Solar-Terrestrial Coincidence?

Is there a correlation or lag factor association between increased earthquake activity and Glaam?

Hi Paul, I have also noticed the same trends but was unaware of the LOD correlation. Perhaps some of the metrics are results of others (GLAAM, LOD, SOI etc), but looking at the timing when all these events come together gives a clue I think. Now, 1970 and 1900 where we see dips in the graph we also see solar angular momentum at its lows. I dont think this is a coincidence and would presume the same patterns happen during Dalton and Maunder type episodes. Scafetta is also suggesting something similar in his last paper with the PDO line up.
There are so many climate drivers pointing to a big cooling this NH winter.

Sean says:
August 18, 2010 at 5:00 pm

I’m not the smartest guy in the room but I always though length of day decreased when the world got colder and there was more mass at the poles (snow and ice) rather than as water at the equator. Kind of like a skater concentrating more mass on the axis of rotation. Is this way too simplistic?

Oh, yes. (from downunder where spring is just about to kick in…)

stephen richards says:
August 19, 2010 at 1:18 am; “what is the significance of GLAAM being one of the lowest ever recorded in July, 2010.”
It means the Trade Winds and equatorial ocean currents were very strong towards the west (against the rotation) (mostly between 30N to 40S) (which counter-intuitively actually sped up the rotation and shortened the length of the day a little).
It really just means that conditions that help a La Nina to strengthen were very high in July.
There are a lot of studies on AAM, LOD and the ENSO. Just search it on Google or Google Scholar.
Today’s Ocean SST map shows the Nino 3.4 area, in particular, really cooled off in the last week. It is probably just a short-term blip where the cooler eddies converged for a short time because there is still 3 to 4 months to go before this La Nina peaks and this cooler water in the Nino 3.4 will be near Indonesia by that time.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.8.19.2010.gif

The LOD changes because the angular momentum of the atmosphere is exchanged with that of the solid/liquid surface of the earth (and other bits of the solar system.)
The earth’s atmosphere changes somewhat (temperature, height, density, composition) with solar activity. During periods of high solar activity, ultraviolet solar radiation is also high, which heats the stratosphere due to ozone production and other photochemistry. The thermosphere also gets hotter due to stronger solar wind events, associated with increased sunspot activity. The gases are quite rarefied, and obey well-known gas laws.
Nearer the earth’s surface, the troposphere, which depends on longer wavelength solar radiation in the visible spectrum for heating from the earth’s surface, is much less affected since the solar irradiation in the visible spectrum is less variable than UV during the solar cycle.
Presumably the height of the troposphere changes in line with the changes in the upper atmosphere, altering the capacity of the troposphere to contain heat, thus affecting the patterns in the atmospheric turbulence we see as weather, and eventually climate.
This redistribution of atmospheric mass has a “ballerina” effect, slowing down the earth’s rotation.
Short term LOD rate changes are due to seasonal temperature effects at the poles, as the troposphere chills and reduces in height during polar winter, and the amounts of sea ice rotating as a solid, instead of as liquid ocean.
The noise in the system comes from weather pressure systems, and their interaction with land and ocean, phenomena such as ENSO and the lunisolar tides, nodal, apsidal, and other cycles that move masses of water and land in complex and quasi-predictable ways.

I worked on Earth rotation for 15 years at Mounts Stromlo Observatory. Anything that affecte the mass distribution near the surface of the planet changes the moment of inertia enough to affect the rotation rate, whether distribution of air, water, wind, tree growth, of the movement of magma under the crust.

Paul Vaughan says:
August 18, 2010 at 8:10 pm, 9:08 pm
Thanks for the helpful clarification of the terminology and stats, wavelets etc. Are we in a Chandler wobble now? PDO has gone negative but AMO is still positive, soon to turn negative also. From your list of phenomena, many are evident at present, except North American droughts and “stratospheric volcanos” (been watching Avatar too many times? 🙂
Lot of great research going on here – it would be nice for it to be condensed and simplified / summarised in the form of a short paper on how all these processes implact / drive climate.
David L. Hagen says:
August 18, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Thanks, I just read Sidorenkov, Wilson and Khlystov 2010 from your list. This seems very compelling indeed. Here is an extract:
Ian Wilson et al. (2008) presented evidence that claimed that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun’s orbital motion about the barycentre of the Solar System. This paper showed that the recent maximum asymmetries in the Solar motion about the barycentre have occurred in the years 1865, 1900, 1934, 1970 and 2007. These years closely match the points of inflection in the Earth’s LOD.
What jumps out from this is that the years 1865, 1900, 1934, 1970 and 2007 are the max-min-max-min-max global temperature inflections of a 70 year PDO-AMO oceanic cycle. Departures of the barycentre from the sub-Jupiter point appear to directly drive this oscillation. This makes the case strongly for planetary gravitational driving of the multidecadal oceanic-climate cycles, and indeed as you point out later, the solar cycles. So the apparent solar to climate correlation becomes trivial when seen as two systems driven by the same planetary forcing. This feels like cutting through swathes of climate debate and AGW distraction and flipping to the answers at the end of the text book.
This also contradicts Leif Svalgaard who asserts that planetary gravitation effects on solar dynamics are minimal. Perhaps he is referring to a different thing – a lot of complex stuff happens on the sun.
It thus seems hugely important, and would firmly establish a 70 year oceanic-climate oscillation on a mechanistic base (planetary-gravitational). If confirmed it would constitute a foundation stone of climate science. It is more than worth a posting on WUWT in its own right.
However what about the longer term apparent oscillations, associated with the MWP, LIA, current warm period, the 1470yr “Bond event” cycle etc. Can this body of theory involving solar motion asymmetry and LOD etc., be extended to account for these longer term climate oscillations? And then, the glacial-interglacial switching?