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
Carrick,
I am quite familiar with inverse problems, how they are solved, and how they are used “in different branches of science”… say for example, in geomagnetic prospecting, x-ray tomography, image reconstruction/enhancement, etc.
I am also familiar with the very broad range of credible net forcing (total radiative forcing less aerosol off-sets). And as I am sure you know, it is clear that each climate model group manages to select a level of assumed aerosol forcing which allows that model’s calculated level of sensitivity to be more-or-less consistent with the observed temperature history. This is an obvious a kludge. With no meaningful constraint on aerosol off-sets there is also no constraint on the size of the aerosol kludge.
The other obvious kludge has historically been ocean heat uptake, which has only recently been reasonably well measured (by ARGO circa 2003). This kludge is being gradually taken away by accumulating ARGO data. There is a very good reason Kevin Trenberth says he thinks ARGO ocean heat data is wrong: it is broadly inconsistent with high climate sensitivity, and he knows it. High climate sensitivity is only physically reasonable if ocean lag is quite long… and ARGO heat data suggests it is quite short. With better defined ocean heat uptake, it becomes ever more difficult to see how the models could possibly be close to correct in their estimates of climate sensitivity.
The most robust method of verifying model performance is to reduce uncertainty in the aerosol data. Of course, if there were another Pinatubo size eruption, then the combination of ARGO and limb measurements of stratospheric aerosols would constrain the range of credible sensitivity pretty quickly.
The inability of the models to capture the (apparent) natural oscillations in the climate, at both long and short time scales, is a clear sign that the models are not a good representation of the physical system. I may not be alive long enough to see it, but I expect that when the models can better capture the pseudo-cyclical behavior of the system, they will diagnose the climate sensitivity somewhere between ~1.2C and ~1.7C per doubling.
phlogiston says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:08 am
Here is an extract:
If the Solar system just consisted of Jupiter and the Sun, the barycentre of the Solar System would move in an almost circular orbit located just above the surface of the Sun (i.e. about 1.08 solar radii), called the sub-Jupiter point.
Out of interest I have a question to Dr Svalgaard and others with the same anti-barycentric assignment: do you believe the statement in the above quote or not?
Look up the definition of barycentre. This is not a question of belief. It is a mathematical fact that if the solar system consisted of only the Sun and Jupiter, their common centre of mass will alway lie on a straight line between them, and closer to the most massive object. 1.08 solar radii sounds about right. You can compute it yourself, it is not complicated.
Is there a “sub-Jupiter point” 1.08 solar radii from the sun’s center – or not?
Sure, if you choose to compute the centre of mass between only the Sun and Jupiter, you will get that answer. However, it does not have any physical significance, it is just a point in space like any other.
The centre of mass of the whole Solar system follows a more complex path, however, ref. this . But it is still just a point in space.
phlogiston says:
October 14, 2010 at 11:08 am
Is Newtonian gravity correct – or not? Should Isaac Newton be categorised as a climate skeptic for his support of barycentrism? – should your colleague William Connolly get busy purging wikipedia of references to Isaac Newton?
What are you talking about? The barycenter is a well defined mathematical point for a system of masses governed by the gravitational force. It is just that, a mathematical point. It has 0 mass and so does not have any effect by itself, other than convenience in calculations, particularly when the solar system is considered as a point within the galaxy.
The barycenter of the earth moon system is 800km within the mantle of the earth. Nobody observes anything due to the barycenter point running around under the skin of the earth. It is a convenient point to use when calculating the earth/moon system motion versus the sun, that is all.
Vuk etc. says:
October 14, 2010 at 12:06 pm
There is a physical process in the most northern reaches of the Atlantic, between Greenland and your homeland, that captures most of CET trends. Data is available, physics of it is ‘down to earth’
There is no such ‘physical process’. How many times must this be pointed out?
I have a general comment: when most people here are so woefully ignorant about simple orbital mechanics [and basic physics] and will believe almost anything, what significance can one attach to their mutterings on climate?
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 14, 2010 at 12:42 pm
There is no such ‘physical process’. How many times must this be pointed out?
O YES THERE IS ! And you have no idea what it is either!
Would you get me PhD from your Stanford University, if I can show them that there is, and furthermore it has the most reliable recorded data for any physical process going back to 1600.
One recent Nobel price winner had PhD theses of 2 pages, I think I will manage that plus page of numbers for the NAP.
I am ready to put my money where my mouth is, are you?
Have a good look at it again.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP.htm
“E pur si muove”….anyway you will enjoy “climate disruption”, rather “freezing cold disruption” 🙂
Carrick says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:28 pm
“…such as data on the absorption of IR by CO2.”
Please explain to me how CO2 with three absorbtion bands 2.3, 4.7, and 15 micro how they effect the temperature due to radiation.
Vuk etc. says:
October 14, 2010 at 1:04 pm
O YES THERE IS ! And you have no idea what it is either!
OK, Einstein, explain what you think it is, and why it is different from your previous ravings on this.
Jupiter & Saturn impact on solar wind / magnetic impact to the Earth is (together with the moon influence) core to Piers Corbyn long term wheather and extreme events predictions (through his Wheatheraction business) ; only accessible through payment !
Leif Svalgaard says: October 14, 2010 at 1:35 pm
OK, Einstein, explain….
Let’s leave Einstein alone, he was not very nice to his wife Ms Mileva Maric, another Serb a scientist in her own right, my heros are Tesla and Milankovic and philosopher Petar II Njegos.
Some of the graphs, as in McCracken are integrated, this graph
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP.htm
uses square rather than linear law dependence; and forget about gmf, it is not.
Are you ready to deal?
Why the doubt that Jupiter and Saturn could influence Earth’s climate? Down in the southern hemisphere we have to warn visitors that, latitude for latitude, the intensity of the sun’s radiation in mid-summer is currently about 7% greater here than in the northern hemisphere (so be sure to wear a hat – its even more because of less pollution!) What is less well known is that, because of barycentric movement, the difference in maximum intensity of solar radiation between northern and southern hemispheres itself varies in the range of about 3% to 11% – the extremes are rare but variation in the range 6% – 8% is not. One would think that by itself might have some influence on climate. More significant, I would guess, would be the difference between total annual solar energy received by the north and the south and how that varies from year to year. I have no idea what this is – not much, I assume, and would like to know, but it seems unlikely that there is no variation at all – and it wouldn’t take much to be significant.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 13, 2010 at 6:18 pm
“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.”
I followed Geoff Sharp’s link to the paper – M.A.C. Perryman and T. Schulze-Hartung: The barycentric motion of exoplanet host stars- and the data so far does not say no. Nor does it say yes. The authors suggest the study of two stars, HD 168443 and HD 74156 could provide an answer, but at present there is insufficient data. This paper was published 6/10/10. If Leif has a link to a paper showing that a star with Jovian sized exoplanets does not have solar cycles synchronised with the orbital cycles of the masses within that star system I would be interested to read it.
vukcevic says:
October 14, 2010 at 2:00 pm
uses square rather than linear law dependence; and forget about gmf, it is not.
I don’t play games. If you anything, say it. If not, …
I do not know, and have little opinion on whether Dr. Scafetta’s work is valid. What I DO want to point out is that Climate Science would have been exploring these avenues 20 years ago if it hadn’t been captured by Activists with a dream of changing the world!!!
When you reread the statement that they could see no other reason for the alledged temp increase (it couldn’t have been poor data and statistical techniques could it?) than the continuing rise in CO2, it should be obvious that they WEREN’T LOOKING!!!!!
PJP says:
October 13, 2010 at 7:37 pm
“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.”
Agreed! Few, if any, climate studies show any acquaintance with the (complex-valued) transfer function of the filter employed, let alone with purpose of filtering. Thus many are left befuddled by the outputs obtained, which leads to blind proscriptions against any filtering by those unschooled in signal analysis.
The “ringing” of very narrow-band filters (i.e., outputs highly autocorrelated over large lags) is exactly what one should expect analytically as a consequence of the well-known “reciprocal spreading” property of Fourier pairs. This is by no means a mysterious, let alone spurious, artefact of such filters, but an intrinsic property of bandwidth. Unless the signal contains strictly periodic components (true spectral lines), the variance of the output also decreases as the filter bandwidth is decreased in the signal decomposition. That’s the basis on which analog spectrum analyzers of varying frequency resolution were designed before the advent of digital technology.
Konrad says:
October 14, 2010 at 3:05 pm
If Leif has a link to a paper showing that a star with Jovian sized exoplanets does not have solar cycles synchronised with the orbital cycles of the masses within that star system I would be interested to read it.
The field is in its infancy. Here is one example:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.4515
” We do not detect enhancement in the activity of the star that may be related to the conjunction of the planet”
There are other examples. [but few so far]. My comment was that here is a method of putting the wishful thinking to the test.
What is not discussed about the sun is the fact that there might be strong solar activity that travels around its surface. That is, the solar flares might be happening all the time, but when we do not see them, they are happening at the back side of the Sun!
We do not have any imaging/satellites of what exactly happens behind the Sun. So, there might be some El Nino-style event on the surface of the Sun that goes around the surface slowly, taking eleven years (or more, depending on which cycle we examine).
http://www.solarcycle24.com/stereosphere.htm
start here do some research, have some fun learning new stuff.
Freddy says:
October 14, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 14, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Leif, thank you for the link. I am beginning to see the problem with this method of putting the (wishful) thinking to the test. Any comparison between star systems similar to our own may require a study over a decade in length.
Leif, this is the paper I was refering to: http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/extrema.htm
“If a further connection with long-range variations in sunspot intensity proves reliable, four to five weak sunspot cycles (R < 80) are to be expected after cycle 23 with medium strength (R ~ 100)."
I have seen his reference elsewhere for a minimum at 2030.
We'll see. So far he's on the mark with #24.
anna v says:
October 14, 2010 at 12:34 pm
_____________Reply;
The next time your washing machine goes into spin dry with several towels, a fluffy pillow and a couple pairs of jeans, try to keep in mind the center of balance of the whole assembly is the same as the barycenter of the earth moon system, as it walks across the floor.
The barycenter of the Earth moon system moves the center of mass of the Earth around the same as the middle of the load of clothes moves the washer around.
In the case of the earth moon system each cycle of 27 to 28 days moves the center of mass of the Earth up and down over 30% of its size, while it is being slung forward and back in its orbit speed about the same amount. So every time the moon goes North to South the Earth’s center of mass moves 800km to 1200km South to North.
The forces felt on the earth are felt to its core as a compression wave as the angular momentum pivots around the barycenter, creating the tidal bulges in the Earths crust, oceans and atmosphere, which move relative to the point above the barycenter.
Given the standard washing machine does not move around 1/3 of it’s height and width, even at the worst unbalance case, would you let it go that way for 4.8 billion years with out feeling it?
Bob D says:
October 14, 2010 at 2:48 pm
What is less well known is that, because of barycentric movement, the difference in maximum intensity of solar radiation between northern and southern hemispheres itself varies in the range of about 3% to 11% – the extremes are rare but variation in the range 6% – 8% is not.
This statement is incorrect Bob, the only variation in TSI received is because of the elliptical shape of our orbit brought about by very slow changes from planet perturbations. The Barycentre has no effect on the Sun/Earth distance.
But was it happening right now that is beyond doubt, is the solar path and velocity around the SSB are in a different place to “normal”. As shown in my previous link to other stars this departure from normal requires a system with at least 4 major planets, their mass proportions and distances are also important. Distant exoplanet hosting stars so far are showing a different pattern of movement suggesting they are in balance…unlike our own solar system right now.
Many exoplanet bearing stars also exhibit star spots, but I agree this area of research is in its early days.
Planetary theory.. oooh scarey
Planets orbits are laid out due to solar orbit and cycles. Maybe what they are seeing is the mirroring of this. The planetary orbits are a mirror of the solar cycle because of the solar orbit and cycles. Not the (main) driver ..
Geoff, talked with Galactic central bar room and wanted to know if they were still driving this train, they are.
They wanted to know if you were ok, seems they hear your name mentioned often. lol
P.S. Leif .. Vuks has a Jack up his sleeve..
Watching closely for Dr. Svalgaard’s response. Hopefully without the playground name calling and bullying tactics.