Guest post by Paul Vaughan, M.Sc. – August 18, 2010
Scientists characterize Earth rotation velocity using a variable they call length of day (LOD). The rate of change of LOD (LOD’) is related to global average wind patterns. Changes in wind patterns affect temperature patterns.
See the graphic below.
Could it be that apparent relationships between the rate of change of solar cycle length (SCL’), LOD’, & North Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperature (AMO = Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) are independent?
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UPDATE: Paul asked me to add these two graphs, he writes:
Notes on notation:
GLAAM = global atmospheric angular momentum
NOR = nutation in obliquity residual
[] indicates time-integration
SOI = Southern Oscillation Index
f(x) on the SOI, GLAAM, LOD graph indicates a filter that isolates interannual features. This result has been known to scientists for decades, so my SOI, GLAAM, LOD graph is simply a sample of what I discovered last year when I audited their claims using my own approaches. (If anyone wants the literature references, please feel welcome to request them and I’ll dig them out.)
Solar-Terrestrial Coincidence?
Paul Vaughan, M.Sc. – August 18, 2010
Scientists characterize Earth rotation velocity using a variable they call length of day (LOD). The rate of change of LOD (LOD’) is related to global average wind patterns. Changes in wind patterns affect temperature patterns.
Could it be that apparent relationships between the rate of change of solar cycle length (SCL’), LOD’, & North Atlantic Ocean sea su
Paul Vaughan says:
August 19, 2010 at 5:30 pm
tallbloke, have you looked at the mismatch between those core models and the observed decadal LOD variations? Those folks have some miles to go.
Hi Paul, yes, they frankly admit that they can’t model the ‘chaotic’ nature of the core flows. For Example, Andy Jackson at Zurich says of the Riga experiment:
“In the last decade we’ve made great advances in using numerical simulations to understand planetary magnetic field generation, but there are some real drawbacks with these computations.
“For example, it’s almost impossible for us to model turbulent flow. There’s a place for the experiments to try to fill in the gap that’s left by the numerical simulations.
“The experiments really can reproduce this turbulent regime that’s so important in the core.”
Bear in mind that global atmospheric angular momentum records do not go back to 1930. (That is the reason they give for not being able to explain the phase reversal.) Also, bear in mind that there is redundancy in EOP. (One only needs 3 of the 5 EOP – i.e. they are not independent.)
My model which quantifies my hypothesised link between solar activity and ocean heat content tells me that there was a major ocean heat content regime shift around the time of your Chandler wobble phase reversal. It is masked in the global SST record by the big PDO reversals around 1910 and 1940. Maybe data from other ocean basins could tell us more, and support or refute Gross on his seabed pressure theory.
Thanks for sharing the notes.
Well done for getting Anthony to give airtime to this interesting and important subject on WUWT.
tallbloke, the negative of the integral of AMO points right at the Chandler wobble phase reversal. The peak splits a peak in the integral of PDO. When considering this, keep in mind that the integral of GLAAM matches the integral of PDO for the era during which GLAAM records exist. The Chandler wobble phase reversal coincides temporally with a reversal of spatial phase relations across the major northern hemisphere ocean basins. For quite awhile I was thinking about decadal-timescale ocean currents when thinking about this, but further digging into a variety of indices has caused me to begin suspecting a substantial role for atmospheric teleconnections. Looks like an area where Bob Tisdale might be able to contribute further (in the weeks/months/years ahead, without ever needing to mention EOP etc., if/when he has time/interest).
Ralph wrote:
“Is this correlation statistically significant? […] what is the mechanism […] ?”
I will leave these matters to statisticians & physicists – and I guarantee them I will show little tolerance for untenable model assumptions, such as randomness, i.i.d. (independent, identically distributed), etc. which are thrown around far too liberally.
If the assumptions do not hold, they cannot form the basis of objective reasoning. Journal editors: Tradition is an insufficient reason for insisting on continuing to pretend. Responsibility is multi-faceted. False modeling assumptions are causing substantial problems for our society & civilization. Misleading conventions can & will be challenged. To respond in a practical & nonradical fashion: Consider simply reserving the option to show some flexibility on a case-by-case basis as a start.
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Jeff L wrote:
“Could you […] give us an R^2?”
I’ll leave that exercise to others. The links to the data have been provided. I would not be content with just an r^2. I would want to run a full time-integrated cross-correlation analysis (to be summarized in a color-contour plot with lag on the x-axis, timescale on the y-axis, and cross-correlation on the z-axis), but as with basic spectral analysis (such as simple FFT) resulting summaries can be misleading when dealing with nonstationary series, so I would also do a cross-wavelet analysis (plotting phase-differences on the z-axis as a function of time on the x-axis & timescale on the y-axis). I will produce the analyses if/when I receive substantial funding.
Cautionary note to those who have posted about indices of solar system dynamics: They are confounded with lunisolar tides.
Also: Those of you quoting Ian Wilson appear to be missing some of the recent advances in his thinking.
In particular: I strongly recommend that those of you citing the spin-orbit coupling paper make the effort to update your knowledge in light of developments.
One way to make time for new lines of research is to abandon other lines of research. This does not necessarily mean old lines of research were not worthwhile; however, sometimes sequence matters (“cart before the horse” thing) – (in this case research sequence).
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meemoe_uk wrote: “One stamp of approval this correlation has is Leif hasn’t turned up yet and told you it’s all wrong.”
I do not interpret Leif’s absence from this thread as an endorsement. The graph proves nothing. I have simply introduced a question. Until physicists can explain everything, there will be questions.
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Chris and Lucy, Thanks for your supportive comments. Bill: great graph. Chris, Bill, and Malcolm, Thanks for the notes.
Paul Vaughan says:
August 20, 2010 at 3:11 am
Also: Those of you quoting Ian Wilson appear to be missing some of the recent advances in his thinking.
In particular: I strongly recommend that those of you citing the spin-orbit coupling paper make the effort to update your knowledge in light of developments.
One way to make time for new lines of research is to abandon other lines of research. This does not necessarily mean old lines of research were not worthwhile; however, sometimes sequence matters (“cart before the horse” thing) – (in this case research sequence).
What are you saying here? – that a planetary gravitational basis of the AMO/PDO via solar rotation asymmetry is just seooooooo last year!
And what developments – have the orbits of the planets changed?
I’m sure it would be a priviledge to talk to Ian Wilson and find out his latest thinking. There is this phenomenon called the death of the artist – once a work is created, it has an independent life of its own. The paper by Sidorenkov, Wilson and Khlystov that we were so unfashionably discussing (published in 2010 but apparently already passee) presented a compelling idea of movements of the solar system barycentre having a significant climate influence, and this is important stuff. Even if Wilson has now converted to 6 day creationism and believes in a flat earth, this work is important. In its own right.
Is there a reason for the model proposed by Sidorenkov et al. being wrong, other than being past its sell by date? /sarc off 🙂
I am not surprised that LOD’, AMO, and SCL are positively correlated. While not generally recognized by mainstream science, the earth is a charged body in the electric field of the sun. A charged body in an electric field will spin and the rate of spin is determined by the strength of the electric field and the charge on the body. The sunspot number is a proxy for the strength of the sun’s electric field (the more sunspots the stronger the field). One variable that climate scientists do not take into account when modeling climatic changes is the amount of electric energy imparted to the earth from the sun. The sunspot cycle is probably correlated with the positions of Saturn and Jupiter for the most part, but it is also affected by the solar system’s position in the galactic electric field. The correlations shown by Paul Vaughn tend to corroborate the electrical nature of the universe and falsify the assumption of mainstream astronomers and cosmologists that the sun (and every other star) is a nuclear fusion furnace.
Paul Vaughan says:
August 19, 2010 at 12:25 am
I always applaud when someone uses genuine time-series analysis methods, instead of some ad hoc contrivance, on climate data. That’s why I assumed you had done the cross-wavelet analysis that would quantify the coherence between LOD’ and AMO or the sunspot cycle. Eyeballing is OK, but is seldom well-calibrated. Can you give us some values for the frequency band with the highest coherence between LOD’ and AMO? Also, how do you obtain a continuous variable for the apparent sunspot cycle-length? Did you use the Hilbert transform, which provides the instantaneous amplitude and frequency for narrow band-signals?
I’m glad that as a biologist you leave the physics to physicists. Purely phenomenological analyses, however, run the risk attributing a more intimate physical relationship to concommitant variables than they possess. I doubt that LOD’, which lags AMO, can be its driver. And your attention to the Chandler wobble leaves me puzzled. The entire wobble is contained within a radius of a dozen meters. How can this materially affect the climate system?
I applaud your presentation, nevertheless.
Re: David O. Smith
While I’ve little knowledge of the branch of physics you discuss, I’m quite sure that the physicists who regularly comment at WUWT disagree absolutely with what you are suggesting. In any case, it is not the physics that interests me, but rather the timing
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Re: phlogiston
I appreciate your sense of humor – (meant sincerely).
Lunisolar tides are confounded with solar system dynamics. People like to believe all sorts of things. In this case, there is an option to believe in something that is both close to home and inoffensive to conventional minds. [I’ve heard that the confounding is addressed in a paper which has been drafted by a physicist… (no further comment on the paper at this time).]
Re: sky
SCL was determined using a complex Morlet 2pi wavelet.
The coherence band will be strong & nonstationary. (I have enough experience running cross-wavelet analyses to see this without running the analysis.)
If/when funding comes through, I’ll consider publicizing the results of a cross-wavelet analysis. (Note: Private investment is welcome.)
Important clarification: I’m viewing EOP (Earth orientation parameters [polar motion, LOD, nutation residuals]) as climate indicators (not drivers!).
One thing I haven’t figured out how to do yet is put more than one curve on a graph without having people start assuming I am proposing physical drivers. I investigate timing using methodology drawn mainly from ecology, physical geography, engineering, & statistics.
Thank you sincerely for your comments & interest. I look forward to future exchanges.
Paul Vaughan says:
August 20, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Lunisolar tides – looks like I’ve got some homework to do. I’ll look out for any new papers by “a physicist”.
Thanks for this interesting and thought-provoking post and thread.
phlogiston,
My computing account (from my previous research work) is due to expire, but for now this remains posted:
Note on Confounding of Lunisolar Harmonic Spectrum & Solar System Dynamics – http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/Confounding.htm
[Note: Although I have stopped updating the notes on volcanism, the work has continued. There are newer results (not yet written up) that eclipse what is posted.]
Keep an eye on Ian Wilson’s evolving research.
Interesting stuff and at present somewhat beyond my capability to comment constructively.
However the mechanisms that give rise to oceanic and solar cycles are very important to top and tail my attempt at setting out a coherent climate overview and describing the way the troposphere then deals with (possibly independent) influences from within the oceans and from variable solar activity.
However I do have some questions.
How significant are all these potential mechanisms compared to the variability that the sun and oceans would be quite capable of setting up on their own within the climate system from just changing the global albedo via latitudinal shifts in all the main cloud bands and thus introducing variability of solar shortwave input into the oceans ? Then the internal structure of the oceans and density/ salinity/ temperature driven cycling movement within them would do the rest.
Couldn’t the sun and oceans pretty much do it all on their own ?
Wouldn’t all those potential mechanisms just provide a modulating effect possibly a whole order of magnitude weaker ?
Lots of interesting questions you’ve raised for the physicists Stephen.
The following is intended to be more provocative than accurate:
Solar cycle length RATCHETS against THE SEASONS of the year.
Further discussion has moved to:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/04/the-north-pacific-solar-cycle-change/
Best Regards,
Paul.
P.V.
“Changes in wind patterns affect temperature patterns.”
And the contrary ?