Galaxy and the 600 km/s relative to the Cosmic Background Radiation, and …
It appears that you are the one who is confused. A relativistic effect of (say) Jupiter on the sun would involve the relative velocity of Jupiter and the sun, not the relative velocity of the solar sytem and the galaxy, the CMB or anything else.
Here’s what Ray says again:
“I get that the velocity of nuclei near the centre of the sun are about 400 km/s (which I am roughly calculating based on what I think the velocity relationship is to temperature and atomic mass) which makes their relativistic mass increase only about 2 parts in a million.”
This is nothing to do with the suns speed relative to anything, but to do with it’s internal temperature, which by the way, and to lay to rest your other canard about candles and kettles, is around 10 million kelvin.
My judgement is that you are out of your depth with questions about relativity, and will be keeping the salt pot on hand from now on.
Correction, relative gravitation of Jupiter and the sun.
And a further point. Ray says in his exposition that the effect he calculated would raise a larger swell on the sun’s surface than the +/-140m, notwithstanding convection currents which would be set up to distribute the displaced matter. It occurs to me this may have something to do with the ‘corrugations’ you told us about. The outer layers of the sun are very fluid, such a displacement would very likely raise ‘corrugations’ which would propogate around the sun to maintain it’s sphericity. What is the standard model explanation for the corrugations please Leif?
In response to idlex (21:12:35)
We, of course, don’t have time to go over every trivial nuance, but we can extend trust and afford opportunity to save face.
I appreciate the comments you have shared.
Leif Svalgaard (21:24:36)
I did not say that erected the straw man, but that the person who asked the question in CAPITAL LETTERS did.
I’m not convinced that no one can give Geoff a more satisfying answer than he has received. (I’ve seen the answer pitched at the right level in other forums, with simple quantification to back up generalizations at an intermediate level of complexity – I just don’t have the links.) I am not the person in this forum best-qualified to address Geoff’s question with authority, nor am I here to judge the constraints on participants’ time/willingness/interest/tolerance/etc.
Paul Vaughan (21:28:28) :
Leif,
1. When you tossed around estimated Earth tide magnitudes above, were you referring to the ocean or the atmosphere?
2. You seemed to minimize the role of temporal UV-variation in your response to anna v. I am curious to know if you dismiss the research that suggests it plays a role in climate.
I welcome comments from others.
Hi Paul, I’ve been enjoying reading your posts.
The tide Leif mentions is on the oceans I think.
I read a book some time ago about the moon’s effect on climate, by a New Zealander. I lost my pdf copy, but I know I sent it to someone who posted on this thread. I’ll see if I can get him to send a copy back and forward one to you. The author has made it freely distributable because of a lack of royalty payments from the current publisher in the UK.
In the book, the author speculates about the tide raised in the atmospher by the moon, and how it might affect the latitude of atmospheric circulations as the moons declination changes over the 18.6 year cycle. Interesting stuff.
Leif Svalgaard (15:52:23) :
to
vukcevic (08:36:05) :
……., while being larger than cycle 12 which is in the middle of the maxima of your envelope. And many other discrepancies as well. ……….
Dr. Svalgaard
Thank you for your response. This is not an envelope. Perhaps my post was to long. Critical part of the is:
….that zero or near zero values of this particular equation, relatively accurately pinpoint most of the anomalies…. Please note, important time periods here are those when the two factors are (or near) equal but of opposite sign, the rest is of a little influence.
I will redo the chart and formula to reflect the above and may try again on some other occasion.
Thank you.