People send me stuff, my email is like a firehose, with several hundred messages a day, and thus this message was delayed until sent to me a second time today. I’m breaking my own rule on Barycentrism discussions, because this paper has been peer reviewed and published in Elsevier.
George Taylor, former Oregon State climatologist writes:
Nicola Scafetta has published the most decisive indictment of GCM’s I’ve ever read in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. His analysis is purely phenomenological, but he claims that over half of the warming observed since 1975 can be tied to 20 and 60-year climate oscillations driven by the 12 and 30-year orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn, through their gravitational influence on the Sun, which in turn modulates cosmic radiation.
If he’s correct, then all GCM’s are massively in error because they fail to show any of the observed oscillations.
There have been many articles over the years which indicated that there were 60-year cycles in the climate, but this is the first one I’ve seen which ties them to planetary orbits.
– George
===============================================================
The paper is:
Scafetta,N.,
Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications .
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics (2010),doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2010.04.015
I find his figure 11b interesting:
Here’s the link:
www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf
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Too much band-pass filtering, too much smoothing, too much phase lags, etc. Ever since the sunspot cycle was discovered cyclomania has reared its head from time to time, even including the venerable Rudolf Wolf.
Now that we have discovered other planetary systems a simple test of this is possible: does magnetic activity or stellar irradiance match the barycentric movements in these other systems? The data so far says no. I’m sure people can find the relevant links themselves.
George Taylor:
“Massively in error” may be an overstatement, but I do believe it’s true that the models fail to capture the physics of ocean-atmospheric oscillations. This makes them nearly useless as a forecast tool (I doubt they would agree with this, but I think it’s true), but they still have utility for what people typically use them for, namely estimating the climate sensitivity of various forcings.
Zeke the Sneak says:
October 13, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Satellites and spacecraft have detected electrons streaming from the poles of Earth, Jupiter and Saturn towards the Sun. here: http://www.physorg.com/news10765.html
No, not towards the Sun, just up into the magnetospheres of the planets [into the tail part directed away from the Sun, actually].
I could have sworn this was posted here before as I have this on my list already,
800 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm
MikeTheDenier says: October 13, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Exactly. Now add the last part of the picture that … in hindsight is obvious… the whole Solar System is streaming through the Galaxy but the Ecliptic, the nearly-flat plane of the Solar System, is at an angle to the direction it’s moving… and this is the reason for BOTH 20-year AND 60-year prominent cycles that Scafetta shows… that can be shown with a Morlet wavelet diagram IIRC… which also shows how even these cycles phase in and out over a longer period of time…
Saturn and Jupiter are conjunct every 20 years. But the pattern of conjunctions is a nearly-exactly-equilateral triangle, so relative to the SS direction of movement, the conjunction is only repeated in the same place (and with the same vectors) every 60 years. But even that place moves slowly… taking some 800 years to return to its starting point. Kepler knew all this .
Fred Bailey I regard as a genius who has completed Landscheidt’s thesis, and Scafetta’s excellent work here, by adding the movement of the whole Solar System to the concept of the Solar System Centre of Mass or Barycentre. He has just set up this website. I wonder if what he has found is the answer Newton couldn’t find to the three-planet problem.
Stephen Brown says:
October 13, 2010 at 3:31 pm
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Thus quoth the Bard.
Stephen, what worries me is that there might be more things in my philosophy (science) than there are in heaven and Earth.
I believe that there are far more things in climate science than there are in heaven and Earth.
Carrick says:
Models “still have utility for what people typically use them for, namely estimating the climate sensitivity of various forcing.”
Please show the climate sensitivity number. As I understand it, there is disagreement over the sensitivity number, from the IPCC’s WAG of up to 6°C, down to Lindzen’s fraction of a degree per doubling.
Given the fact that a good part of the current warming is the result of the planet’s emergence from the LIA, observations indicate that Lindzen is correct, and the IPCC forgot to put a decimal point somewhere.
Theo Goodwin says:
October 13, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Stephen Brown says:
October 13, 2010 at 3:31 pm
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Thus quoth the Bard.
I believe that there are far more things in climate science than there are in heaven and Earth.
=======================================================
You’re right! Heaven and earth are basic things. We’ve been with them since we got here! To get to their truths, we have to go though misconceptions, erroneous thoughts, lies and distortions………in other words, climate science.
A new paper on the Barycentric motion of exoplanet host stars has been published on the 5th Oct 2010. This gives a new insight into how different our own star is when compared to some distant stars sampled.
A new article with a link to the paper (and others) available here:
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/202
Meanwhile our star continues to show the side effects of a barycentric motion out of balance.
R. de Haan says:
October 13, 2010 at 5:56 pm
This paper would have made Prof. Dr. Theodore Landscheidt and Carl Smith very happy. I’m sure Geoff Sharp will be happy too.
Yes Ron I previewed this paper back in July as I think Anthony did also. The PDO is the biggest modulator of Earth’s climate, and if a mechanical process can be found substantiating its link with solar velocity Nicola will deserve a major prize.
Smokey:
The uncertainty is large, partly because of the coarseness of the current models.
It depends on who you read, but I’ve more typically seen numbers like 1.4-4°C/doubling bandied about, with 4°C/doubling look pretty dubious at the moment. On the other hand, a fraction of a degree is ridiculously low, IMHO.
charles nelson says:
October 13, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Oh and while I’m on the subject, a bit of trivia for you.
The Flu, derived from the Italian Influenza…meaning ‘the influence’. Influence of what I hear you ask…why The Planets. Apparently the ‘astrologers’ of the day assigned some connection between the behaviour of the planets and the appearence of epidemics…is there a relationship between climate/weather and illnesses? I’ll let someone else can work that out!
A statistical correlation between sunspots and influenza has been suggested before, by (among others) John W.K. Yeung:
http://ornitology.sfu-kras.ru/files/2.pdf
if you Google Hoyle or Wickramasinghe, you’ll find some older stuff too.
While on the topic, there’s reportedly even a correlation between solar activity and the incidence of schizophrenia. This could explain why after so many years of perfectly good arguments from skeptical scientists, only now, after an unusually quiet and long solar minimum, the madness of Mann-made catastrophic warming is beginning to retreat.
http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(08)00426-X/abstract
Just kidding!
Steve Fitzpatrick says:
October 13, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Eric Gisin,
“So the sun-earth distance is not just changing due to elliptic orbit by 3%, but also due to jupiter by 1%. Double those percentages to get change in solar radiation at earth.”
Nope. The Earth-sun distance does change due to the Earth’s elliptical orbit, but not due to Jupiter (nor Saturn, Neptune, etc.). The 6-7% annual cycle in solar intensity due to Earth’s orbit is quite consistent, and depends not at all on Jupiter.
According to JPL Horizons this is exactly correct, the only modulation to Earth’s orbit via the planets is a small 15000 km perturbation. Fred Bailey has launched a new website claiming the Earth orbits the SSB which is being discussed in my forum currently. I have produced a graph showing the Earth/Sun/SSB distances overlaid that clearly shows the stable orbit pattern about the Sun.
BTW Leif, Fred has a page on his site waiting for your response relating to a comment on my site that you may not be aware of.
http://www.solarchords.com/solar-chord-science/3/watts-wrong-with-tsi/35593/
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 13, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Too much band-pass filtering, too much smoothing, too much phase lags, etc.
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Dr. Svalgaard, I’m glad you popped by! I was hoping for your opinion. I agree with your summary, but, that, on its face, doesn’t invalidate the paper nor its hypothesis. As far as cycles go, I’ve not yet seen something natural that wasn’t cyclic. It simply takes a very long time to see the pattern for some things.
Carrick says:
“On the other hand, a fraction of a degree is ridiculously low, IMHO.”
IMHO?? I need facts!☺
There is no testable, empirical evidence showing that CO2 affects temperature [it may, but the effect is too small to measure].
If the sensitivity number was large, temperature would track CO2 closely. But it doesn’t. And the only established correlation shows that a temperature rise results in a rise in CO2 – not vice-versa.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 13, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Be careful Lucy, Fred’s major premise is that the Earth does not orbit the Sun. There is a significant flaw in his theory that should not be promoted without some sort of empirical data. There has been a lot work put into his website and book which I feel may be wasted, but some of his other work is interesting.
Carrick,
The models “still have utility for what people typically use them for, namely estimating the climate sensitivity of various forcings”.
I’m a very long way from convinced of this Carrick. The problem is that there is too wide a range of plausible aerosol effects (~-0.5 watt per sq meter to -2.5 watts per sq meter, IPCC data) to in any meaningful way constrain or even evaluate the accuracy of models. The argument that the models are OK for estimating responses to applied forcing is completely specious: there is no way to verify the performance of the models in the absence of accurately known forcings, so no way to know if a model’s response to an applied hypothetical forcing is accurate. You must, a priori, accept the models are useful to believe that they are useful in evaluating hypothetical forcings; irrational circular reasoning if I ever saw it.
The models need robust, rigorous, and through verification against real atmospheric data. Absent much better data on aerosol effects and cloud effects, I am not going to believe their predictions.
MikeTheDenier says:
October 13, 2010 at 3:52 pm
It seems to me that if the orbit of a planet can cause the wobble of a distant star, thus allowing we earthlings to detect the existance of such planets, then we must accept that planets in our own solar system will cause our own star to wobble. Since our star affects our climate then the wobbles must also have some effect on our climate.
… and if it wobbles a star, think what sort of effect it might have on a lowly lump of rock (like Earth).
I will take some convincing, but I am not really prepared to write this off.
Geoff Sharp says:
October 13, 2010 at 7:14 pm
BTW Leif, Fred has a page on his site waiting for your response relating to a comment on my site that you may not be aware of.
He rambles a bit, but as far as I can see he accuses the people calculating TSI to fudge their numbers as far as the distance to the Sun is concerned. I have personally checked the adjustment and calculation [and actually did discover a small bug in their program which caused them to recalculate everything – the effect is, however, very small and only of academic interest]. Here is the bottom line:
1) TSI is measured VERY accurately [on a relative basis]
2) The distance to use to correct the values to 1 AU is the distance between the Sun and the Earth at the moment the photon left the Sun
3) This distance has nothing to do with where the barycenter is
To these very scientifically untrained “eyes”, Figure 11b does not seem very significant — one line leads another and then it follows; one is up while the other is down, etc. Yeah, some of it is the same. I remain grateful to Leif Svalgaard, of course, and to Smokey and George E. Smith for what seems like “grounding” in reality. I respect Vukcevic, and others, and enjoy reading. Oh, yes, and Lucy Skywalker. Just give me some old-fashioned, solid numbers and real proofs.
Well designed filters do not “generate” a signal, but the narrower they are, the more inclined they are to “ring”.
Filter design is a very complex subject. You can’t simply take a design off the internet and use it blindly. I see very little (read none) discussion in any of the AGW papers (or skeptic papers for that matter why the specific filters used were chosen.
Using the wrong filter is about as useful as using the wrong statistical techniques.
Say, I have a few traits being a redhead and all. Wonder if that is correlated to anything.
James Sexton says:
October 13, 2010 at 7:17 pm
I agree with your summary, but, that, on its face, doesn’t invalidate the paper nor its hypothesis.
It put the paper in with the dozens of similar papers over the past 150 years claiming some sort of correlation. None of those have made any progress towards understanding any of this. Not that that deters the enthusiasts, of course.
There is clearly an oscillation pattern in Earth’s climate.
But this study is about the general oscillation around a generally increasing trend (temperatures have still increased 0.7C given a +/- 0.3C cycle up and down). It doesn’t say all the warming is caused by this effect.
Let’s say there is a down-cycle peak at 1975 and then an up-cycle peak around 1998 (or 2000 or whatever). Then one could be lead astray by studying this period only. Half of the warming since 1975 is the natural oscillation down cycle followed by a natural up cycle.
But to confirm this paper’s hypothesis, we have to rely on the solar irradiance and the cloud cover (albedo) data to say this oscillation is caused by the Sun’s movement or cosmic rays. Do these measures really change enough to cause these oscillations. It is not clear enough since the measured (versus reconstructed) data does not go back far enough.
But there are definitely cycles in the climate that the climate science community prefers to think of as “noise in the climate models” rather than a geniune oscillation in the Earth’s climate. That’s like the blinders on a race horse or this well-known example.
http://newzar.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/hear-see-speak-no-evil1.jpg
Don’t you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don’t you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out “Don’t you believe in anything?”
Yes”, I said. “I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
— Isaac Asimov
More solid evidence please before I buy off on this being anything more that a hypothesis.