Nicola Scafetta sent me this paper yesterday, and I read it with interest, but I have a number of reservations about it, not the least of which is that it is partially based on the work of Landscheidt and the whole barycentric thing which gets certain people into shouting matches. Figure 9 looks to be interesting, but note that it is in generic units, not temperature, so has no predictive value by itself.
While that looks like a good hindcast fit to historical warm/cold periods, compare it to figure 7 to see how it comes out.
Now indeed, that looks like a great fit to the Ljungqvist proxy temperature reconstruction, but the question arises about whether we are simply seeing a coincidental cyclic fit or a real effect. I asked Dr. Leif Svalgaard about his views on this paper and he replied with this:
The real test of all this cannot come from the proxies we have because the time scales are too short, but from comparisons with other stellar systems where the effects are calculated to be millions of times stronger [because the planets are huge and MUCH closer to the star]. No correlations have been found so far.
See slide 19 of my AGU presentation:
http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202011%20SH34B-08.pdf
So, it would seem, that if the gravitational barycentric effect posited were real, it should be easily observable with solar systems of much larger masses. Poppenhager and Schmitt can’t seem to find it.
OTOH, we have what appears to be a good fit by Scafetta in Figure 7. So this leaves us with three possibilities
- The effect manifests itself in some other way not yet observed.
- The effect is coincidental but not causative.
- The effect is real, but unproven yet by observations and predictive value.
I’m leaning more towards #2 at this point but willing to examine the predictive value. As Dr. Svalgaard points out in his AGU presentation, others have tried but the fit eventually broke down. From slide 14
P. D. Jose (ApJ, 70, 1965) noted that the Sun’s motion about the Center of Mass of the solar system [the Barycenter] has a period of 178.7 yr and suggested that the sunspot cycles repeat with a similar period. Many later researchers have published variations of this idea. – Unfortunately a ‘phase catastrophe’ is needed every ~8 solar cycles
Hindcasting can be something you can easily setup to fool yourself with if you are not careful, and I’m a bit concerned over the quality of the peer review for this paper as it contains two instances of Scafetta’s signature overuse of exclamation points, something that a careful reviewer would probably not let pass.
Science done carefully rarely merits an exclamation point. Papers written that way sound as if you are shouting down to the reader.
The true test will be the predictive value, as Scafetta has been doing with his recent essays here at WUWT. I’m willing to see how well this pans out, but I’m skeptical of the method until proven by a skillful predictive forecast. Unfortunately it will be awhile before that happens as solar timescales far exceed human lifespan.
Below I present the abstract, plus a link to the full paper provided by Dr. Scafetta.
=============================================================
Multi-scale harmonic model for solar and climate cyclical variation throughout the Holocene based on Jupiter–Saturn tidal frequencies plus the 11-year solar dynamo cycle
ScienceDirect link
Nicola Scafetta, ACRIM (Active Cavity Radiometer Solar Irradiance Monitor Lab) & Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Abstract
The Schwabe frequency band of the Zurich sunspot record since 1749 is found to be made of three major cycles with periods of about 9.98, 10.9 and 11.86 years. The side frequencies appear to be closely related to the spring tidal period of Jupiter and Saturn (range between 9.5 and 10.5 years, and median 9.93 years) and to the tidal sidereal period of Jupiter (about 11.86 years). The central cycle may be associated to a quasi-11-year solar dynamo cycle that appears to be approximately synchronized to the average of the two planetary frequencies. A simplified harmonic constituent model based on the above two planetary tidal frequencies and on the exact dates of Jupiter and Saturn planetary tidal phases, plus a theoretically deduced 10.87-year central cycle reveals complex quasi-periodic interference/beat patterns. The major beat periods occur at about 115, 61 and 130 years, plus a quasi-millennial large beat cycle around 983 years. We show that equivalent synchronized cycles are found in cosmogenic records used to reconstruct solar activity and in proxy climate records throughout the Holocene (last 12,000 years) up to now. The quasi-secular beat oscillations hindcast reasonably well the known prolonged periods of low solar activity during the last millennium such as the Oort, Wolf, Spörer, Maunder and Dalton minima, as well as the 17 115-year long oscillations found in a detailed temperature reconstruction of the Northern Hemisphere covering the last 2000 years. The millennial three-frequency beat cycle hindcasts equivalent solar and climate cycles for 12,000 years. Finally, the harmonic model herein proposed reconstructs the prolonged solar minima that occurred during 1900–1920 and 1960–1980 and the secular solar maxima around 1870–1890, 1940–1950 and 1995–2005 and a secular upward trending during the 20th century: this modulated trending agrees well with some solar proxy model, with the ACRIM TSI satellite composite and with the global surface temperature modulation since 1850. The model forecasts a new prolonged solar minimum during 2020–2045, which would be produced by the minima of both the 61 and 115-year reconstructed cycles. Finally, the model predicts that during low solar activity periods, the solar cycle length tends to be longer, as some researchers have claimed. These results clearly indicate that both solar and climate oscillations are linked to planetary motion and, furthermore, their timing can be reasonably hindcast and forecast for decades, centuries and millennia. The demonstrated geometrical synchronicity between solar and climate data patterns with the proposed solar/planetary harmonic model rebuts a major critique (by Smythe and Eddy, 1977) of the theory of planetary tidal influence on the Sun. Other qualitative discussions are added about the plausibility of a planetary influence on solar activity.
Link to paper: Scafetta_JStides
UPDATE 3/22/2012 – 1:15PM Dr. Scafetta responds in comments:
About the initial comment from Antony above,I believe that there are he might have misunderstood some part of the paper.
1)
I am not arguing from the barycentric point of view, which is false. In the paper I am talking
about tidal dynamics, a quite different approach. My argument
is based on the finding of my figure 2 and 3 that reveal the sunspot record
as made of three cycles (two tidal frequencies, on the side, plus a central
dynamo cycle). Then the model was developed and its hindcast
tests were discissed in the paper, etc.
{from Anthony – Note these references in your paper: Landscheidt, T.,1988.Solar rotation,impulses of the torque in sun’s motion, and
climate change. Climatic Change12,265–295.
Landscheidt, T.,1999.Extrema in sunspot cycle linked toSun’s motion. Solar
Physics 189,415–426.}
2)
There are numerous misconceptions since the beginning such as “Figure 9 looks to be interesting, but note that it is in generic units, not temperature, so has no predictive value by itself.”
It is a hindcast and prediction. There is no need to use specific units, but only dynamics. The units are interpreted correctly in the text of the paper as being approximately W/m^2 and as I say in the caption of the figure “However, the bottom curve approximately reproduces the patterns observed in the proxy solar models depicted in Fig. 5. The latter record may be considered as a realistic, although schematic, representation of solar dynamics.”
{from Anthony – if it isn’t using units of temperature, I fail to see how it can be of predictive value, there is not even any reference to warmer/cooler}
3) About Leif’s comments. It is important to realize that Solar physics is not “settled” physics. People do not even understand why the sun has a 11-year cycle (which is between the 10 and 12 year J/S tidal frequencies, as explained in my paper).
4)
The only argument advanced by Leif against my paper is that the phenomenon is his opinion was not observed in other stars. This is hardly surprising. We do not have accurate nor long records about other stars!
Moreover we need to observe the right thing, for example, even if you have a large planet very close to a star, the observable effect is associated to many things: how eccentric the orbits are and how big the star is, and its composition etc. Stars have a huge inertia to tidal effects and even if you have a planet large and close enough to the star to produce a theoretical 4,000,000 larger tidal effect, it does not means that the response from the star must be linear! Even simple elastic systems may be quite sensitive to small perturbations but become extremely rigid to large and rapid perturbations, etc.
It is evident that any study on planetary influence on a star needs to start from the sun, and then eventually extended to other star systems, but probably we need to wait several decades before having sufficiently long records about other stars!
In the case of the sun I needed at least a 200 year long sunspot record to
detect the three Schwabe cycles, and at least 1000 years of data for
hindcast tests to check the other frequencies. People can do the math for how long we need to wait for the other stars before having long enogh records.
Moreover, I believe that many readers have a typical misconception of physics.
In science a model has a physical basis when it is based on the observations
and the data and it is able to reconstruct, hindcast and/or forecast them.
It is evident to everybody reading my paper with an open mind that under the scientific
method, the model I proposed is “physically based” because I am
describing and reconstructing the dynamical properties of the data and I
showed that the model is able to hindcast millennia long data records.
Nobody even came close to these achievements.
To say otherwise would mean to reject everything in science and physics
because all findings and laws of physics are based on the observations and
the data and are tested on their capability of reconstruct, hindcast and/or
forecast observations, as I did in the paper
Of course, pointing out that I was not solving the problem using for example
plasma physics or quantum mechanics or whatever else. But this is a complex
exercise that needs its own time. As I correctly say in the paper.
“Further research should address the physical mechanisms necessary to
integrate planetary tides and solar dynamo physics for a more physically
based model.”
tallbloke says:
March 24, 2012 at 5:17 pm
This is a spurious argument for several reasons. Firstly, we can’t observe the surface of stars with mega planets closely enough to see what is happening, because they are many light years away.
Yes we can, here is a picture: http://jumk.de/astronomie/special-stars/hd-12545.shtml
Secondly, it’s the interaction of two or more planets which is affecting the Sun.
The star systems I’m talking about [see e.g. slide 19 at top of this article] have many planets.
Thirdly, Mega planets close to stars orbit very quickly, and so may not resonate within a suitable range with the parent body.
The lack of correlation is seen both for close-in and far-out planet systems. And Tidal effects are direct, not a resonance. But, apparently, you are making so ‘special pleading’ that the solar system is unique. This I don’t buy.
To Willis: There are many readers out there and lets not bore them whether
falsification has an inheritant value in itself…. we should leave it with this,
because most points have been said…..
To sum up: Scafettas road cleaning to new scientifc knowledge on climate is
the right direction and my humble booklet indicates the light at its end …..
Therefore, all staying on the sidelines and trying to falsify the direction with
arguments that there were too many difficulties and imponderabilities and all
efforts to advance are condemned to be futile: too many cycles, too
much underbrush, fuzzyness, rocks in the data….etc. pp. is not useful.
A useful constructive criticism would have been suggestions of getting
bigger road clearing equipment in, using some slash/ burn and swamp
crossing methods in particularly concerning the AGW swamp, pointing out
new road consolidation technology…….
instead of sipping coke, trying to falfify the direction and “already knowing”
that the road is a dead end anyway…..
Lets give it a couple more months by then the astronomic orbit cycle road
will be in better visibility and we can resume the argument with enhanced
knowledge….
And I believe we could agree on that…..cheers
JS
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 24, 2012 at 5:23 pm
Joachim Seifert says:
March 24, 2012 at 5:05 pm
To Willis: Fine, you claim that all your comments as [positive] constructive,
no matter in which direction the argument goes….
Let me try again to explain my position, which is not at all what you claim above.
I say it doesn’t matter in the slightest whether falsification is constructive or not. It’s still falsification.
I say I don’t care a bit whether someone falsifies one of my claims with a smile or with a snarl. If my claim is falsified, it’s falsified.
Science is about falsification, not about the manner or style of the falsification. That doesn’t matter one bit.
w.
=====
Except of course when you don’t understand that your claim has been falsified: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/12/argo-and-the-ocean-temperature-maximum/#comment-896997
They bring to the table what your education and experience is. It is common practice for scientists to have a webpage with their CV. Having these easily available on your webpage or at Stanford allows people to learn this information. It is not meant to be used in place of a scientific argument. Failure to provide this will limit the number of people who will listen to your arguments. It also comes across incorrectly that either you do not have the credentials or are intentionally hiding them. This is easily avoidable and unnecessary. If credentials did not matter then they would never be asked for when you applied for a job. Having these easily available eliminates unnecessary speculation and will keep the discussion on your arguments as you prefer.
adolfogiurfa says:
March 24, 2012 at 5:37 pm
If we were to live in a world run only by gravity, we would be living in a Flintstones
Actually, gravity is the ultimate cause of almost everything: the sun wouldn’t shine [and we wouldn’t be here] if the protosun had not been compressed to high temperature by gravity, there would be no solar activity if the sun didn’t have a convection zone [controlled by gravity], the solar wind would not be accelerated to supersonic speed without the influence of gravity [being slowly removed because of diminution with height – removing a constriction as in a deLaval nozzle].
Myrrh says:
March 24, 2012 at 6:11 pm
If my claim is falsified, it’s falsified.
Please provide a list of all your claims that have been falsified…
Actually Leif Svalgaard’s CVs from various sources were confusing to me – he was at Stanford for a decade publishing a lot long ago, then went for computer related jobs and almost disappeared from the scientific area, with almost no publications for a while. That was confusing, why leave an area, that from all accounts, he passionately likes. But on your comment that ”All of this appeal to ‘authority’ is not needed and should not be an important factor. My arguments must stand on their own merit”, there are so many people and so many opinions, it is difficult to pay attention to each and every opinion – so authority in the area helps for people to pay more attention.
I think Willis Eschenbach’s view (Science is an adversarial process that only works by disagreement. ) is rather unusual. Science consists of new discoveries, inventions, theories, knowledge, etc., which should be verifiable through actual experiments, thought experiments, etc. Other scientists try to verify them before building on it. But being adversarial and taking the responsibility to poke holes in someone’s theory are not a mainstream pattern – probably some would do that. Most often scientist try to build on other scientific advances rather than spending a disproportionate amount of time trying to see whether one can destroy that theory with all available means.
The mathematical connections of our solar system in particular the fibonacci series give no doubt that over arching rules govern the planetary position of orbits. This can only mean that they are all in some way controlled and connected or the maths would be all over the place.
To reject maths as astrology because it is applied to the heavens is very poor science, the sinodic nature of the long term climate record cannot be explained by the Earths tilt and wobble, nor the precession.
Some thing causes our long term climate fluctuations on a series of overlapping long and short term sine waves. Looking to the heavens to find the causes is prudent as it is harmonics and sine waves all the way down.
Nicola and others are searching, and mathematics and observations are the only weapons, this research may gain more than an insight into our long term climate, but may also find the answers to some of the mysteries that have eluded us about planetary mechanics.
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 24, 2012 at 6:34 pm
Myrrh says:
March 24, 2012 at 6:11 pm
If my claim is falsified, it’s falsified.
Please provide a list of all your claims that have been falsified…
==========
Myrrh didn’t say that.
This paper presents a mathematical formulation that is connected with the orbital parameters of the two most massive planets and with the sun’s intrinsic inertial properties. It seems to capture the behavior of solar activity in general on the millennial, centennial and even decadal scales, so it may be useful if it continues to make useful predictions. It is best to keep it simple for now, as Dr Scafetta has done.
Some tweaks suggest themselves. The equations do not exhibit the Gnevyshev-Ohl rule (odd cycles usually stronger than the succeeding even cycles). When it is desired to connect the mechanics behind these solar activity cycles with earth temperatures, temperature lag times and solar/lunar tidal effects will have to be considered.
In my opinion Dr Scafetta has bravely gone where no man has gone before (since Kepler) in publishing on solar activity as related to planetary orbital mechanics using modern mathematical analysis. He does this in the face of an entrenched establishment with vested interests in AGW and which really doesn’t want to know. It is hoped that others will join him.
Robert says:
“…being adversarial and taking the responsibility to poke holes in someone’s theory are not a mainstream pattern – probably some would do that. Most often scientist try to build on other scientific advances rather than spending a disproportionate amount of time trying to see whether one can destroy that theory with all available means.”
It is that way because the entrenched, ossified clique that does its best to control peer reviewed journals can make life hell for anyone questioning their opinions – even with good reason. For example:
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/upload/2009/08/how_to_publish_a_scientific_co/How%20to%20Publish%20a%20Comment.pdf
Would there be a better match in these cycles if the year was 360 days long from around 5,000 years back?
pochas says:
March 24, 2012 at 6:52 pm
In my opinion Dr Scafetta has bravely gone where no man has gone before (since Kepler) in publishing on solar activity as related to planetary orbital mechanics using modern mathematical analysis.
There are hundreds of papers that have gone there since Kepler…
He does this in the face of an entrenched establishment with vested interests in AGW and which really doesn’t want to know.
You have this completely backwards. Every solar physicist would wish there really were a viable connection between solar activity and climate/weather. It would do wonders for funding and support and prestige of the field. Hoyt & Schatten lists 1908 papers on this published between 1850 and 1992 alone.
I compiled what I could based on what was available,
Leif Svalgaard, Mag. Scient. [Ph.D.] Geophysics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (1968); Research Assistant, Danish Meteorological Institute, Denmark (1964-1967); Teaching Assistant, Institute for Numerical Analysis, Universtity of Copenhagen, Denmark (1964-1967); Observer, ‘Inge Lehmann’ Geomagnetic Observatory, Greenland (1967); System Programmer, Regnecentralen A/S, Denmark (1968-1971); Senior Research Physicist, Institute for Plasma Physics, Stanford University (1972-1978); U.S. Special Representative, Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection with the U.S.S.R. (1976); Chief Programmer, Lockheed (1979-1984); Developer, SEMA Group, Belgium (1984-1991); Chief Programmer, Quixx Corporation (1992-1993); Director of Development, T.O.S.C. International (1994-1998); Senior Developer, PentaSafe Security Technologies (1999-2000); Visiting Professor, Solar Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, University of Nagoya, Japan (2004); Member, International Astronomical Union; Member, Division II Commission 12 WG Coordination of Synoptic Observations of the Sun, International Astronomical Union; Member, Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel, NOAA, NASA, ISES (2006-Present); Team Member, Solar Observatories Group, Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory (HEPL), Stanford University (2009-Present)
I completely agree. To use an extreme example, I do not believe Leif would want his scientific opinion buried with those of the local plumber.
Smokey says:
March 24, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Robert says: “Most often scientist try to build on other scientific advances…”
One problem with the planetary stuff [including Scafetta’s papers] is and has always been that the claimants do not build on each other’s ‘advances’. Of course, they all claim that they are the only ones who have seen this or that, that their own papers are dynamite, and everybody else is a moron. Yeah, there is the usual lip service to the literature, but with no real substance. They have not seem farther because ‘they are standing on the shoulders of giants’ [to use Newton’s mocking phrase], but rather that they themselves are the giants, blazing a trail into a new field of science.
Robert says:
March 24, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Thanks, Robert. Actually my view is not unusual at all. It’s the standard view of science these days, and has been since it was proposed by Karl Popper. He pointed out that you can never prove anything, but only falsify something. Or as Einstein is supposed to have said,
And of course, for that to happen, someone has to disbelieve Einstein and design an experiment to prove his theory wrong … in other words, an adversarial process.
w.
Poptech says:
March 24, 2012 at 7:13 pm
To use an extreme example, I do not believe Leif would want his scientific opinion buried with those of the local plumber
If the local plumber has a good, cogent, valid, and significant comment, onion, or question then I would be proud to stand with him.
“If the local plumber has a good, cogent, valid, and significant comment, onion, or question then I would be proud to stand with him.”
Even opinion [‘onion’ was courtesy of the spellchecker 🙂 ]
@willis eschenbach. Unfortunately I find it difficult to agree with Popper. He attacked psychoanalysis saying it is not falsifiable . Thomas Kuhn said that falsification would make science impossible and science works as a sequence of paradigms, not based on falsification. John Gary made arguments that Evolution and Relativity would have suffered a sudden death if Popper’s falsification path was in effect for defining science – those theories were completely at odds with conventional wisdom and enough supporting evidence were not available for a while. etc. There are plenty of criticisms out there about Popper’s view.
I understand one experiment can show a theory is wrong. But I also think that, if we wait for that possibility, we cannot call anything to be science, since there is always a potential for a theory to be proven wrong.
Robert,
Popper was more interested in testability than falsifiability. A hypothesis must be testable. If it is not, it is simply conjecture.
@Smokey “It is that way because the entrenched, ossified clique that does its best to control peer reviewed journals can make life hell for anyone questioning their opinions – even with good reason. For example…….:”
There are many many journals out there, one can publish a new paper (not necessarily a comment) that shows the shortcomings (or errors) of another paper from another journal. I do not believe in the account from that professor, it is not that involved. Besides, one wrong paper is not going to change the foundation of a legitimate scientific theory. Such wrong papers will eventually be proven wrong. Linus Pauling, the powerful two time Nobel Laureate who had almost a total following in the American Chemical Society, used to make fun of Dan Shechtman on his work with quasi-crystals, saying that there are only quasi-scientists, not quasi-crystals. At the end, evidence mounted to show that Pauling was wrong and Shechtman was correct – and Shechtman got his Nobel Prize last year in Chemistry – in Pauling’s own discipline. No matter how powerful one person is opposing a true scientific discovery, eventually true science will prevail itself with mounting evidence.
Smokey says:
March 24, 2012 at 8:16 pm
A hypothesis must be testable. If it is not, it is simply conjecture.
Just waiting around to add a few more data points to the correlation is not really a test. A real test would be to see how the hypothesis fares if applied to systems other than the one hinting at the correlation. For Scafetta’s tidal hypothesis that would be to check other planetary systems with widely varying properties and see how they support the hypothesis. The special pleading that the solar system is somehow unique or unusual is simply to avoid the test.
Leif Svalgaard (March 24, 2012 at 8:26 pm):
To be more specific, to test Dr. Scafetta’s conjecture, one would need observed events. Scafetta’s events cannot be observed because he has yet tell us what they are.
@smokey, “Robert, Popper was more interested in testability than falsifiability. A hypothesis must be testable. If it is not, it is simply conjecture.”
No, I believe he was into falsifiability as Willis Eschenbach wrote earlier – I am fairly sure on that. Please check.
@Ranger Joe:
Lief’s complaint is that total solar output doesn’t change enough to be the cause (and he is right).
OTOH, the spectrum shifts something awful and the UV plunges (that causes odd things to happen high in the air where that UV was being absorbed, and the atmospheric height shortens). Then there are all the other effects you observed. ( I’ve been plagued by some electronic daemons too…)
There is the argument that gravity acts uniformly on all the mass of the sun, so orbiting planets can’t do anything much (which is true) other than raising trivial tides.
Yet the whole sun wobbles and when you have a wobbling bucket of fluid, I have to suspect that “things change”…
Then there’s that annoying bit about angular momentum. An ‘odd bit’ about angular momentum is that the further away the object is from the center of rotation, the more angular momentum there is. So while the sun has most of the mass, most of the angular momentum is in the outer planets.
At this point things go a bit flaky. My physics ability is not up to sorting it out (or, rather, my sloth is too high to put in the effort and I’ve never really liked angular momentum problems…) The assertion is that somehow angular momentum changes cause a disruption of the flows inside the solar mass as the center of rotation moves inside, vs outside, of the surface. I suspect that the conservation of AM is going to interact with the change of rotation point, but at the same time understand that the whole solar mass is influenced by the combined gravity, so ought not to react.
At the sub atomic level, we have “spin orbital coupling” and it seems to me that it ought to also happen at the macro scale (and if it does, would cause solar spin to change with AM changes which would be enough to change solar dynamics) yet I’ve not found any decent reference for a macro level spin orbital coupling. So at this point we reach the end of where my investigation took me (where my interest level dropped below the work needed to go forward).
Because folks tend to sort into the “It Can’t – see the gravity and tidal limits” vs the “It must, see the wiggle matches and angular momentum changes” with both sides not bothering to see the other side, nor “do the math” to prove no AM spin orbital couple: it results in a lot of bickering and little wisdom.
Folks get tired of the bickering, so that’s why the topic gets shelved. It gets old…
Frankly, while I find the cyclomania / wiggle match compelling, I’m stuck on an inability to see any physical mechanism by which angular momentum gets turned into spin coupling and thus solar diameter changes. (There have been observations of solar diameter changes). Perhaps it is, as Lief says, simply one way outbound, and the solar variations drive the other changes that end up in a harmonic relationship after a few billion years of nudges.
Unfortunately, solving the “Three Body Problem” is incredibly hard and even then often called a ‘restricted three body problem’. Make it 4, 8, or even 9 planets 😉 and it’s effectively impossible. Toss in the Trojan Asteroids, Oort cloud, and KBOs and it’s just pointless.
The solar system does what it does, and we don’t know why. But it’s worth looking…
Yes, yes I understand this but you are missing my point. It is not possible to listen to everyone’s argument so credentials are used to filter through arguments to ones more likely to be correct. If credentials are not presented or found then those arguments are more likely to be filtered out before being considered.