This essay by Paul Vaughn is very interesting because it shows correlation between cosmic rays (via neutron count), terrestrial angular momentum, and length of day. – Anthony
Semi-Annual Solar-Terrestrial Power
Guest Post by Paul L. Vaughan, M.Sc.
Using different methods, I have confirmed the findings of the following paper:
Le Mouël, J.-L.; Blanter, E.; Shnirman, M.; & Courtillot, V. (2010). Solar forcing of the semi-annual variation of length-of-day. Geophysical Research Letters 37, L15307. doi:10.1029/2010GL043185.
I have also verified that the results extend directly to global atmospheric angular momentum (AAM):
CR = cosmic rays (neutron count rate)
LOD = length of day (inversely relates to earth rotation rate)
AAM = global atmospheric angular momentum (in layman’s terms, “global wind”)
‘ indicates rate of change
Le Mouël, Blanter, Shnirman, & Courtillot (2010) did not use complex wavelet methods, nor did they directly extend their analysis to AAM’, so the preceding results establish:
A) the robustness of the original result for LOD’ across differing methodology.
B) direct extensibility of inferred results to AAM’, even though AAM is known to have less power than LOD at the semi-annual timescale [for example, see Schmitz-Hubsch & Schuh (1999), listed below].
Cautionary Notes:
1) Sensible interpretation of the preceding data exploration requires awareness of the confounding of numerous solar variables.
2) Extrapolation of the pattern to other eras might require assumptions that cannot be physically substantiated using current mainstream knowledge.
Supplementary
1. The (max-min normalized) time series:
2. WUWT articles citing Le Mouël, Blanter, Shnirman, & Courtillot (2010):
a) Full article by Anthony Watts:
“Length of day correlated to cosmic rays and sunspots” (Oct. 3, 2010)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/03/length-of-day-correlated-to-cosmic-rays-and-sunspots/
b) First mention (Aug. 28, 2010):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/28/weekly-climate-news-roundup/
3. Concise primers for those lacking familiarity with AAM/LOD relations:
a) Schmitz-Hubsch, H.; & Schuh, H. (1999). Seasonal and short-period fluctuations of Earth rotation investigated by wavelet analysis. Technical Report 1999.6-2 Department of Geodesy & Geoinformatics, Stuttgart University, p.421-432.
http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/gi/research/schriftenreihe/quo_vadis/pdf/schmitzhuebsch.pdf
b) Zhou, Y.H.; Zheng, D.W.; & Liao, X.H. (2001). Wavelet analysis of interannual LOD, AAM, and ENSO: 1997-98 El Nino and 1998-99 La Nina signals. Journal of Geodesy 75, 164-168.
http://202.127.29.4/yhzhou/ZhouYH_2001JG_LOD_ENSO_wavelet.pdf
Such results have been addressed by many authors. Nonrandomness is evident using even the crudest high-frequency interannual filter [f(x) = 1 year moving average minus 3 year moving average]:
SOI = southern oscillation index (the “SO” part of ENSO)
QBO = quasi-biennial oscillation (of stratospheric winds)
4. Select passages from Le Mouël, Blanter, Shnirman, & Courtillot (2010):
a) “The zonal winds contributing to lod seasonal variations are dominantly low altitude winds.”
b) “[…] solar activity can affect the radiative equilibrium of the troposphere in an indirect way, which cannot be simply deduced from the magnitude of TSI variations.”
c) “The semi-annual oscillation extends to all latitudes and down to low altitudes, as does the annual term. But, unlike the annual term, the main part of the oscillation is symmetrical about the equator; the partial cancellation of the angular momentum of the two hemispheres, which occurs for the annual oscillation, does not happen there [Lambeck, 1980]. Thus, we have here a measure of the seasonal variation of the total angular momentum of the atmosphere of the two hemispheres at the semi-annual frequency.”
d) “When considering separately monthly averages rather than annual ones, differences in the net radiative flux distribution appear, due to the seasonal variation in insulation which is asymmetric with respect to the equator. Seasonal variations of insulation result in seasonal variations of poleward meridional transport, hence of averaged zonal wind.” [Typo: “insulation” should read “insolation”.]
e) “The argument above serves to show that the semiannual variation in lod is linked to a fundamental feature of climate: the latitudinal distribution and transport of energy and momentum.”
5. Technical Notes:
a) The Morlet wavenumber has been chosen such that average solar cycle length is ~2/3 of the Gaussian envelope. In layman’s terms, this is like adjusting a “microscope” set to semi-annual “magnification” to ~11 year “focal length”.
b) Towards the end of the wavelet power time series, there is an edge effect; the shape of gross features can be trusted, but amplitudes should be interpreted conservatively.
Data
CR:
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/COSMIC_RAYS/STATION_DATA/
LOD:
http://www.iers.org/IERS/EN/DataProducts/EarthOrientationData/eop.html
AAM:
Hub:
http://www.aer.com/scienceResearch/diag/sb.html
Directory:
http://ftp.aer.com/pub/anon_collaborations/sba/
File:
http://ftp.aer.com/pub/anon_collaborations/sba/aam.ncep.reanalysis.1948.2009
Documentation (including references):
http://ftp.aer.com/pub/anon_collaborations/sba/readme.aam.ncep.reanalysis
Supplementary:
Monthly anomalies (which convey only interannual variation, not semi-annual):
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/clim/glaam.monthly.data
QBO:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/correlation/qbo.data
SOI:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/soi/soi.dat
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For your consideration I would like to toss into the sausage grinder the work of Otto Pettersson dealing with deep ocean waves and the complex interaction of lunar, solar, and planetary tidal forces as they slosh around the ocean basins in all their various sizes,depths, and widths.
There is a chapter in Rachel Carson’s book “The Sea Around Us”(1951) that explores his work in dealing with climate variability without once mentioning CO2, greenhouse effect, or AGW. Refreshing.
Leif Svalgaard says:
No, not at all. There is no magnetic drag as the two fields are separated by a non-conducting atmosphere.
___________________________
I tried to keep silent, but this is too much.
Mr. Dr. Svaalgaard: Are you saying that Erath’s magnetic field does not extend beyond atmosphere? If not, what the heck are you saying, and who the heck you learned your physics from?
Paul,
Bloody hell! First you inform us of additional confirmation, subsequently respond in double check time with bullets and open invitation for funding, then assault your audience with unmetered judgement?
Great! About time there was some shake-up out there. I’m keen to see how this progresses.
I would like to thank everyone for an excellent post and commentary. I think it is one of the best I have seen here.
Re: Dr. Svalgaard.
Not so long ago, he said that photons coming out from the Sun are energy that is lost forever; apparently, he doesn’t know that photons are absorbed, and then re-emitted as energy (particles and/or radiation) in many forms.
Now Dr. Svalgaard is teaching us that Earth’s magnetic field cannot interact with that of the Sun, because Earth’s atmosphere is a non-conductor. Really?
In your childhood, did you ever play with a magnet moving beneath a piece of paper with iron dust on it, Leif? With a strong magnet, you can use a cardboard, a thick wood, or a dry wall. Not to mention air. Somehow magnetic field doesn’t know it shouldn’t extend through all these dielectric layers, defeating Dr. Svalgaard’s very innovative physics.
Awesome intellectual achievement, Leif.
Congratulation, and happy holidays!
Alexander Feht says:
December 23, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I tried to keep silent, but this is too much.
Are you saying that Earth’s magnetic field does not extend beyond atmosphere? If not, what the heck are you saying,
To begin with, the Earth’s magnetic field is, in fact, confined within its magnetosphere by the solar wind and does not extend outside of that. For one field to really drag significantly on another they need to be connected by frozen in field lines so that the fields have a ‘physical’ identity that can transmit forces, thus there must be a plasma or conductor between the two fields. In an insulator [air], the field lines do not tie the two field together so that one can drag the other. And the lower atmosphere is a conductor. So no drag. Another way to look at it is that a changing magnetic flux can induce an electrical current in a nearby conductor even across insulating air and that will exert a drag on the conductor, but only if the flux varies. At a point at some distance from a rotating spherical dipolar magnet [the Earth] the flux does not vary [the number of field lines is rotationally symmetric]. Its value stays the same, so no induction. And here we were talking about a conductor [plasma] being involved. Move the conductor far away so that only its magnetic field [we’ll assume it has one] is near the Earth, then the induction becomes negligible. So any drag really depends on the two fields being embedded in some conductor [plasma], so that electric currents can get into the game. Just twirling a toy magnetic in the air does not create any electrical current. The issue was if the solar wind’s magnetic field could slow down the Earth’s rotation due to the fact that the Earth was a magnet too, and it does not for the reasons outlined. I do invite you to write down the equations and calculate how much drag you think there would be.
and who the heck you learned your physics from?
Niels Bohr. Seriously, he was still giving a few lectures in the last years of his life which were attended by everybody, of course. Anyway, blame goes to numerous other instructors and professors, of course.
Leif,
First of all, now you are defending a position very different from what you said earlier. I answered to the earlier statement of yours, indelibly recorded above as follows: “There is no magnetic drag as the two fields are separated by a non-conducting atmosphere.” This is nonsense; Niels Bohr would laugh in your face.
Secondly, what you are saying now, in plain English, is that two powerful magnetic fields, that of the star and that of its planet, cannot interact if there is no conducting plasma connecting them. It is true that for an interaction of two magnetic fields a presence of non-zero currents and, therefore, of a conductor is necessary. Solar magnetic field extends to all of the Earth, including its core and all other conducting layers, producing a star-planet magnetic interaction.
How significant is this interaction, and is it powerful enough to influence the length of an Earth’s day, even as infinitesimally as observed? I don’t know. I am a musician and a translator. It would take a mathematical apparatus not at my disposal to answer this question. But before anybody tries to answer this question, he or she should ask the question correctly and clearly, within the confounds of reality and common sense.
What you are saying, Leif (that there is no and cannot be any interaction between solar and planetary magnetic fields because there is no “conducting plasma”) is beyond the confounds of reality. The fact that Earth is not within the plasma of the Solar corona doesn’t mean that there is no electromagnetic interaction between the Earth and the Sun. Come to your senses, Dr. Svalgaard.
Alexander Feht says:
December 23, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Solar magnetic field extends to all of the Earth, including its core and all other conducting layers, producing a star-planet magnetic interaction.
This is the important issue and this is where you are wrong in the context of the drag question. The Earth’s magnetic field shield’s the Earth from the solar wind and its embedded [and very weak, only 1/10,000 of the Earth’s] magnetic field. The volume around the Earth where the solar wind is excluded is called the Earth’s magnetophere. However, the exclusion is not perfect and at times the solar wind magnetic field reconnect with the Earth’s field about 60,000 km up from the surface in the direction of the Sun. The field line is now dragged down the tail of the magnetosphere during the next 2 to 3 hours, before reconnecting with its counterpart from the other hemisphere and thus disconnecting the sun’s field from that of the Earth. Because these field lines are laden with conducting plasma they have ‘existence’ and are not just abstractions as many people claim they are. While all this is going on the Earth is happily rotating underneath. Because the atmosphere below the ionosphere is not a conductor, the field lines down here have no individual existence [are not laden with plasma] and the Earth is free to spin without any interaction with the field above and hence there is no drag. The solar field does not penetrate below the ionosphere, not into the mantle, not into the core. In the upper atmosphere, the solar connection can induce currents. The currents can have effects on the ground and in the upper crust, but do not slow the rotation down as no angular momentum is moved up into the magnetosphere and out into the solar wind. To slow down the earth means to speed up something else as angular momentum must be conserved.
I’m not saying the there is no interaction between the solar wind and the Earth. In fact, I was one of the co-discoverer of this [google ‘Svalgaard-Mansurov effect’ to find out]. What I clearly said was that the magnetic field in the solar wind does not slow down the Earth’s rotation [by a ‘drag’].
I suggest you keep a more civilized tone from now on.
Paul
Thanks for the extensive & detailed explanations and further elaborations. It does help clear some ambiguities. I particularly appreciate the quote :
“The solid Earth behaves as a natural spatial integrator and time filter”, this is precisely the principle I have employed in some of my latest calculations and graphic interpretations.
Thanks. MC&HNY
Dr. S. That was useful elaboration. Here is correction of my previous post:
A possible effect of the strong ‘ring’ currents induction under the Arctic ocean may manifest itself as an electro-magnetic brake on the magma vortex. As the angular momentum of the Earth’s rotation must be conserved, slowdown of the Hudson Bay vortex will somewhat accelerate the Earth’s rotation . If so than this would be reflected in the ‘Length of Day’ – LOD. This indeed is the case as there is a close correlation between LOD and the Earth’s (z) field intensity as calculated for the North Pole (graph 3 in the link).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MF.htm
As the Hudson Bay field weakens the effect may eventually disappear , there are signs of that already happening.
vukcevic says:
December 24, 2010 at 2:59 am
an electro-magnetic brake on the magma vortex.
There is no magma vortex. The field is generated in the core, not near the surface.
Thanks Paul, I also appreciate that you have given time to explain clearly your thoughts and research. This article joins others that explore the strong possibility that solar output directly affects atmospheric oscillations. The case is building for EUV which I think is the main contributor.
No apologies, Leif Svalgaard.
You want me to believe that the solar electromagnetic field somehow stops in its tracks and doesn’t extend to the surface of the Earth, to its mantle and core just because… “the ionosphere is not a conductor.”
I’ve rarely seen anything so inane uttered by a scientist in public (see the experiment with the magnet, piece of paper, and iron dust again).
Alexander Feht says:
December 24, 2010 at 9:48 pm
You want me to believe that the solar electromagnetic field somehow stops in its tracks and doesn’t extend to the surface of the Earth, to its mantle and core just because… “the ionosphere is not a conductor.”
I don’t particularly care for what you believe. The issue was whether the solar magnetic field slows down [drags on] the Earth’s rotation. And it does not. Because the troposphere [not the ionosphere] is not a conductor.
Alexander Feht says:
December 24, 2010 at 9:48 pm
You want me to believe that the solar electromagnetic field somehow stops in its tracks and doesn’t extend to the surface of the Earth, to its mantle and core
In the 1950s and 60s there was an extensive debate about this. The standard model of the time posited that the magnetosphere was completely diamagnetic and would be a cavity in the solar wind with no magnetic interaction. In the 1960s it was suggested that a solar magnetic field and the Earth’s magnetic field could connect and that that would help feed energy into the magnetosphere. Arnold and Fairfield provided experimental evidence of that for a North-South directed solar field and Svalgaard [that’s me] and Mansurov provided direct evidence of that for an East-West directed solar field, and since then this has been generally accepted by everybody and there is no more doubt about or debate on the connection. But that was not the issue under discussion, so is irrelevant.
If you cannot argue your point, define it as “not being the issue.”
Alexander Feht says:
December 25, 2010 at 4:43 am
If you cannot argue your point, define it as “not being the issue.”
To remind you of what the issue was:
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 23, 2010 at 10:21 am
utahpaw says:
December 23, 2010 at 5:57 am
One magnetic field (terrestrial) spinning in another (solar) results in drag.
No, not at all. There is no magnetic drag
Not whether the two field connect.
Leif Svalgaard says: No, not at all. There is no magnetic drag as the two fields are separated by a non-conducting atmosphere. ___________________________ I tried to keep silent, but this is too much. Mr. Dr. Svaalgaard: Are you saying that Erath’s magnetic field does not extend beyond atmosphere? If not, what the heck are you saying, and who the heck you learned your physics from?
Thanks for the links and articles Leif.
Was looking for the different types of reconnection processes that could occur, when you landed this one for me.
Magnetic Reconnection in Astrophysical and Laboratory Plasmas
2.1. Steady State Reconnection
2.2. Fast Steady-State Reconnection
2.3. Spontaneous Reconnection
4.1 Reconnection in Sawtooth Relaxation
4.2 Magnetic Reconnection in Reversed Field Pinch and Spheromak Plasmas
2.4. Collisionless Reconnection
swt
So.. thanks again, Leif.
Our host Anthony and we thank him too, may want to note that, magnetic reconnection, applys to planetary as well as astrospheres. And that’s no rubbish..
Carla says:
December 26, 2010 at 10:45 am
Our host Anthony and we thank him too, may want to note that, magnetic reconnection, applies to planetary as well as astrospheres. And that’s no rubbish..
I’m sure he knows that. Magnetic reconnection is a universal process that applies throughout the universe.