Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. writes about a new paper from Nicola Scafetta.:
A new paper has just appeared
Nicola Scafetta 2011: A shared frequency set between the historical mid-latitude aurora records and the global surface temperature. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics In Press doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2011.10.013
This paper is certainly going to enlarge the debate on the role of natural climate variability and long term change.
The abstract reads [highlight added]
Herein we show that the historical records of mid-latitude auroras from 1700 to 1966 present oscillations with periods of about 9, 10–11, 20–21, 30 and 60 years. The same frequencies are found in proxy and instrumental global surface temperature records since 1650 and 1850, respectively, and in several planetary and solar records. We argue that the aurora records reveal a physical link between climate change and astronomical oscillations. Likely in addition to a Soli-Lunar tidal effect, there exists a planetary modulation of the heliosphere, of the cosmic ray flux reaching the Earth and/or of the electric properties of the ionosphere. The latter, in turn, has the potentiality of modulating the global cloud cover that ultimately drives the climate oscillations through albedo oscillations. In particular, a quasi-60-year large cycle is quite evident since 1650 in all climate and astronomical records herein studied, which also include a historical record of meteorite fall in China from 619 to 1943. These findings support the thesis that climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. We show that a harmonic constituent model based on the major astronomical frequencies revealed in the aurora records and deduced from the natural gravitational oscillations of the solar system is able to forecast with a reasonable accuracy the decadal and multidecadal temperature oscillations from 1950 to 2010 using the temperature data before 1950, and vice versa. The existence of a natural 60-year cyclical modulation of the global surface temperature induced by astronomical mechanisms, by alone, would imply that at least 60–70% of the warming observed since 1970 has been naturally induced. Moreover, the climate may stay approximately stable during the next decades because the 60-year cycle has entered in its cooling phase.
The highlights listed in the announcement of the paper read
► The paper highlights that global climate and aurora records present a common set of frequencies. ► These frequencies can be used to reconstruct climate oscillations within the time scale of 9–100 years. ► An empirical model based on these cycles can reconstruct and forecast climate oscillations. ► Cyclical astronomical physical phenomena regulate climate change through the electrification of the upper atmosphere. ► Climate cycles have an astronomical origin and are regulated by cloud cover oscillations.
========================================================
Dr. Scafetta writes in and attaches the full paper in email to me (Anthony) this week saying:
I can forecast climate with a good proximity. See figure 11. In this new paper the physical link between astronomical oscillations and climate is further confirmed.
What the paper does is to show that the mid-latitude aurora records present the same oscillations of the climate system and of well-identified astronomical cycles. Thus, the origin of the climatic oscillations is astronomical what ever the mechanisms might be.
In the paper I argue that the record of this kind of aurora can be considered a proxy for the electric properties of the atmosphere which then influence the cloud cover and the albedo and, consequently, causes similar cycles in the surface temperature.
Note that aurora may form at middle latitude or if the magnetosphere is weak, so it is not able to efficiently deviate the solar wind, or if the solar explosions (solar flare etc) are particularly energetic, so they break in by force.
During the solar cycle maxima the magnetosphere gets stronger so the aurora should be pushed toward the poles. However, during the solar maxima a lot of solar flares and highly energetic solar explosions occurs. As a consequence you see an increased number of mid-latitude auroras despite the fact that the magnetosphere is stronger and should push them toward the poles.
On the contrary, when the magnetosphere gets weaker on a multidecadal scale, the mid-latitude aurora forms more likely, and you may see some mid-latitude auroras even during the solar minima as Figure 2 shows.
In the paper I argue that what changes the climate is not the auroras per se but the strength of the magnetosphere that regulates the cosmic ray incoming flux which regulate the clouds.
The strength of the magnetosphere is regulated by the sun (whose activity changes in synchrony with the planets), but perhaps the strength of the Earth’s magnetosphere is also regulated directly by the gravitational/magnetic forces of Jupiter and Saturn and the other planets whose gravitational/magnetic tides may stretch or compress the Earth’s magnetosphere in some way making it easier or more difficult for the Earth’s magnetosphere to deviate the cosmic ray.
So, when Jupiter and Saturn get closer to the Sun, they may do the following things: 1) may make the sun more active; 2) the more active sun makes the magnetosphere stronger; 3) Jupiter and Saturn contribute with their magnetic fiend to make stronger the magnetic field of the inner part of the solar system; 4) the Earth’ magnetosphere is made stronger and larger by both the increased solar activity and the gravitational and magnetic stretching of it caused by the Jupiter and Saturn. Consequently less cosmic ray arrive on the Earth and less cloud form and there is an heating of the climate.
However, explaining in details the above mechanisms is not the topic of the paper which is limited to prove that such kind of mechanisms exist because revealed by the auroras’s behavior.
The good news is that even if we do not know the physical nature of these mechanisms, climate may be in part forecast in the same way as the tides are currently forecast by using geometrical astronomical considerations as I show in Figure 11.
The above point is very important. When trying to predict the tides people were arguing that there was the need to solve the Newtonian Equation of the tides and the other physical equations of fluid-dynamics etc. Of course, nobody was able to do that because of the enormous numerical and theoretical difficulty. Today nobody dreams to use GCMs to predict accurately the tides. To overcome the issue Lord Kelvin argued that it is useless to use the Newtonian mechanics or whatever other physical law to solve the problem. What was important was only to know that a link in some way existed, even if not understood in details. On the basis of this, Lord Kelvin proposed an harmonic constituent model for tidal prediction based on astronomical cycles. And Kelvin method is currently the only method that works for predicting the tides. Look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-predicting_machine
Figure 11 is important because it shows for the first time that climate can be forecast based on astronomical harmonics with a good accuracy. I use a methodology similar to Kelvin’s one and calibrate the model from 1850 to 1950 and I show that the model predicts the climate oscillations from 1950 to 2010, and I show also that the vice-versa is possible.
Of course the proposed harmonic model may be greatly improved with additional harmonics. In comparison the ocean tides are predicted with 35-40 harmonics.
But this does not change the results of the paper that is: 1) a clearer evidence that a physical link between the oscillations of the solar system and the climate exists, as revealed by the auroras’ behavior; 2) this finding justifies the harmonic modeling and forecast of the climate based on astronomical cycles associated to the Sun, the Moon and the Planets.
So, it is also important to understand Kelvin’s argument to fully understand my paper.
…
This work is the natural continuation of my previous work on the topic.
Nicola Scafetta. Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate
oscillations and its implications. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics Volume 72, Issue 13, August 2010, Pages 951-970
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682610001495
Abstract
We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate
oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature
records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets
present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5
and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large
climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 and 0.25°C,
and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the
orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are
also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to
the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these
astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature
oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century.
It is found that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has
been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate
oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or
cool until 2030–2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively
discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization
of coupled oscillators.
=======================================================
The claims here are pretty bold, and I’ll be frank and say I can’t tell the difference between this and some of the cycl0-mania calculation papers that have been sent to me over the last few years. OTOH, Basil Copeland and I looked at some of the effects of luni-solar on global temperature previously here at WUWT.
While the hindcast seems impressive, a real test would be a series of repeated and proven short-term future forecasts. Time will tell.
to Dave Springer
the records are limited because those aurora were in the past seen and recorded mostly in the cities. After 1900 street light has made very difficult to see these auroras and mobody cared to report the aurora as seen in the country-side.
You argument with the clous is not valid. More auroras were seen during the multidecadal cold periods, that is the most cloudy ones. Moreover, there aurora are not observed in just one location but in a very large region
@Hoffman
Adding insult to injury the force of gravity falls off as the inverse square of the distance so the moon, at 1% the mass of the earth at a distance of 250,000 miles has approximately 400 million times as much gravitational pull on the earth as Jupiter does on the sun with Jupiter being about 2000 times as distant and 10 times less relative mass. Not going to be much of a tide on the sun from Jupiter. Maybe a micrometer? That’s why detecting planets around other stars is so difficult. They really need a planet as big Jupiter orbiting as close as Mercury to detect the wobble caused by the offset in barycenter. Either that or they need very long observation times to pull smaller deflections out of the noise.
Sheesh.
@Leif,
“A very powerful ingredient of the scientific method is replication. If a claim cannot be replicated, preferably with different data and different methods, it suffers. Just cranking through the same data the same way is not replication [as one always assumes that the claim was made in good faith by competent people – unless evidence to the contrary].”
I absolutely agree, as you make a wonderful point. However, there are many aspects of science where new techniques are made to allow observations or analysis of data no other techniques can do. If the techniques are sound (as no one has really presented an argument or evidence that they are not, so far), and the base data is showing us something, we still have to address why this data, why these techniques; we can’t simply dismiss. Even if other methods cannot replicate, that the techniques and data used in the paper can be replicated means it is science and fit for our consideration.
And I guess that’s really the issue for me. What I’m saying does not, in any way, detract from what you said–as you are completely right. The fact other methods are not supplying supporting data to this hypothesis weakens it–we aren’t seeing anything yet that provides it additional strength. Artifacts can happen (maybe something about the aurora and particular temperature data creates this artifact, but no one has said or argued as such), spurious results do occur, and multiple lines of evidence are in the end required for any hypothesis to make it to the level of theory. But it all doesn’t -disprove- the hypothesis either. It’s still valid from what I see. Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, and all that.
There are references though, and mounting data that shows this 60 year phenomenon from what I’ve seen, but I can make little sense of it. Hence my interest in your points and discussion.
Werner Brozek;
Thanks for the correction, you are of course correct on both points.
Dave Springer;
See how easy it is to have a civil conversation about a complex topic? I’ve since dropped the thread, but I don’t recall you apologizing or admitting how completely and totaly wrong you were about IT penetrating water during a heavy rainstorm by posting a link to a paper that you apparently hadn’t read or understood because it supported my point, not yours. Frankly, even when I agree with you on something, which I frequently do, I’d rather not voice my support because of your bullying, ad hominem attacks, foul mouth and ignorant attitude. You seem to be one of those people who think they can pull themselves up by putting someone else down. I feel sorry for you.
Dave Springer;
My apologies, typo above. I meant IR not IT. IT penetrates water just fine. throw the computers into the water and see if you don’t believe me. I’ve been told that while the computers sink, the programmers frequently float. I believe this to be evidence that computer programmers may be witches.
Nicola Scafetta says:
November 11, 2011 at 1:38 pm
to Dave Springer
“the records are limited because those aurora were in the past seen and recorded mostly in the cities. After 1900 street light has made very difficult to see these auroras and mobody cared to report the aurora as seen in the country-side.”
WTF? We’re talking 1966 not 1666. In 1966, incredible as it may seem to boys your age, we had telephones, radio, AND television not to mention hundreds of millions of people living in mid-northern latitudes away from streetlights. No aurora visible in mid-latitudes went unreported between 1966 and present. The excuse you just pulled out of your backside is unacceptable and absurd on the face of it. You’re either lazy or hiding something. Either way it’s a FAIL.
“You argument with the clous is not valid. More auroras were seen during the multidecadal cold periods, that is the most cloudy ones.”
Really? I thought it was common knowledge that clear nights are the cold ones and cloudy nights are the warm ones. I’m afraid that’s another FAIL. Three strikes and you’re out. Don’t try bullshitting me a third time.
” Moreover, there aurora are not observed in just one location but in a very large region.”
Which is bloody well why no aurora could possibly have been missed after 1966 because so very much of the Northern Hemisphere was populated, even in rural locations, with instantaneous communications. The number of astronomical observatories on mountaintops alone by 1966 makes your premise incredibly poorly thought out. I hope the rest of your work isn’t as shallow but now I wonder.
So, going back to davidmhoffer 8:28pm
You think my answer was wrong? Unfortunately your question was not precise – you did not ask me to compare the force the earth exerts on me with the force I exert on the earth. You asked to to compare “the effect”. You are perfectly correct in that the forces are equal, but unfortunately I chose, recognising the ambiguity, to compare the magnitude of a different effect, one which gives a better illustration of the importance of size and mass. Which one? – the gravitational potential which determines the accelerations.
Which means that the rest of your somewhat pompous lecture is irrelevant, or worse. I never stated that I thought the distance between myself and the earth was zero (read it more carefully),
and I am well aware of center-of-mass motion. Indeed I seem to have a better idea of where the barycenter of the solar system is than you do, as I know that it changes position slowly and it is sometimes within the structure of the sun and sometimes outside.
So to tides – two problems with your comments here. Firstly the effect of Jupiter does not “have years to build up” because sun rotates! In fact the rotation is different for different regions of the sun, being about 25 days at the equator and 36 at the poles. It is this differential rotation that is though to cause the very strong magnetic fields which cause sun spots, according to what is known as the Babcock model. And people think that the magnetic field of Jupiter 800 million kilometers away can have an effect on something like that…
The other mistake you made was to get your magnitudes wrong – if you get the right masses and distances you can work out that the ‘tides” on the sun caused by the planets are less than 1mm. If you think that could have an effect then here is a reference to a paper, 35 years old but still unchallenged http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1975SoPh…42..529C/0000531.000.html
Oh, and it is the gravitational accelerations that cause the tides…
Volker Doormann (November 11, 2011 at 11:25 am) declared:
“I’m off.”
Yes. Here’s your 1800 year cycle:
Keeling, C.D.; & Whorf, T.P. (2000). The 1,800-year oceanic tidal cycle: A possible cause of rapid climate change. PNAS 97(8), 3814-3819.
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/3814.full.pdf
It’s child’s play to trace it hierarchically / historically up to longer J-S cycles of the solar system, but that’s deflecting attention – via confounding – away from home (Earth-Moon system).
@hoffer
IR doesn’t penetrate water during a rainstorm. It’s still water and it’s still opaque to IR. You have quite the tendency to rewrite history. You were never able to produce any evidence whatsoever that downwelling far infrared can slow down the rate of heat loss from the ocean. You feeling sorry for me is like Pee Wee Herman feeling sorry for Brad Pitt, by the way. I doubt Pitt would care and I surely don’t. I don’t feel anything for you except a certain fondness like what a dog might feel for a chew toy before he destroys it. 🙂
M.A.Vukcevic (November 11, 2011 at 12:11 pm) requested:
“Could you be more specific?”
You draw attention to N-S geomagnetic Y-asymmetry here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MF.htm
Curious to hear if/how you see it connected to this:
AnimKEhfv: http://i41.tinypic.com/8zenb7.png
Dave Springer at 11:51 am
“You didn’t get an impressive score on the verbal part of the SAT, didja?
Well they didn’t have SAT’s when I was at school, and I think you mean the written part.
But let’s try analysing my opening sentence “Without a physical mechanism, this is astrology not science”
So firstly what does the “this” refer to – well clearly it is this particular paper, not any other paper, not a whole field of science, just this one.
Now “without a physical mechanism” , what is that – well the paper notices a correlation, and suggests a mechanism. But I am saying the mechanism is implausible i.e it is not a physical mechanism i.e not one founded surely in physics.
So to “astrology” – well if it is not a mechanism which is securely founded in physics, then the paper is suggesting a influence of the planetary motions without a physical origin – and what is that – well it is astrology, not science.
“science” – curve fitting is not science.
So you can disagree with my point about physically plausible mechanisms if you want – so why don’t you try to explain what you think their mechanism is, and whether it is sensible, and if you cannot, then say what you description of the paper is.
davidmhoffer says:
November 11, 2011 at 2:14 pm
davidmhoffer says:
November 11, 2011 at 2:14 pm
“Dave Springer; See how easy it is to have a civil conversation about a complex topic?”
Any possibility of that went out the window when you talked about me losing a few teeth over some perceived slight. Besides, I can’t have a conversation about a complex topic with you. That implies an exchange of ideas between peers. All I can do with you is lecture and that’s not possible if you won’t STFU. So I’m left doing drive-by corrections and some mockery for the entertainment value.
Paul Vaughan says:
November 11, 2011 at 2:41 pm
That link to the Scripps paper is awesome. How the heck did they ever get it published when it proposes a natural cycle of rapid cooling happening every 1800 years when tidal force from the moon is strongest at the equator and then maximizes mixing of cold deep water with warm shallow water.
I had no idea that tides had any periodicity longer than the 9 and 18 year cycles caused by lunar orbital precession. But I guess there must be quite a few others now that I think about it. The earth’s axis precesses in a cycle of 26,000 thousand years so there’s going to be a change in tides due to that as well.
Thanks for the link. And thanks for the laugh “Yes”. Good one.
Ian W at 6:47 am
“Now you are emphasizing that the effect of gravitational fields are extremely small. But how much force is necessary to keep a planet with a mass of 1.9 x 1027 kg in orbit? The continual velocity change requires a continual acceleration toward the Sun. You think that this requires only an infinitesimally small force?”
No I think it needs the acceleration due to the gravitational potential of an object 1000 times as massive.
“Stars like the Sun are being identified as having planets around them by the fact that the stars ‘wobble’ due to the orbit of their planets around them. Or more correctly the stars and their planets are orbiting their barycenter – their center of mass. But magically you postulate that the Sun is different it has no wobble indeed the planets around it have no effect whatsoever as the force from the planets is so small? I thought that you were trying to take the scientific position. ”
OK so since various people have mentioned it, I think it is time to think about what this wobble means (I have never denied its existence by the way). Lets try a thought experiment, what physics calls a “to first approximation” scenario, which is useful for working out the most important features, and then asking how the real system differs.
So take a solar system with just a star and a heavy planet. Now imagine a model which is just two weights connected by a rod. Find the balance point, which is the center of mass. Let the two object rotate about that point. If you are and observer outside the system what do you see? Well the “star” is sometime one side of the center of mass, sometimes the other, so to an outside observer it appears to “wobble” in its position. But here’s the important bit – that wobble has no effect on the properties of the star because all the distances are constant So thats the “to first approximation” – the wobble is simply the rotation about the center of mass, and has no effect on the properties of the star. Now the real system – because the planet has an elliptical rather than a circular orbit, its distance varies slightly. It is only this variation which might cause a change in the properties of the star. Jupiter’s distance changes by about 4% from maximum to minimum – so the question is, can that modulation have a significant effect? I say no.
Ooops! My apologies. I goofed above with reference to the center of gravity between Jupiter and the sun. It turns out that if only the sun and Jupiter existed in their present orbits, the center of gravity is actually outside the surface of the sun. Here are the important numbers:
Mass of the sun = 1.99 x 10^30 kg.
Mass of Jupiter = 1.90 x 10^27 kg.
Mean orbital radius of Jupiter = 7.78 x 10^11 m.
So the center of mass between Jupiter and the sun is
7.78 x 10^11 m x 1.90 x 10^27 kg/1.99 x 10^30 kg = 7.43 x 10^8 m.
However the sun’s equatorial radius is 6.96 x 10^8 m. This, of course, is less than the center of mass for Jupiter and the sun. The other planets will either add or subtract to this center of mass, depending on their location relative to Jupiter.
jimmy_the_dalek;
good points.
I’d forgotten the rotation of the sun, but my point still stands. The moon raises quite the tide in a 24 hour cycle. Jupiter has weeks. Only one millimeter? Let’s take your word for it at this point. While the earth is covered mostly in water, it is a fairly thin layer compared to the diameter of the planet as a whole. The sun on the other hand is molten (though it may have a core of some sort that is different for a variety of reasons) but the fact of the matter is that gravitational pull from something the size of Jupiter shifts things inside the sun as well as raising a tide. As Werner Brozek pointed out, when the planets aligne, the centre of mass actually lies outside of the surface of the sun. That’s quite the wobble to impose on something as big as the sun and at the same time claim that variations in orbit don’t affect climate on earth because it is “impossible”. Consider also that if Jupiter and Saturn can raise tides on the sun and cause it to wobble about itself in space, that they also affect the orbit of the earth. For all we know, the fluctuations induced in earth’s orbit are the larger factor than changes induced in the sun, or perhaps they are additive, or perhaps they work against each other. We need not know the answer to those questions in order to observe that specific alignments of the planets and moon in relation to the earth correlate to climactic conditions. If so, let us investigate and discover the reasons why, or if it is a coincidence.
If coincidence, it is a really really BIG coincidence. But impossible? Hardly.
Dave Springer;
Have you read the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”?
If not, perhaps you should. If you have, might I suggest you do so again, but this time don’t read it upside down and backwards.
Leif said,
Just cranking through the same data the same way is not replication
Pity no one pointed this out to Muller and the BEST team.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
November 11, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Dave Springer at 11:51 am
“You didn’t get an impressive score on the verbal part of the SAT, didja?
Well they didn’t have SAT’s when I was at school, and I think you mean the written part.
____________________________________________________________________
Sir, FORGIVE ME! The SAT became a standard metric for university admissions in the year 1926 when some 8,000 students took it. That makes you over 100 years old!!!! I would never in a million years make fun of a man your age.
The SAT is entirely written, by the way. When I took it in 1978 there was a verbal section and a math section each with a maximum possible score of 800 points. I had a combined score of 1480 which is in the 99.97th percentile. I’m actually somewhat higher than that as I had a perfect score on the math portion of the test so it was not difficult enough to fully measure my math aptitude.
Anyhow, forgive me for messing with you, a centenarian. May you live another hundred years!
JJ at 11:23 pm
“So, pulling the trigger on a gun cannot be the cause of a murder, because the four or five pounds of force it takes to pull a trigger is not of deadly magnitude?”
Well you have just put a major positive feedback in there – pulling the trigger initiates a chemical reaction. I hope you are not going to say the earth’s climate system has major positive feedbacks, because around here people tend to shout at you for that.
“The period and magnitude of the ocean tides changes a little from cycle to cycle, therefore the moon, with its precise orbit, cannot be the origin of tides?”
The amplitude changes, which is entirely explainable as due to the positions of moon, sun and their distances from the earth. I do not think there are major changes in the period – do you have information to the contrary?
@Dave Springer (November 11, 2011 at 3:24 pm)
…And all the solar system barycenter chattering you hear is also confounded with things closer to home:
Keeling, C.D. & Whorf, T.P. (1997). Possible forcing of global temperature by the oceanic tides. PNAS 94(16), 8321-8328.
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8321.full.pdf
I’ve pointed out the confounding before, but many accidentally misinterpret and others deliberately misrepresent. The way the game goes for obfuscators seems to be something like: If I say climate drives EOP (Earth Orientation Parameters), they claim I said EOP drive climate. If I say lunisolar cycles are detectable in the QBO, they claim I said Jupiter drives terrestrial global average temperatures. Something like that.
@ur momisugly Dave Springer
The aurora catalog was not compiled by me. The appropriate reference are in the paper: read them or write to those authors for explanation. The above is the exaplantion I heard from people expert in those records. The record that ends in 1966 refers to the Faroes’ Island that are located North England which were quite more isolated than the central and north Europe where it was becoming increasingly difficult to see mid-latitude aurora and people lost interest in emphasizing them as they were doing in the past.
@ur momisugly Ged
well written!
It is very inappropriate in science to dismiss a finding based on specific records simply claiming that different records do not show the same identical patterns. Each record is produced by its own physics and each record stresses the patterns compatible with its own physics. It is perfectly normal that different records present different patterns. Thus, a comparison may be made only after that the physical link between two records is established.
So what people do is to look for those records and thecniques that may reveal a physical coupling mechanism that other records may not reveal as well or as clearly.
If all records would present the same identical patterns everything would be linearly coupled to everything else and no errors would exist, which is not the case in natural systems.
The problem with Leif is that he does not appear to understand basic phylosophy or how science of complex systems really works. It is like as if I say that today in NY it is raining, and Leif responds that I am wrong because he looked at the weather in CT and it was not raining so he could not replicate my claim! Does such a reasoning make any sense to anybody?
As Ged understood, “There are references though, and mounting data that shows this 60 year phenomenon”. In figure 3 of my paper I show some of these records, but many others are present in the references.
Not all records present the same identical patterns. So what? the correct question is to understand why. Is it because the chosen data are very local? is it because the data are disrupted by something else? is it because there are errors in the measurments? is it because the data are mostly sensitive to something else? is it because the data are just different? is it because of complex non linear couplings? etc.
Moreover, in Figure 11 I buid a model based on these cycles and show that the relative climate patterns can be forecasted with a precision far above the IPCC models.
So, Leif just need to be more open minded and stop with his hand waving logic that proves nothing about my paper and much about his behavior. If he does not like my theory he is very welcome to propose an alternative theory and shows that it works better than mine!
For example, does Leif know of any IPCC climate model that has been able to “forecast” the climate oscillations from 1950 to 2010 and backward from 1850 to 1950 as I show in my figure 11B? Please, name one!
@ur momisugly jimmi_the_dalek:
in the paper I do not do just curve fitting. I show that the harmonic model based on those specific astronomical cycles seen inthe aurora record from 1700 to 1900, for example, is able to forecast the climate oscillations from 1950 to 2010. You may fit a record with an infinity of curves that you like, but if the functions that you use have nothing to do with the dynamics of the system, that same model would immediately fail any forecasting.
Your definition of science (a theory must be supported by a mechanism, if not it is astrology) has nothing to do with science but with methaphysics. In science a theory should be able to agree with the data and reproduce and forecast them. The ultimate mechanisms may be simply unknown. All science of complexity is based on the assumptions that a macroscopic system can be described by using empirical models which do not need to be explicitly backed by microscopic physical explanations. And the ultimate mechanisms explaining the fundaments of physics are unknown (what is the mechanisms that explain gravity, what is the mechanisms that explain the time contraction in special relativity? etc).
Werner Brozek says:
November 11, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Yes, you can google that in a few seconds although I already knew it. The center of mass just clears the surface. However, of the raduis sun is about 700,000 kilometers and it orbits the center of mass once every 12 years, so Jupiter causes the sun to wobble at a speed of 0.2 meters per second. So when trying to detect planets around another star we have to be able to see a red/blue shift in the star’s light (given it’s exactly edge-on to us) of about a half-meter per second. Light travels at 300,000,000 meters per second so this frequency shift represents about two parts per billion and it would take twelve years to see one full cycle of the shift. This gives you some idea of why it’s so difficult to detect planets around other stars. Now imagine there are multiple planets, which is usually the case, mucking up the frequency shift as they all orbit with different periods. It’s quite the sticky wicket and there’s no small amount of controversy except in the cases of one or two gas giants in very close orbits.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
November 11, 2011 at 3:29 pm
“So take a solar system with just a star and a heavy planet. Now imagine a model which is just two weights connected by a rod. Find the balance point, which is the center of mass. Let the two object rotate about that point. If you are and observer outside the system what do you see? Well the “star” is sometime one side of the center of mass, sometimes the other, so to an outside observer it appears to “wobble” in its position. But here’s the important bit – that wobble has no effect on the properties of the star because all the distances are constant So thats the “to first approximation” – the wobble is simply the rotation about the center of mass, and has no effect on the properties of the star. Now the real system – because the planet has an elliptical rather than a circular orbit, its distance varies slightly. It is only this variation which might cause a change in the properties of the star. Jupiter’s distance changes by about 4% from maximum to minimum – so the question is, can that modulation have a significant effect? I say no.”
You fail to take into account the sun’s rotational period vs. the orbital period about the sun/jupiter barycenter. The latter I happen to know is 12 years. I don’t think the sun and Jupiter are tidally locked like the earth and the moon so let me look up the former… that’s about 25 days. So Jupiter is going to produce some tides on the sun. You and I would both be guessing if we said we knew what effect those tides might have although I’d tend to agree it’s going to be pretty minimal given the strength of Jupiter’s gravity on the sun is millions of times weaker than the moon’s pull on the earth.
By the way, you WERE wrong about calling the OP astrology just because there’s no mechanism. A correlation without a known cause is a mystery. Science is full of mysteries. In fact science is all about mysteries! If there were no mysteries there would be nothing left to explain and nothing for science to do. Engineers could then take over (as if we don’t rule the roost already… lol) completely. Astrology on the other hand lacks mechanism AND correlation. If there’s no correlation there’s nothing to explain. It isn’t science until you can at least come up with some effect that needs explaining.
My eyes were opened by a technical paper by W J R Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe and N Willemse.
Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development*
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/solar-cycles/Alexanderetal2007.pdf
This study is based on the numerical analysis of the properties of routinely observed
hydrometeorological data which in South Africa alone is collected at a rate of more than
half a million station days per year, with some records approaching 100 continuous years
in length. The analysis of this data demonstrates an unequivocal synchronous linkage
between these processes in South Africa and elsewhere, and solar activity. It is also shown with a high degree of assurance that there is a synchronous linkage between the statistically significant, 21-year periodicity in these processes and the acceleration and deceleration of the sun as it moves through galactic space.