By Dr. Roy Spencer, PhD (reprinted from his blog with permission)
UPDATE (12:35 p.m. CDT 19 May 2011): revised corrections of CERES data for El Nino/La Nina effects.
While I have been skeptical of Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory up until now, it looks like the evidence is becoming too strong for me to ignore. The following results will surely be controversial, and the reader should remember that what follows is not peer reviewed, and is only a preliminary estimate.
I’ve made calculations based upon satellite observations of how the global radiative energy balance has varied over the last 10 years (between Solar Max and Solar Min) as a result of variations in cosmic ray activity. The results suggest that the total (direct + indirect) solar forcing is at least 3.5 times stronger than that due to changing solar irradiance alone.
If this is anywhere close to being correct, it supports the claim that the sun has a much larger potential role (and therefore humans a smaller role) in climate change than what the “scientific consensus” states.
BACKGROUND
The single most frequently asked question I get after I give my talks is, “Why didn’t you mention the sun?” I usually answer that I’m skeptical of the “cosmic ray gun” theory of cloud changes controlling climate. But I point out that Svensmark’s theory of natural cloud variations causing climate change is actually pretty close to what I preach — only the mechanism causing the cloud change is different.
Then, I found last year’s paper by Laken et al. which was especially interesting since it showed satellite-observed cloud changes following changes in cosmic ray activity. Even though the ISCCP satellite data they used are not exactly state of the art, the study was limited to the mid-latitudes, and the time scales involved were days rather than years, the results gave compelling quantitative evidence of a cosmic ray effect on cloud cover.
With the rapid-fire stream of publications and reports now coming out on the subject, I decided to go back and spend some time analyzing ground-based galactic cosmic ray (GCR) data to see whether there is a connection between GCR variations and variations in the global radiative energy balance between absorbed sunlight and emitted infrared energy, taken from the NASA CERES radiative budget instruments on the Terra satellite, available since March 2000.
After all, that is ultimately what we are interested in: How do various forcings affect the radiative energy budget of the Earth? The results, I must admit, are enough for me to now place at least one foot solidly in the cosmic ray theory camp.
THE DATA
The nice thing about using CERES Earth radiative budget data is that we can get a quantitative estimate in Watts per sq. meter for the radiative forcing due to cosmic ray changes. This is the language the climate modelers speak, since these radiative forcings (externally imposed global energy imbalances) can be used to help calculate global temperature changes in the ocean & atmosphere based upon simple energy conservation. They can then also be compared to the estimates of forcing from increasing carbon dioxide, currently the most fashionable cause of climate change.
From the global radiative budget measurements we also get to see if there is a change in high clouds (inferred from the outgoing infrared measurements) as well as low clouds (inferred from reflected shortwave [visible sunlight] measurements) associated with cosmic ray activity.
I will use only the ground-based cosmic ray data from Moscow, since it is the first station I found which includes a complete monthly archive for the same period we have global radiative energy budget data from CERES (March 2000 through June 2010). I’m sure there are other stations, too…all of this is preliminary anyway. Me sifting through the myriad solar-terrestrial datasets is just as confusing to me as most of you sifting through the various climate datasets that I’m reasonably comfortable with.
THE RESULTS
The following plot (black curve) shows the monthly GCR data from Moscow for this period, as well as a detrended version with 1-2-1 averaging (red curve) to match the smoothing I will use in the CERES measurements to reduce noise.
Detrending the data isolates the month-to-month and year-to-year variability as the signal to match, since trends (or a lack of trends) in the global radiative budget data can be caused by a combination of many things. (Linear trends are worthless for statistically inferring cause-and-effect; but getting a match between wiggles in two datasets is much less likely to be due to random chance.)
The monthly cosmic ray data at Moscow will be compared to global monthly anomalies the NASA Terra satellite CERES (SSF 2.5 dataset) radiative flux data,
which shows the variations in global average reflected sunlight (SW), emitted infrared (LW), and Net (which is the estimated imbalances in total absorbed energy by the climate system, after adjustment for variations in total solar irradiance, TSI). Note I have plotted the variations in the negative of Net, which is approximately equal to variations in (LW+SW)
Then, since the primary source of variability in the CERES data is associated with El Nino and La Nina (ENSO) activity, I subtracted out an estimate of the average ENSO influence using running regressions between running 5-month averages of the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) and the CERES fluxes. I used the MEI index along with those regression coefficients in each month to correct the CERES fluxes 4 months later, since that time lag had the strongest correlation.
Finally, I performed regressions at various leads and lags between the GCR time series and the LW, SW, and -Net radiative flux time series, the results of which are shown next.
The yearly average relationships noted in the previous plot come from this relationship in the reflected solar (SW) data,
while the -Net flux (Net is absorbed solar minus emitted infrared, corrected for the change in solar irradiance during the period) results look like this:
It is that last plot that gives us the final estimate of how a change in cosmic ray flux at Moscow is related to changes in Earth’s radiative energy balance.
SUMMARY
What the above three plots show is that for a 1,000 count increase in GCR activity as measured at Moscow (which is somewhat less than the increase between Solar Max and Solar Min), there appears to be:
(1) an increase in reflected sunlight (SW) of 0.64 Watts per sq. meter, probably mostly due to an increase in low cloud cover;
(2) virtually no change in emitted infrared (LW) of +0.02 Watts per sq. meter;
(3) a Net (reflected sunlight plus emitted infrared) effect of 0.55 Watts per sq. meter loss in radiant energy by the global climate system.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE?
Assuming these signatures are anywhere close to being real, what do they mean quantitatively in terms of the potential effect of cosmic ray activity on climate?
Well, just like any other forcing, a resulting temperature change depends not only upon the size of the forcing, but also the sensitivity of the climate system to forcing. But we CAN compare the cosmic ray forcing to OTHER “known” forcings, which could have a huge influence on our understanding of the role of humans in climate change.
For example, if warming observed in the last century is (say) 50% natural and 50% anthropogenic, then this implies the climate system is only one-half as sensitive to our greenhouse gas emissions (or aerosol pollution) than if the warming was 100% anthropogenic in origin (which is pretty close to what we are told the supposed “scientific consensus” is).
First, let’s compare the cosmic ray forcing to the change in total solar irradiance (TSI) during 2000-2010. The orange curve in following plot is the change in direct solar (TSI) forcing between 2000 and 2010, which with the help of Danny Braswell’s analytical skills I backed out from the CERES Net, LW, and SW data. It is the only kind of solar forcing the IPCC (apparently) believes exists, and it is quite weak:
Also shown is the estimated cosmic ray forcing resulting from the month-to-month changes in the original Moscow cosmic ray time series, computed by multiplying those monthly changes by 0.55 Watts per sq. meter per 1,000 cosmic ray counts change.
Finally, I fitted the trend lines to get an estimate of the relative magnitudes of these two sources of forcing: the cosmic ray (indirect) forcing is about 2.8 times that of the solar irradiance (direct) forcing. This means the total (direct + indirect) solar forcing on climate associated with the solar cycle could be 3.8 times that most mainstream climate scientists believe.
One obvious question this begs is whether the lack of recent warming, since about 2004 for the 0-700 meter layer of the ocean, is due to the cosmic ray effect on cloud cover canceling out the warming from increasing carbon dioxide.
If the situation really was that simple (which I doubt it is), this would mean that with Solar Max rapidly approaching, warming should resume in the coming months. Of course, other natural cycles could be in play (my favorite is the Pacific Decadal oscillation), so predicting what will happen next is (in my view) more of an exercise in faith than in science.
In the bigger picture, this is just one more piece of evidence that the IPCC scientists should be investigating, one which suggests a much larger role for Mother Nature in climate change than the IPCC has been willing to admit. And, again I emphasize, the greater the role of Nature in causing past climate change, the smaller the role humans must have had, which could then have a profound impact on future projections of human-caused global warming.
tallbloke says:
May 28, 2011 at 2:48 pm
Seriously though, that’s interesting data. […] Can I have a copy of the data?
http://www.leif.org/research/Active-Region-Count.xls
The series was made as part of the work for the Sunspot Prediction Panel and I kept it up to data since as it has many nice properties [e.g. does not depend on little pores or variable seeing]. The procedure is a follows: For all groups that have a NOAA number [or a Mt. Wilson number, or in other ways ‘officially’ was recognized as a ‘real’ active region and not just a speck or group of small pores – generally that means an area at least 10 millionth of the disk] a daily count is made if the region is within 70 degrees of central meridian. This latter requirement is because a region is often only numbered a day or two after it has come around the Eastern limb, but keeps it number until it is completely over the Western limb. This introduces an asymmetry which I minimize by the above requirement. Then the count for each day is added up for each month, divided by the number of days in the month and multiplied by 30.5 to normalize to an equal length months. The dashed lines are ‘predictions’ of the cycles made by Hathaway’s procedure [which is very good] by fitting the observed variation to a three-parameter formula as he describes on his website. Note, that this is not [as many people mistakenly believe] a prediction from a ‘theory’, but simply a smoothed description of the observed current cycle. It therefore changes from month to month, just your local weather forecast does from day to day – and you want the forecast to be always based on the latest data available. Hathaway’s latest is 69 for Rmax. The scale factor between the sunspot number and the Active Region count is 2.26.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 28, 2011 at 7:49 pm
The series was made as part of the work for the Sunspot Prediction Panel and I kept it up to data since as it has many nice properties
It is possible to take the data back to about 1917 and with less accuracy to 1874. It is very labor intensive because for each region a choice must be made which cycle it belongs to from its magnetic polarity [not digitized for older data] and/or latitude and/or development [e.g. rotating such as to seem to be of the ‘wrong polarity]. This was made with extreme care as some prediction schemes work with when the first group of the new cycle occurs and/or when the last one of the old cycle dies, so this has to be correct.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 28, 2011 at 7:19 pm
What makes science such a successful endeavor is when people can build on each other’s work and it all fits together. That is not the case with the planetary ‘theories’ which is partly the reason that they are not accepted.
A lot of the details we have worked out individually do fit together. There are also aspects of interpretation where we differ. This is true of the mainstream. as well.
TB Suppose the rifle is mounted on a revolving gymbal with a flux variance detector connected to the trigger which picks up melons as they come into view and fires the rifle at closest approach to the muzzle of the gun. This is analogous to Hung’s finding.
LS The precise analogy would then be Jupiter shine [coming into view enabled by light]. But the Sun cannot see the Jupiter shine and tidal effects are way too small and magnetic effects cannot travel upstream, so the analogy is dead.
How does a Van der Graaf generator “see” the finger it preferentially jumps a spark to Leif?
“As Leif has been saying again and again, even Rudolf Wolf initially believed in planetary influences. A view he soon abandoned.”
“Soon abandoned” after several orbits of Jupiter. How many years before his death did he “abandon” it? Please present your evidence.
You might find it useful to read my referee’s report on their paper: http://www.leif.org/research/Dikpati%20Referee%20Report.pdf
As I say in the report: “As a definite prediction, the paper is potentially important. Especially since the prediction is discordant from several other recent predications that point to a very small cycle. The measure of understanding is always a successful prediction, so their model would be put to a stringent test”
It’s a pity you are not prepared to apply the same standards to Ching Cheh Hung, whose flare predictions based on planetary data were a lot more successful than Dikpati’s version of the dynamo theory.
tallbloke says:
May 28, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Fact 101. Planets and stars don’t have feelings.
Dumb response. To feel a force means to change in response to the force.
Earth’s orbital eccentricity changes in response to the force applied by (predominantly) Jupiter and Venus. It’s a ~100,000 year cycle. Discovered in the 1820’s I think.
tallbloke says:
May 28, 2011 at 3:14 pm
I’ve just checked Timo’s methodology and it is considerably more statistically sophisticated than yours.
“This should compensate for the inaccuracy of the values.”
You cannot make up data by ad-hoc adjustments. There is nothing sophisticated about his attempt to construct data out of thin air.
He’s not attempting to create data out of thin air, he very sensibly created a probability distribution for data with uncertainty attached to it. And he labeled it as such too.
And you missed the point that you get a split peak when you have amplitude modulation of a quasi-cyclical variation.
Dicke’s ideas were not lost on me. However, my ideas (developed by building on the work of others in my field) don’t require a theory built on stuff which hasn’t been observed, because the planetary data matches the ~10.3 year and ~11.9 year solar cycle length data anyway.
I simply show the values as they are. One cannot do better.
There is uncertainty in the older data about just when solar minimum occurs. There are still long debates on the modern data. Your false precision makes your graph a lot less useful than Timo’s probability distribution graph in my opinion.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 28, 2011 at 7:49 pm (Edit)
tallbloke says:
May 28, 2011 at 2:48 pm
Seriously though, that’s interesting data. […] Can I have a copy of the data?
http://www.leif.org/research/Active-Region-Count.xls
Thank you very much. This has gone into my ‘svalgaard-data’ folder, along with a text file with the accompanying notes. 🙂
Fact 0: all the objects are in free fall in their combined gravitational field and do not feel any accelerations at all.
Q1: Does Jupiter accelerate the IPs, lifting them, moving them closer to Jupiter?
Yes.
Q2: Will the Sun move as a result of this?
Yes, the orbited object can not move closer to Jupiter so the Sun has to move.
Q3: Is this solar motion a free fall motion?
No, the Sun moves as a result of interaction between other objects (Ju and IP), not because it’s in the gravitational field of other objects.
tallbloke says:
May 29, 2011 at 1:10 am
A lot of the details we have worked out individually do fit together.
The only detail I can see is that Jupiter is somehow involved, so there is nothing to fit with.
How does a Van der Graaf generator “see” the finger it preferentially jumps a spark to Leif?
It doesn’t. After an initial jump there are still charges left in the ‘channel’ with will guide the next jump [lightening does the same]. BTW you couldn’t operate a Van der Graaf generator in a plasma with near infinite conductivity, it would short immediately. If there were no solar wind, a planet’s magnetic field could influence the Sun [although the effect would be vanishingly small owing to the magnetic force falling off with the cube of the distance]. The solar wind that brings the sun’s magnetic field out to the planets also prevents the planets’ magnetic field to get to the Sun.
“Soon abandoned” after several orbits of Jupiter. How many years before his death did he “abandon” it? Please present your evidence.
This can be turned around. What is your evidence that it was not ‘soon’? Perhaps I should have said ‘he later abandoned the idea’ to forestall silly debate over when [I shall not object if you substitute ‘soon’ by ‘later’ on your website, but you should show the maturity to change the text to what I otherwise suggested]. Wolf clearly did struggle over the years with the problem, never finding a good correlation when new data became available. It is clear that his initial optimism didn’t stay with him. His real discovery of the relationship between the variation of the compass needle and sunspots held up and he every year [when he published the sunspot numbers] never failed to point out that the relationship still held. He never [after his initial announcement] again mentioned his planetary formula [which he would have if the agreement persisted – as he did with the magnetic needle], except finally admitting in 1893 that it didn’t really work to his satisfaction.
It’s a pity you are not prepared to apply the same standards to Ching Cheh Hung, whose flare predictions based on planetary data were a lot more successful than Dikpati’s version of the dynamo theory.
Hung has not made any predictions. How many ‘successful’ predictions of flares has he made after his technical report [not even a peer-reviewed paper] was submitted to NASA? With Dikpati, you don’t understand that there may not anything wrong with the theory [Choudhuri using the same theory came to a much better result]. Her problem was incomplete knowledge of the meridional circulation, so her failure is actually a successful demonstration of the importance of said circulation.
Earth’s orbital eccentricity changes in response to the force applied by (predominantly) Jupiter and Venus. It’s a ~100,000 year cycle. Discovered in the 1820′s I think.
There is no gravitational forces. Masses warp spacetime around them and all objects are in free fall in that curved space. When in an elevator with a broken cable falling freely towards the ground, you, a hammer, and feather all fall together and are not accelerated relative to each other. It is sad that almost 100 years after that realization it still needs to be said to people who profess they know something about science.
He’s not attempting to create data out of thin air, he very sensibly created a probability distribution for data with uncertainty attached to it. And he labeled it as such too.
That is lost on people that just quote his numbers. The uncertainty should be presented at two periods 10.4+/-1.0 and 11.9+/-2.0 or whatever the uncertainties are. As i said, his analysis is rather worthless.
planetary data matches the ~10.3 year and ~11.9 year solar cycle length data anyway.
No, you have not shown that. Present a time series of the planetary data and show that whenever a solar cycle has a period of, say, 10.4 years, the planetary series for that same cycle also has a period of 10.4 years. Do this for each of the 23 cycles we have and present here a table of the results [with 23 entries]. If you fail to do this, we can cross out your claim that the planetary data matches.
Your false precision makes your graph a lot less useful than Timo’s probability distribution graph in my opinion.
The way to deal with uncertainty is to smooth the raw data or fit them to an assumed distribution and show that the fit is significant. I agree that actual data might be less useful than suitably made-up data.
lgl says:
May 29, 2011 at 2:19 am
No, the Sun moves as a result of interaction between other objects (Ju and IP), not because it’s in the gravitational field of other objects.
See up-thread.
Some points that need to be discussed:
I think we need to acknowledge that Wolf’s contribution to planetary theory are probably irrelevant.
Dynamo theory can exist and dovetail with planetary theory.
The “z” axis theory (tallbloke) needs to provide some meaningful data.
Geoff Sharp says:
May 30, 2011 at 7:20 am
I think we need to acknowledge that Wolf’s contribution to planetary theory are probably irrelevant.
Having just brought his sunspot series back to ~1750, Wolf realized in the early 1860s that his 1859 formula didn’t work outside of the interval 1836-1858 on which it was curve fitted to the sunspot number and effectively abandoned it and stopped comparing the sunspot number with the formula. Here is a comparison of the formula [red] and the observations [blue]: http://www.leif.org/research/Wolf-Planetary-Formula-Mismatch.png
The green box shows the curve fit. Note that the Wolf numbers before 1849 have been decreased by 25% in order to match Wolf’s list at the time when the formula was proposed. This is to compensate for the wholesale increase by 25% of the Wolf number that he made around 1875.
The “z” axis theory (tallbloke) needs to provide some meaningful data.
All proponents of planetary theory need to provide meaningful data. E.g. a list of ‘planetary’ sunspot numbers for each year since 1600 until today with an explanation of how the list was derived.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 30, 2011 at 8:02 am
Note that the Wolf numbers before 1849 have been decreased by 25% in order to match Wolf’s list at the time when the formula was proposed. This is to compensate for the wholesale increase by 25% of the Wolf number that he made around 1875.
Actually, the whole series [as now available from SIDC] has to be creased by 25%. In addition, the Waldmeier jump of 20% has to be removed after 1945 [done]. Only in this way can be compare with Wolf’s formula. Of course, Wolf didn’t have those adjustment problems at the time [1859] when he proposed the formula.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 30, 2011 at 8:02 am
Wolf’s formula is another example of two cycles that occur with similar frequencies that can never stay in sync because they are not related. We are still seeing that today by some proponents who make the same mistake. Wolf’s formula also does come close to predicting modulation of the solar cycle. The only work that may have some credibility in relation to cycle length is Desmoulins, but this needs further testing over the next 20 years. The secret of solar cycle length is probably hidden in Dr. Howe’s work where the rough 17 year cycle of differential rotation flows lay the foundation for the solar cycle. A lot of the dynamo observations still function with the dynamo being powered or modulated by an outside force which could also mesh with the length and timing of the differential flows.
All proponents of planetary theory need to provide meaningful data. E.g. a list of ‘planetary’ sunspot numbers for each year since 1600 until today with an explanation of how the list was derived.
This just shows that you still dont have an understanding of the theory and are not competent to comment on it. Your challenge is still waiting for you on my blog. I have also written an article that may assist you with the 2 basic forces.
Once you understand the basic principles you will see that the theory can predict solar modulation and grand minima out to 3000AD, as well as hindcast the last 400 years (sunspot record) with accuracy along with the entire Holocene in respect to overall strength.
Geoff Sharp says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:46 pm
The secret of solar cycle length is probably hidden in Dr. Howe’s work where the rough 17 year cycle of differential rotation flows lay the foundation for the solar cycle.
The torsional oscillation is generally viewed as a consequence of the cycle rather than a cause.
the theory can predict solar modulation and grand minima out to 3000AD, as well as hindcast the last 400 years (sunspot record) with accuracy along with the entire Holocene in respect to overall strength.
If the theory can predict solar modulation then it should be easy to provide a list of said prediction of the sunspot number year for year. You see, I’m on this panel that has to provide the government with a NUMBER, so for your theory to be useful it must provide me with a number for every year. If not, I cannot tell the government that it is too bad they don’t understand the theory. They want a number, pure and simple. They even balked a bit when we gave them two numbers a while back.
Geoff Sharp says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Wolf’s formula also does come close to predicting modulation of the solar cycle.
It is clear that it does not, both phase and amplitudes are wrong outside his curve-fitting window: http://www.leif.org/research/Wolf-Planetary-Formula-Mismatch.png
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 30, 2011 at 5:19 pm
If the theory can predict solar modulation then it should be easy to provide a list of said prediction of the sunspot number year for year.
The theory can ballpark a figure out to 3000AD which all other theories cannot, SC24/25 is expected to be sub 50SSN (LSC) and future cycles are available via this graph. The theory excludes any prediction on cycle length. The panel probably have no understanding of your short term theory which will be tested over the next two cycles.
SC24 is a real world test of angular momentum theory which if successful will encourage others to learn the basic theory of the modulating and disruptive forces. It might also mean there will be new members from a so far ignored group of science on the future panel.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 30, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Geoff Sharp says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Wolf’s formula also does come close to predicting modulation of the solar cycle.
—————————
It is clear that it does not, both phase and amplitudes are wrong outside his curve-fitting window: http://www.leif.org/research/Wolf-Planetary-Formula-Mismatch.png
Apologies, I meant to say” does NOT come close”. The Wolf formula has no basis for understanding solar modulation, solar cycle length or grand minima.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 30, 2011 at 5:19 pm
The torsional oscillation is generally viewed as a consequence of the cycle rather than a cause.
Howe is pretty clear in her paper that the oscillations are emanating from the tachocline. Her studies also suggest the radiative zone acts as a solid object with perhaps a different spin rate. Its too early to make a statement such as yours.
Geoff Sharp says:
May 30, 2011 at 7:23 pm
“The torsional oscillation is generally viewed as a consequence of the cycle rather than a cause.”
Howe is pretty clear in her paper that the oscillations are emanating from the tachocline.
In her recent review http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2009-1/ she says: “modelers have generally seen it rather as a side-effect of the magnetic fields”
Her studies also suggest the radiative zone acts as a solid object with perhaps a different spin rate.
That was discovered back in 1998 by Schou et al. and the spin rate is different [about a day longer than at the equatorial surface]. The radiative zone is [as the name implies] stable and is not thought to play any part of the generating the solar cycle, so your remark in not relevant.
Its too early to make a statement such as yours.
It is then perhaps also too early to assume that the flow is driving the cycle. As I said, the folks trying to understand the dynamics generally consider the flow to be a consequence of the cycle rather than a driver.
Geoff Sharp says:
May 30, 2011 at 7:11 pm
The theory can ballpark a figure out to 3000AD which all other theories cannot
The challenge to you is to provide a list, year by year, of predicted sunspot number. anything else is of no use in prediction.
SC24 is a real world test of angular momentum theory which if successful…
No, it would only be a test if your theory predicts something different from what everybody else [by now] are predicting. As we have discussed at length, the LSC in uncalibrated and thus of no use.
Leif Svalgaard says:
May 28, 2011 at 2:06 pm
“What happened to Saturn or the all important [according to Geoff] Uranus and Neptune [or the even more important -according to Ulrich] asteriods, e.g. Ceres?”
I have never made any mention of Ceres being “more important”, or anything to do with the sunspot cycle length/frequency.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 30, 2011 at 8:49 pm
I have never made any mention of Ceres being “more important”, or anything to do with the sunspot cycle length/frequency.
Then what did you claim about Ceres? Or is my memory faulty and you never mentioned Ceres?
@Leif Svalgaard says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:07 pm
You took my comment about Ceres (from months back) so completely out of context, that either your memory is bad, or typical of your manner, it is just cheap mockery. My observation regarding Ceres has nothing to do with the subject Tallbloke was addressing up thread, namely Venus/Earth/Jupiter syzyzgies and the sunspot cycle, so I see no need to discuss it here.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 31, 2011 at 12:47 pm
My observation regarding Ceres has nothing to do with the subject Tallbloke was addressing up thread, namely Venus/Earth/Jupiter syzyzgies and the sunspot cycle, so I see no need to discuss it here.
I included you as one of the people who believe in planetary [and asteroid] influence on solar activity in a general sense [realizing that all planetary enthusiasts have completely different ideas that have nothing to do with what the others believe]. If you now tell us that you don’t believe that anymore, please accept my apology. So you do not need to discuss it any further.
@Leif Svalgaard says:
May 31, 2011 at 1:03 pm
I am thoroughly convinced that Venus/Earth/Jupiter syzyzgies are central to the nature of the sunspot cycle.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 31, 2011 at 2:33 pm
I am thoroughly convinced that Venus/Earth/Jupiter syzyzgies are central to the nature of the sunspot cycle
What about Ceres? does Ceres affect solar activity? What is its influence per pound of mass compared to other bodies? Tiny or Huge?
@Leif Svalgaard says:
May 31, 2011 at 2:40 pm
As your memory has failed you, and you are not willing to drop the issue till an appropriate and relevant discussion arises, I will remind you what I said:
“The Sun seems to be highly sensitive to Ceres when in close heliocentric syzygy or stellium with other inner Planets”. At no point did I say that Ceres directly affects solar activity, the only way it could do that is gravitationally, which is ridiculous for a dwarf Planet of some 580miles diameter that far away from the Sun to have any such “influence”.
Ulric Lyons says:
May 31, 2011 at 4:27 pm
you are not willing to drop the issue till an appropriate and relevant discussion arises, I will remind you what I said:
It is always proper to respond positively to reasonable requests indicating a willingness to earn [or be reminded].
“The Sun seems to be highly sensitive to Ceres when in close heliocentric syzygy or stellium with other inner Planets”. At no point did I say that Ceres directly affects solar activity, the only way it could do that is gravitationally, which is ridiculous for a dwarf Planet of some 580miles diameter that far away from the Sun to have any such “influence”.
How can the Sun be highly sensitive to a dwarf planet that has no influence?