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.
Leif Svalgaard says: November 11, 2011 at 12:54 pm
…I use independent data of geomagnetic activity, … cosmic ray data, sunspot numbers, and even climate, and show that none of these show any 60-year cycle over long enough time periods [centuries]. Thus replication fails and the claim fails.
Rubbish. Scafetta has already showed six different indices in his paper which all show with stunning clarity the formative presence of a 60-year cycle: PDO, AMO, auroras, monsoons, meteorites, and global temperatures (detrended etc). Thus replication has already succeeded so the claim holds so far. The correlations are highly evocative, I don’t know how to quantify them statistically but visually they shout. Thus the likelihood increases that your apparent non-correlations may have other factors at work, that do not disprove the presence of a 60-year cycle.
Nicola Scafetta says:
November 11, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Here’s the bottom line Nicola. You have, at best, 120 years of semi-accurate temperature record to work with where the past 30 years (the satellite era) are by far the most accurate, precise, and the only part with anything that can be called “global” in coverage without snickering.
Then, with your aurora data ending 45 years before the temperature data ends, you have a period of 85 years where you can look at both records for correlation. Now then, you’re trying to peddle a correlationon a 60-year cycle when you have only 1.3 cycles to compare. A correlation with a sample size of 1.3 isn’t statistically sound. In order to strengthen this you need to get extend the work of others and generate the most recent 45 years of aurora data and make it reasonably comparable to the other two. This will require some effort on your part, kiddo.
Here’s what I would suggest. Find some small towns at a similar latitude with similar weather patterns similarly remote from any light pollution of larger cities and comb the local newspaper for aurora sightings. These rarely go unreported. Or let this paper of yours be consigned to insignificance with no citations and stay an assistant adjunct professor (what is that, anyway, one pay grade above a lecturer?) the rest of your life. I can lead a horse to water but I can’t make him drink.
I believe that Dave Springer understood fully the issue.
“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.”
Here the real difference is between those who understand what sciene is about (there are correlations with unexplained misteries that need to be explained) and those who mistake science for engineering (the science is settled, no need to look forward).
In climate science the major problem is that many people do not understand the difference between “science” and “engineering” any more. We have computer climate modellers, who properly speaking are engineers and not scientists, who go around claiming to be “scientists” and that the “science is settled”, and everytime a real scientist observes that the science is not settled because the data show specific patterns that the climate models do not explain, then the climate modellers start to deny the data and accuse the scientist of astrology just because he did not provide them a full and complete theory that they can implement in their models.
Science does not start with a complete theory of everything. That is the ultimate goal of science, not its starting point! This is an important point for those that really want to understand science.
Dave Springer;
Here’s what I would suggest. Find some small towns at a similar latitude with similar weather patterns similarly remote from any light pollution of larger cities and comb the local newspaper for aurora sightings. These rarely go unreported. >>>
If you had grown up in such a town (which I did, latitude 50) you’d be aware that auroras are so common that only a very intense display would ever make the local paper, and often not even then. Such a methodology would be complete hit and miss, and the exact opposite of the scientific precision which you demand.
Dave Springer says:
“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.”
Well, that beats my SAT score [I took it in 1966]. But I aced this test with 100% correct. ☺
Paul Vaughan says:
November 11, 2011 at 3:57 pm
“…And all the solar system barycenter chattering you hear is also confounded with things closer to home:”
I hear ya. Most people don’t know that gravitational problems involving more than two bodies are exceedingly difficult unless one of the bodies has an insignificant mass like an Apollo capsule heading to the moon or a deep space probe doing flybys of inner planets to generate delta-v. For n-body problems where n is greater than 3 only increasingly imprecise approximations are possible. Pretty much the same thing holds true for quantum mechanics and greater than two particles. Interestingly, Voyagers 1 and 2 aren’t in the predicted positions after decades of travel and reaching the outskirts of the solar system. One of them, I forget which, is about to penetrate the heliosphere shock-wave and reach into true interstellar space. There’s some fun arguments about why they aren’t where they’re supposed to be. Also, interestingly enough, their radiothermal power supply radioisotope fuel appears to have a half-life that is changing with distance from the sun. There’s some fun with that too. There’s also some weirdnesses with radioactive decay rates on earth changing with the seasons which also correlates with distance from the sun. Some pretty basic things in physics, the constancy of radioactive decay rates and the gravitational constant, are under assault from increasingly accurate observations. There’s a LOT of resistance to that, let me tell you. The list of excuses and excusers claiming the observations are somehow flawed is long, distinguished, and all really contrived if you axe me.
Lucy Skywalker, thank you for your comment and for having read my paper: a thing that Leif and other critics did not do.
I showed six different indices plus two planetary records (speed of the sun relative to the barycenter and tidal elongation at the Earth orbits) (which makes eight indexes explicitly shown in the figures).
Plus in my 2010 paper I study the global north temperature, global south temperature, global ocean temperature, global ocean north temperature, global ocean south temperature, global land temperature, global land north temperature, global land south temperature, which make other eight indexes.
Plus in my other 2011 paper with Mazzarella I show the same cycle in the NAO,and LOD, which makes other two indexes explicitly shown.
Total 6+2+8+2=18 indexes
plus I reference numerous other papers that enphasize the existence of a quasi 60-year cycle in the climate and solar records for centuries and millenia.
Dave Springer says:
November 11, 2011 at 5:07 pm
“Then, with your aurora data ending 45 years before the temperature data ends, you have a period of 85 years where you can look at both records for correlation. Now then, you’re trying to peddle a correlationon a 60-year cycle when you have only 1.3 cycles to compare. A correlation with a sample size of 1.3 isn’t statistically sound.e, you have missed the point of the paper. ”
Sorry Dave, you have missed the point of the paper!
Smokey says:
November 11, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Well, that beats my SAT score [I took it in 1966]. But I aced this test with 100% correct. ☺
http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
I got a 94% on the civics test. Two questions wrong.
I got the question about the Gettysburg Address wrong. I thought the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” came out of the Constitution but it was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. How embarrassing! But in my defense I only took “American History to 1850” in college and that was enough to satisfy the general-education requirement. I haven’t seen the Gettysburg address since probably 1966 (fifth grade). I’ve read the constitution and all the amendments at least several times in the last 10 years though so it’s a weak excuse.
But I’d argue there were two correct answers to the only other question I missed and that was “If government tax revenue equals government spending which of the following is true”
1) there is no government debt
2) wrong answer
3) wrong answer
4) the average taxes a person pays is equal to average government spending per person
I believe both these responses are correct. I chose #1 and that was deemed incorrect. I considered which answer to choose for at least 30 seconds (an eternity for me) and couldn’t decide if one was superior to the other so I picked the one that seemed to better follow the political bias (conservative) of the person who formulated the test.
Dave,
I am a fair way from 100 yet – SAT means different things in different countries. In England it refers to a set of assessment tests first introduced in schools in 1191.
Ooops …. in 1991 that should have been!
davidmhoffer says:
November 11, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Dave Springer;
Here’s what I would suggest. Find some small towns at a similar latitude with similar weather patterns similarly remote from any light pollution of larger cities and comb the local newspaper for aurora sightings. These rarely go unreported. >>>
“If you had grown up in such a town (which I did, latitude 50) you’d be aware that auroras are so common that only a very intense display would ever make the local paper, and often not even then. Such a methodology would be complete hit and miss, and the exact opposite of the scientific precision which you demand.”
You just can’t stop digging your hole deeper, can you? Amazing.
If you’d read the paper that Scafetta referenced you’d know that they were only reporting an average of maybe 5 sightings per year. I didn’t count them all and take an average but that’s accurate enough.
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/AURORAE/aurorae.dat.rev
Surely some small observatory in some mid-latitude location where auroras can only be seen several times per year has a record from 1966 through today. The actual number they record per year doesn’t really matter much as it’s only the change from year to year that is of interest but it would be best to stick with about the same number as reported in the other catalogs for consistency as we want to try to match the minumum intensity level (apples to apples) when moving from one data source to another.
If acquiring the data for non-trivial scientific research was easy anybody could do it. I specifically told Scafetta it might require some effort on his part and wondered whether he’s just lazy or he’s hiding something. I won’t be the only one wondering about that. It’s a pretty friggin’ glaring thing to cut off a data set for a commonly observed astronomical event in 1966.
What would you think about a global warming claim where they lopped off the temperature data in 1966?
Oh wait, we already know the answer to that. That’s what the climategate emails revealed. They chopped off the tree ring data (pun intended) 20 years early, circa 1960, and stitched in the instrument record from that point forward because the tree ring data went “off message” at that point which meant, if they’d included it, it would have impeached the credibility of the prior years of tree ring data . The skeptics screamed bloody murder when they found out.
Well, Hoffman, I don’t like double standards and if I protest something an AGW pundit did with the data I’m going to hold an AGW skeptic to the same standard. Write that down. It’s called intellectual honesty. You might be an intellectual in your next life and need to know that.
What Scafetta did in this paper was plug some easily located numbers into a statistical analysis program (which is pretty much all he’s ever done in his short academic career), found some interesting correlations, produced some graphs, and imagined some mechanisms to explain them. Unfortunately the key data set, aurora frequency, leaves a lot to be desired both in quality and number of years that can be compared with global temperature data.
Now as for you I strongly urge you to heed this sage advice:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt. ~Abraham Lincoln
and this:
Dave Springer;
“If government tax revenue equals government spending which of the following is true”
1) there is no government debt
2) wrong answer
3) wrong answer
4) the average taxes a person pays is equal to average government spending per person
I believe both these responses are correct.>>>
Had the word “deficit” been used instead of the word “debt”, you may have had an argument with merit. As you didn’t differentiate the meaning based on the word “debt” versus “deficit”, you got the answer wrong.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
November 11, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Dave,
I am a fair way from 100 yet – SAT means different things in different countries. In England it refers to a set of assessment tests first introduced in schools in 1191.
______________________________________
I was just messin’ with ya. Couldn’t resist. Maybe science and astrology have different meanings in England too. In any U.S. context you were wrong. Astrology has no consistent replicable correlations between star/planet positions and things about people’s lives that hold up under any scrutiny. Scafetta found some valid correlations between climate data and astronomical observations. Or at least they appear valid at first blush but I do have my doubts about the sufficiency of the aurora data after a bit more scrutiny.
Nicola Scafetta says:
November 11, 2011 at 6:02 pm
“Sorry Dave, you have missed the point of the paper!”
Silly me!
I thought the point of the paper was in the title.
A shared frequency set between the historical mid-latitude aurora records and the global surface temperature.
My concerns addressed precisely what is described in the title.
So what exactly IS the point?
davidmhoffer says:
November 11, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Dave Springer;
“If government tax revenue equals government spending which of the following is true”
1) there is no government debt
2) wrong answer
3) wrong answer
4) the average taxes a person pays is equal to average government spending per person
I believe both these responses are correct.>>>
Had the word “deficit” been used instead of the word “debt”, you may have had an argument with merit. As you didn’t differentiate the meaning based on the word “debt” versus “deficit”, you got the answer wrong.
—————————————————
There would be no debt accrued in any year where #4 held true. In any year where debt was accrued #4 could not be true. They travel hand in hand.
Your logic, unsurprisingly, fails you.
Dave Springer;
Surely some small observatory in some mid-latitude location where auroras can only be seen several times per year has a record from 1966 through today. >>>
Amidst your rambling rant telling me how stupid I am and how smart you are, you said the above. Sorry sir, but your original suggestion was that Nicola Scafetta comb through the newspaper records of small towns for mention of aurrora events. I pointed out to you that this would be a completely inadequate methodology, and why. Your entire rant is predicated upon using observatory data, which is NOT what you suggested, nor what I was rebutting. If that is what you meant to say in the first place, then I’m certain a man of your obvious intellect would see that your wording in your original statement did not match your intent, and your apology on the matter is accepted.
If on the other hand you wish to maintain that your original position and this position are in agreement with one another, hence exposing my obvious intellectual short comings, then by all means feel free to do so. Your hypocracy is duly noted.
Dave Springer;
There would be no debt accrued in any year where #4 held true. In any year where debt was accrued #4 could not be true. They travel hand in hand.
Your logic, unsurprisingly, fails you.>>>
In any given time period during which there is no DEFICIT, there is no ADDITONAL debt incurred. This says absolutely nothing about any debts which were incurred in previous time periods and which are still being carried. Logic has nothing to do with it, all one needs is an understanding of the terminology.
@Dave Springer
“If you’d read the paper that Scafetta referenced you’d know that they were only reporting an average of maybe 5 sightings per year.”
Sorry Dave, you are not understanding the issue,
The record that I use since 1700 contains up to 140 events per year.
Look at figure 1B in my paper, it is quite clear. The record before 1700 is quite incomplete so I did not use it. After 1900 it has also become so incomplete that the record stopped to be collected.
You are not understanding these data. The data are likely accurate enougth between 1700 to 1900, and for the Faroes up to 1966.
From 1700 to 1900 there was a great interest of the people in recording these data in the newspapers. Before 1700 there were not many newpapers around not much interest (which started likely with Newton) and after 1900 the interest collapsed in Europe also because it was getting harder to see these aurora from the bright cities.
You should understand that the people that collected these aurora data were professionists, not idiots. They knew what they were doing. They compared several sources to determine the great auroras, they did not get the data from just one town.
Moreover, you are not understanding the tecnique of analisis which is based of frequencies estimates, not on the actual amplitudes. To have a consistent record for frequency estimates you just need that the data are collected in some similar standard way, which is what was happening from 1700 to 1900, and for the Faroes up to about 1966.
The two records of auroras that I analyze contain common major peaks of frequencies such as the 10, 20 and the 60 year cycles, see figure 4. The same peaks are found for the temperature. Moreover the 60-year cycles data back to 1700 in proxy models as I show in Figure 3
The probability that everything coincide by coincidence is quite slim. Try it by yourself. Take two random sequences and ckeck whether they contain the same frequencies and are correlated like the records that I used in my paper.
In any case, if you believe that you understand auroras records better than the people that have collected them, you are very welcome to visit several towns around in the Us, in Europe and in Russia and look at the their newspapers if they have it, collect your better catalog of great aurora record and then send the record to me.
In my opinion these records have a very high quality compared to several other records that we have since 1700, and it is the only record that we have that refers to “direct observations” of the electric properties of the space and upper atmosphere since 1700, and the dates are exact. So, it is far above to any kind of ground based “proxy” model despite what Leif claims.
The scientific quality of these aurora records is probably far above for geografical estension, for time continuity, for number of people indirectly invoved in the direct measurements (several hundred thousands, perhaps millions people just looking at the sky) and for timing and for number of written records than many other records we have, including the CET records.
I know that you would like to have “perfect” and “infinite” data, but in geophysics we get what we get. We cannot go back in time and repeat the observations in an experimentally controlled way. This is part of the complexity of the problem. We need to put together pieces of informations from multiple records which may be incomplete and filled with uncontrolled uncertenties.
Thanks for the post on this paper but I must say I find the response from some of the contributors a bit silly.
The paper is another very useful contribution and the periodicities support work such as “Influence of Zodiac Dust on the Earth’s Climate” by Victor Ermakov, Victor Okhlopkov, and Yuri Stozhkov as well as the other work referred to. Different or related mechanism but still related to cloud formation.
I find it utterly ludicrous that when analysing the climate of a spinning planet with an orbiting moon which in turn orbit a star in company with other planets and other material in the solar system and noting a whole series of periodicities in major planetary climatic/weather systems ( ENSO etc) that one would not start with the assumption of cyclical patterns influenced by the solar system generally ( considering the range of possible direct and indirect mechanisms) and only stop when you could not find any. The 60 odd year cycle is plain to see in the instrument temperature record as is the 1-11 year cycle in smoothed data so a Fourier or similar analysis is entirely warranted. Given the awareness of the 11 and 22 year solar cycles otherwise from sunspot and other direct solar observations / measurements I just wonder who the “deniers” are. I am reminded of that song by Dire Straits exhorting the listener to remember that when pointing a finger there are three more fingers pointing back at you.
But then I am an engineer not a scientist, WTF would I know or understand?
Nicola Scafetta says:
November 11, 2011 at 8:41 am
The aurora record presents that cycle and we can say that the aurora record has been collected by using as detector the entire Earth in the space. The geomagnetic activity index that you like, which was collected at some specific location on the ground, does not show exactly the same pattern?
The geomagnetic record is a global average of many stations all over the world.
The two observables are not the same thing, evidently.
We have a good understanding of both and they are just two sides of the same thing. Invariably [that is every single time] when you have a mid-latitude aurora you also have a strong magnetic disturbance, as has been known since the 1750s [slides 3-4 of http://www.leif.org/research/H02-FRI-O1430-0550.pdf ]. If there had been an auroral 60-yr cycle the last 170 years, there would also had been a magnetic activity cycle of 60 years, and there isn’t. This is evidence enough against your claim.
The sunspot number (sampled every day) does not have a 60-yr cycle. Your ideas about the magnetosphere as expressed in the paper [which I have read, of course] are just mush and contradicted by the data. Some reading up on that might be helpful to you. Amazing the reviewer didn’t take you to task on this. Tidal effects are minute [less than a millimeter] and cannot have any effect, and you forget that the Sun is rotating so a tidal bulge would roll over a given location every 13 days just as the tidal bulge caused by our Moon has a 12.5 hour period.
Doesn’t that 60 year or so climate cycle result from oceanic variability rather than solar variability ?
Specifically the phase changes of the Pacific Multidecadal Oascillation (not PDO as Bob Tisdale keeps reminding us) whereby for about 30 years El Nino events dominate over La Nina and then for the next 30 years or so La Nina dominates over El Nino.
In order to link solar events to that phenomenon it is necessary to find a causative mechanism but I don’t see one on such a short timescale.
However on a 500 to 1000 year timescale as from MWP to LIA to date I do see a connection whereby slow changes in average solar activity across multiple solar cycles do seem to alter the net balance between El Nino and La Nina over successive 60 year oceanic cycles.That leads to the upward ‘stepping’ in tropospheric temperatures from one oceanic cycle to the next that has been observed ver the last 150 years.Presumably there was a similar downward stepping from MWP to LIA.
Solar induced loudiness and albedo changes arising from latitudinal climate zone shifting is my favoured explanation for trhat rather than cosmic rays.
To get a good solar/astronomic link to the 60 year timescale we need much better correlations than we have at present but the aurora data is a helpful move in the right direction.
Leif’s negativity is fine as a tool to test the data and hypotheses but I think there is more to it than he currently accepts.
Since cosmic rays were part of the mechanism proposed [and also is a measure of solar activity] it would be a crucial test of Scafetta’s ideas simply to plot his modulation function P1(t) vs cosmic rays as given by the 10Be record. We have a nice record from McCracken and Beer [Long-term changes in the cosmic ray intensity at Earth, 1428-2005, McCracken, K. G.; Beer, J., Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 112, Issue A10, CiteID A10101, 2007]. So here is the result: http://www.leif.org/research/Scafetta-Function-vs-Cosmic-Rays.png [the curves are on arbitrary scales and offset in order to make the comparison easier]. R^2 for a correlation is very small 0.06 and is not considered significant, but it is also evident just by looking at the curves that there is no correlation and no common 60-yr cycle. Again FAIL.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 11, 2011 at 11:41 pm
Leif’s negativity is fine as a tool to test the data and hypotheses but I think there is more to it than he currently accepts.
My negativity comes from analysis [as above] and not from opinion. As I have said many times, I would love that there was some real correlations as that would vastly improved my funding situation, but, alas, is doesn’t seem there is. The notion of ‘open mind’ is silly.One should go as far as the data takes you, but not much further.
Now let’s make this absolutely clear:
Business of the 60 year cycle in the magnetosphere was raised by myself in an exchange involving Dr. Scafetta and Dr. Loehle on the Judith Curry’s blog:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/25/loehle-and-scafetta-on-climate-change-attribution/#comment-90560
Although it was meant as a half-hearted comment, which is obvious from the tone of my post, but to my surprise, it was then taken seriously by both Dr. Scafetta and Dr. Loehle.
I have looked into this, analysing number indicators considered as acceptable and widely available data sunspot record, Ap index, the Arctic’s magnetic field differential and McCracken data for the strength of magnetosphere at the Earth’s orbit, no evidence was found for consistent 60 year cycle.
I did not look into auroras, but if I had data I would not taken it as reliable enough, since the other four relevant and by the science accepted data-sets have drawn a blank.
McCracken data (he is retired NASA scientist) should be the first and a must reference to anyone investigating magnetosphere, but there is no mention of it in Scafetta’s work.
Neither Dr. Leohle or Dr. Scafetta have prior to the above exchange on Climate etc. blog shown any interest in magnetosphere’s effects as far as I know, but Dr. Scafetta should be able to give precise details if he did, since Dr. Loehle has withdrawn from the equation in this new paper.
My ‘credentials’ in this area as ‘good or lousy’ are well known to the WUWT readers, but I do invite those interested to visit the above link and familiarise themselves with the exchange.
I also invite Dr. Scafetta to comment.
[Vuk – I have removed the bold tags from your comment. This is akin to SHOUTING and is not considered polite on blogs. If you wish to highlight small passages in bold that is fine, but not your whole comment ~ jove, mod]