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.”
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Mr Tall Bloke,
I saw your post only now. First of all, I have tremendous respect for your stand on the climate debate and admire your courage for bearing under pressure when recently confronted unfairly by the authorities. I truly have no That I will not take away. However, I’m saddened to think that you have interpreted my critiques as a personal attack. This was not my intent, and if I appear somewhere to have done so, I will readily clarify and if wrong, apologize.
My critique is limited to two posts of yours. I can only take such discussions as these as philosophies of science, methodology and issues on the ways of knowing. I believe that there divisions between science and pseudoscience and that they are often clear. I don’t imagine many are impressed with my lack of technical knowledge or understanding of the physical sciences, but layman, even a not-too-bright layman such as myself, still needs to be able to navigate through the various disciplines and is entitled to express objections on issues of philosophy. I note, as well, that while you have objected to my criticism and called for my snipping, you have not bothered to state a position on the substance of my critique.
Bart
The point is Jupiter is external to the Sun-Ea-Ve system so when Ju is accelerating Ea and Ve the rotation of the Sun-Ea-Ve system changes and thereby the rotation of the Sun.
tallbloke says:
March 25, 2012 at 7:19 am
tallbloke, you really don’t understand the concept of curve fitting with free parameters. Any fool can fit two cycles of a cyclical phenomenon with five free parameters, which is all that vukcevic has done. It is a trivial exercise, and thus meaningless. Even the form of his equation is a joke, viz:
“t – 1940.5 -3”?? Why not "t – 1937.5"? In addition, he appears to be missing parentheses on the right, the term presumably should be
Also, what does the " ± " in front of the equation mean?
Once you simplify all of his complexities, and ignoring the ” ± “,you get:
For matching a mere two cycles of a cyclical phenomenon, using five tunable parameters and free choice of equations, that’s shooting fish in a barrel.
I begin to despair of you ever seeing through bozo-simple parameter fitting, tallbloke. What Vukcevic has done is a mathematical joke, and you are the one with the bullet hole through your foot.
w.
@terry Oldberg (March 25, 2012 at 11:57) “To pass this off as a mere semantic problem is to trivialize a linguistically borne subterfuge with consequences that may include the permanent loss of 100 trillion U.S. dollars in capital.”
How one wants to respond to the projections or predictions is a different issue, I think. I do not think the content is going to be any different for any practical purpose whether we use prediction or projection. I am really fascinated by the objection (I have seen this somewhere else, although I never paid much attention at that time) that we cannot even define an average surface temperature since earth’s atmosphere is not in equilibrium. But looking at your detailed explanation of the difference between prediction and projection (and some professor from UPenn, I believe, said, it is actually a forecast), do you have any reference for that – would be interesting to read the semantic explanation they give.
Robert ( March 25, 2012 at 1:02 ):
It sounds as though you are thinking of the paper by Green, Armstrong and Soon. The URL is http://kestencgreen.com/gas-2009-validity.pdf .
@ur momisugly Peter Kovachev
Well said. As soon as I read something like: “At least they didn’t put him under house arrest to make sure he couldn’t spread his heresy like the Catholic Cardinals did with Galileo” I know I’m reading tosh. Galileo was never convicted of heresy; the Inquisition’s finding was that he was “vehemently suspected of heresy”. If Galileo had been seriously suspected of heresy, he would have been tortured prior to the trial, as would the publisher of his book who like Galileo remained untortured. It’s also significant that Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems had been approved by the Inquisition prior to the controversy. This approval was dependent on certain changes that Galileo had dutifully implemented.
Galileo’s trial was intended to demonstrate that Galileo had erred in ridiculing the pope in his book (which had remained unnoticed by the Inquisition and the Pope), and in his vicious attack on Fr Grassi for observing that comets moved between the sun and the planets (G. maintained they were atmospheric phenomena). Hitherto, the Jesuits had supported Galileo against the enemies he was rather insistent on making. Both Pope Urban and Cardinal Bellarmine were friends of Galileo and he was widely admired for his sermons and piety.
So, whenever I read about Galileo the Heretic I know I can reasonably assume the rest of what is written is probably also balderdash.
Terry Oldberg says:
March 25, 2012 at 11:17 am
Terry, having read a bunch of your claims about “projection” and “prediction”, I find I must object. “Projection” was used to mean a forecast before there was even a field called ensemble forecasting. Fifty years ago people were saying things like “Our projections for next years profits are that they will exceed this years profits by 25%” and the like. Your claim about “ensemble forecasting” simply won’t wash.
I find your insistence that we perforce must agree to your highly idiosyncratic definitions to be curious. As far as the way the terms are ACTUALLY USED, both in and out of science, there is no significant difference between a projection, a prediction, and a forecast. Here’s some scientific uses of “projection”, from the titles of scientific papers:
I could find hundreds more, but I’m sure you see the problem. They are all using “projection” to mean “forecast of the future”.
All three words, projection, prediction, and forecast, mean essentially the same thing—using what we know to make an informed guess about the future. And while there are slight differences in meaning, generally they are used interchangeably, both in and out of science.
For example, if I look at the way that interest rates have gone in the past and I say that interest rates are going to fall next year, is that a prediction, a forecast, or a projection? Ask ten people and you’ll get ten answers. I say it’s any of them.
So I find your continued insistence on your particular definitions of the words to be running in the face of how they are actually used, either in science or out.. You may certainly claim that the words should be used the way you say …
… but they aren’t, they are used pretty much interchangeably, and you’re gonna have to get used to that.
w.
Willis Eschenbach (March 25, 2012 at 1:30 pm):
You seem to think this is a semantic problem but it is a logical problem.
To understand what this is about, assume that there are two different ideas. Lets label one of these ideas by the made-up term “XXX” and the other by the made-up term “YYY.” If XXX and YYY are used as synonyms Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction is negated. Aristotle’s law is a true proposition. The negation of Aristotle’s law is a false proposition. Through the use of the negation of Aristotle’s law as a false proposition to a specious argument, one can lead one’s dupes to believe that a conclusion to an argument is true when this conclusion is false is unproved.
It is by this subterfuge that the IPCC has led its dupes to the conclusion of CAGW. This can be seen if and only if the terminology that is used in discussing this phenomenon is disambiguated. It can be disambiguated, for example, by implementing a policy in which XXX references one of the two ideas and YYY references the other. By your recent remarks you have in effect refused to abide by this policy thus supporting the IPCC’s subterfuge. I don’t think this is what you want to do.
If you wish to follow up, please carefully read the article at http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/15/the-principles-of-reasoning-part-iii-logic-and-climatology/ plus all of my postings in this thread. If after doing this reading you remain unclear about what it is that is at issue or dubious about my conclusion perhaps I can help you.
@smokey,
No, I do not publish papers in AGW or any environmental area -thank God for that. Also, if I happen to be in one of those areas, I would have moved out quickly. Too many people taking it upon themselves to poke holes, rather than working together constructively, with this extreme view that science to be science has to be adversarial by necessity. One can do a lot more constructive work with that time than getting bogged down with responding to all those criticisms, most of which are trivial, some of them even goes into the political realm. But in my own area, if I find something is wrong in someone’s work, I might contact him/her to tell him/her first about it – and I might make a reference on the misgivings of that paper when I refer to it in my next paper, if that mistake was critical. The rest of the scientific community can make their own decision – all those people in science are not stupid, those scientists working in that particular area are at least as capable and knowledgeable as me and most bloggers digging into that area – they can and they will eventually figure out such mistakes when they use that mistaken theory for their work, so I find it to be a misuse of time to write to an editor to get a critical comment in the journal. In summary, I have difficulty in understanding what that professor from georgia tech is saying, it seems to me an exaggeration. It is to the interest of the author to make sure that everything is correct, knowing that publishing a mistaken paper is a disaster for one’s reputation in the long run. In climate science, I guess everyone is so used to such harsh criticisms from both sides, nothing new, but sometime in the future one side is going to win and the scientists in that side will gain reputation. The other side, and their members will look silly. So, I think it is to the interest of the scientist to be honest to himself/herself when they write such publications, because most scientists value their work. Bloggers do not have such a risk on their reputation.
Oh, right, I forgot the code for the simplification of Vukcevic’s equation. This one is in Mathematica, not R;
In[14]:= x = A (Cos[Pi/3 + 2 Pi (t - 1940.5 - 3)/(2*11.862)] + Cos[2 Pi (t - 1940.5 - 3)/19.859]) Out[14]= -152 (Cos[0.316 (-1.94*10^3 + t)] + Sin[Pi/6 - 0.265 (-1.94*10^3 + t)]) In[2]:= A = -152 Out[2]= -152 In[15]:= Simplify[x] Out[15]= -152 (Cos[615. - 0.316 t] + Cos[514. - 0.265 t])w.
Robert says:
March 25, 2012 at 1:38 pm
You are right that anonymous blog commenters such as yourself have no risk at all.
I, on the other hand, have all of the risk that any scientist has when I put my name to a post about some scientific ideas. In some ways it is a greater risk, because if I fall my fall is much more public than some paper in some obscure journal.
So it is greatly in my interest to be as scrupulously honest as I can, and I do so.
w.
Terry Oldberg said @ur momisugly March 25, 2012 at 8:25 am
For differing opinions, you might want to read:
Popper, falsifiability, and evolutionary biology by David N. Stamos in Biology and Philosophy Volume 11, Number 2, 161-191, DOI: 10.1007/BF00128918
Falsifiability of theories in the biological sciences by MCM Iqbal in Ceylon Journal of Science (Biological Sciences) doi: 10.4038/cjsbs.v36i2.487
Are ecological and evolutionary theories scientific? by Murray BG Jr. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2001 May;76(2):255-89. PMID:11396849
Peter Kovachev says:
March 25, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Mr Tall Bloke,
I’m saddened to think that you have interpreted my critiques as a personal attack. This was not my intent, and if I appear somewhere to have done so, I will readily clarify and if wrong, apologize.
Thank you.
I believe that there divisions between science and pseudoscience and that they are often clear. .. I note, as well, that while you have objected to my criticism and called for my snipping, you have not bothered to state a position on the substance of my critique.
On the first point, I note that Nicola Scafetta has provided a model based on known planetary frequencies, which does quite a good job – as Anthony puts it, of fitting to the reconstructed climate data going back thousands of years. We will see how it pans out going forward. In the meantime, maybe you should call on the master of dynamology to also provide a model, based on his understanding of the processes inside the Sun, that can perform a similar feat. If you read back in the thread, and elsewhere, you’ll find that he claims that the 10.8 year component and the ~122 year harmonic are internal to the Sun, and these control the dynamo, and the 9.93 year and 11.86 year sideband frequencies arise as a necessary result of these fundamental periods. In other words, he proposes an identical model to Nicola Scafetta’s, but claims that the 9.93 year component and the 11.86 year component only happen to match the tidal period of Jupiter and Saturn and Jupiters orbital period by pure coincidence.
When he flippantly referred to my point above that 10.8 years is another Jupiter Saturn related number which is the product of the Jupiter-Saturn Synodic period and the ratio of their distances from the Sun, as “numerology”, it became clear to me that he understands so little about solar system dynamics that he is now calling Copernicus and Kepler numerologists.
So much for pseudo-science. The Dynamologists have offered no model which accounts for the 1.3 year countervailing speeding and slowing of the two layers near the solar tachocline, and can’t predict solar activity or hindcast it with any model dynamo.
There are undoubtedly strong electromagnetic forces at work in the Sun, and in my view there is little doubt that they are modulated by the Solar System as a whole, shot through as it is with interconnected harmonic relationships such as those outlined in the post you visited on my site.
Which brings me to your second point, asking for a critique of your assessment of me, my site and the people who contribute to it.
I am not the thought police, and so I have no idea which contributor to my site you have discovered to have an interest in UFO’s, and I don’t want to know either. I’m merely grateful that they don’t propound any such views when they are at my place. We do like to have a laugh though, so I might ask for a ‘hands up’ when I go back over there this evening.
So, onto your preamble and your ‘three points’
three things…apart from the hopefully tongue-in-cheek “music of the spheres bit… struck me as worrisome.
The music of the sphere’s was written by Kepler. See further down the comment from Roger Andrews. Blimey, I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.
“Nooooo-one epects the Spanish Inquisition! You are accused of heresy on two counts:”
First, the straw man argument which claims that potential critics of “coherent organized system” view the Solar system as a “collection of randomly placed masses.”
It’s implicit in the view that the planets were simply following the paths they were formed in at the birth of the solar system, then perturbed by each other gravitational forces.
The second is the claim that our Solar system is a “coherent organised system.” This strikes me as a statement based on faith rather than objective observation.
It’s implicit in the fact that the planets exhibit the harmonic relationships outlined in my post you visited despite the chaotic perturbations they have undergone during the evolution of the system. If they were not participating in controlling feedback mechanisms, there is no way they could be in such a harmonic arrangement. I don’t expect anyone to understand this on the spur of the moment, but some deep reflection will hopefully allow others to see that it is true. You’d have to read a lot more of the published literature on the many body problem, cybernetic control loops and chaos theory before you would see it maybe.
Three counts! Three counts of heresy you are accused of!
Thirdly, I’m uncomfortable about Tall Bloke’s seemingly reflexive defense of contrarian or alternate sciences. … I’m curious on what basis he includes or excludes certain ideas from the margins of established science.
I use something called my own judgement. I often allow posts which express views I don’t myself agree with, if there promises to be a useful debate. The current one by Doug Cotton being a case in point. ‘Alternate sciences’: Planetology – yes. Electric Universe – occasionally. UFO’s – no. My website is more adventurous and less afraid of ridicule than most, and we don’t mind getting speculative and kicking new ideas around. We don’t in general ‘make claims’, until we’re sure of something. In the present discussions, we are sure the planets are modulating solar activity, but we don’t yet know which or how many of the possible the physical mechanisms are doing what. It’s a new area of study, and we’re getting a lot of fun and interest working on it. Some troubadour-provocateurs like Adolfo like to throw curve balls into the ring. That’s fine, and all part of the banter that goes on amidst the more serious attempts to discover new and interesting things about the solar system and how it ticks.
Once again I worry about CAGW skepticism reaching beyond its aims and getting dragged down by opportunistic pseudoscientists. Just a thought.
Don’t you worry your eminence, I’ll keep an eye on them. 😉
And another thought about Popperian falsifiability from Elliott Sober’s Philosophy of Biology (1993)
Note that I quote from Sober because I do not yet own a copy of Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery. I would not recommend Sober’s book as a general introduction to philosophy of biology since it is focussed on evolutionary theory, rather than general biological issues. Better is Sterelny & Griffiths’ Sex and Death (1999). The physical resemblance between Kim Sterelny and the Git is purely coincidental and not to be construed.
The Pompous Git (March 25, 2012 at 2:31 pm ):
To cite the ideas of Popper in an argument against falsifiability as the criterion that discriminates scientific from dogmatic assertions makes Popper the strawman in a strawman argument. In modern information theory, falsifiability is preserved by a strategy that focuses on the limiting relative frequency of events. The limiting relative frequency of events of a particular kind (e.g., events in which “heads” is the outcome) is the relative frequency of these events in the limit of observations of infinite number. The model does not assert that the limiting relative frequency has a point value such as 0.5 but rather that it has a particular probability density function. This assertion is falsifiable.
tallbloke says:
March 25, 2012 at 12:00 pm
“You and others here just blithely walk past these cycles as if they don;t exist.”
Firstly, I want to second Peter’s thought:
Also, you have kindly posted some of my inputs on your site and I do appreciate it. But, on the cycles… there are really infinitely many cyclical processes going on in the universe, but that does not mean those with the same or nearly the same period have anything to do with one another. I have tried to point out that the possible linkages through gravitational effects are exceedingly small. I do not believe there is any possibility of a connection there. Even the possibility of a resonance response fails for me because I have concluded that resonance would be primarily driven by more powerful effectively random forcing, not the tiny gravitational effects.The only way out I see left is the possibility of modulation, e.g., that the celestial variations in position and aspect could modulate cosmic ray forcings or some such. But, the likelihood of that appears small to me.
I think few people here have the experience I do of routinely observing the oscillations of randomly driven characteristic modes of systems described by partial differential equations constrained at the boundaries. I routinely design control loops which interact with flexible structures. These high Q resonances can interact with my control system and can cause it to exhibit undesirable limit cycles or even spiral out of control if I do not make sure that they get attenuated or adequately phase shifted within the loop. To me, it is completely unremarkable that a natural system should exhibit characteristic oscillations which can appear very coherent over several cycles but exhibit random amplitude and phase modulation over the long term. I see it practically every day.
This is so commonplace that I feel confident in asserting that there is most likely an oscillatory mode of the Earth’s ocean/land/atmospheric system which resonates with an associated period of ~60 years, and is driven by random forcing.
lgl says:
March 25, 2012 at 12:54 pm
These things are not magic. There has to be a cause and effect relationship. If there is no significant bulge or inhomogeneity of the Sun, then there is no classical avenue for spin/orbit coupling. Even if there were, the only possible forcing is from tidal acceleration, and tidal acceleration at the Sun from Jupiter et al. is, as I have shown, very small, being more than 3 orders of magnitude less than the tidal acceleration at the Earth due to its moon. Given the much greater gravitational attraction of the Sun at the photosphere compared to Earth’s gravity at its surface (by a factor of about 28), tidal effects on the Sun from the outer planets are negligible.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 25, 2012 at 1:00 pm
“tallbloke, you really don’t understand the concept of curve fitting with free parameters. Any fool can fit two cycles of a cyclical phenomenon with five free parameters, which is all that vukcevic has done.”
Try fitting two cycles of a sinusoid with however many even-powered polynomial terms and tell me that. To get a good fit, your functional basis must adequately span the space of the image of your function. And, given the ubiquity of sinusoidal processes in nature, there are good reasons to employ a functional base of sinusoids.
You are overreaching. It suffices to say that fitting the curve and finding periods which are similar to those found elsewhere does not necessarily, or even generally, causally connect the two processes.
Martin Lewitt says:
March 25, 2012 at 3:31 am
I agree completely, Martin. But the shoe is on the other foot.
It is not my job to falsify a bimodal distribution. It is Scafetta’s job to falsify the null hypothesis, which is a normal distribution.
Finally, he makes much of the gap in the distribution from 10.5 years to 11 or so. But no such gap exists in the length of the cycles of the maxima.
w.
Bart says:
March 25, 2012 at 2:32 pm
+10
In addition to natural oscillatory modes, you also highlight an important issue. Cycles come up and look to be very real … until you try to use them to predict the future. Then you find that they are dying out and being replaced by a different cycle with a different phase and frequency, or that the frequency is the same but the phase has totally changed, or …
w.
Bart says:
March 25, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Thanks, Bart. You may have missed the part where I said (emphasis added):
Given free choice, of course I’ll use sine waves to fit a cyclical function. Why wouldn’t I? But beyond that, I can use one or more sine waves, I can add or multiply them, there’s no limit, I have free choice of any equations I like to fit the two measly cycles … easy money.
It’s a curse. I’m working on it.
Couldn’t agree more, particularly when you’re only trying to fit two cycles. Yet tallbloke finds it highly significant, enough to say that it shows that Leif has shot himself in the foot. Someone’s overreaching …
In any case, for me it was interesting to see that Vukcevic’s formula reduces to
Amplitude * ( Sin( Phase1 + t * Frequency1 ) + Sin( Phase2 + t * Frequency2 ) )
It clarified exactly what he is doing.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 25, 2012 at 2:42 pm
“Cycles come up and look to be very real … until you try to use them to predict the future.”
Yes, and no. The coherence of such a process is tied to how quickly energy is incoming to, and how quickly energy can dissipate from, the mode. As long as those fluxes are fairly steady, and they often are, then successful predictions can be made using tools such as the Kalman Filter. A very high Q oscillatory mode will generally maintain substantial coherence over many cycles, and such systems can be adequately projected forward for fairly long timelines using simple techniques such as curve fitting of steady state sinusoids.
Anyway, I’ve said all I can really say here. The points I have tried to make are:
1) it is unlikely that there is a causal connection between the motion of the outer planets and solar cycles affecting the climate of the Earth. There is no plausible connection with inter-gravitational phenomena. I think it is possible that there could be a correlation tracing back to the birth of the solar system, or a modulation effect due to cosmic rays, but there appears to be little basis to believe in either at this time.
2) There is a ~60 year quasi-cyclical component in the global average temperature metric (GATM). We are almost surely currently facing a 20-30 year decline in the GATM.
3) Such quasi-cyclical behavior could easily be the effect of a resonance in the Earth’s ocean/land/atmospheric system.
I think Dr. Scafetta is right about the Earth’s near term climate future, but for the wrong reasons, and I look forward to seeing how his predictions for the future pan out.
Willis Eschenbach says: “I, on the other hand, have all of the risk that any scientist has when I put my name to a post about some scientific ideas. In some ways it is a greater risk, because if I fall my fall is much more public than some paper in some obscure journal.”
Bloggers write their opinions usually, they do not publish their original research in blogs. So, they are not held to the same standards as scientists going through the review process to publish papers that are permanently available. In case AGE turns out to be true, this entire blog and content can be deleted – Tamino might do the same if his/her side turns out be wrong. That is not possible with a published paper, so the risk and responsibility is lower for bloggers. If your nature paper is shown to be wrong, then you have a problem.
But you are correct, you have a higher risk than anonymous posters. And I should stop posting here, since I do not know much about climate science and have no particular interest in learning it like you, carefully reading all such papers like the one by Scafetta.
@terry Oldberg, Yes, that is the paper – by Armstrong. Thank you! I had a feeling I read something like that long ago.
Bart says:
March 25, 2012 at 2:32 pm
tallbloke says:
March 25, 2012 at 12:00 pm
“You and others here just blithely walk past these cycles as if they don;t exist.”
Firstly, I want to second Peter’s thought:
I have tremendous respect for your stand on the climate debate and admire your courage for bearing under pressure when recently confronted unfairly by the authorities.
Also, you have kindly posted some of my inputs on your site and I do appreciate it. But, on the cycles… there are really infinitely many cyclical processes going on in the universe, but that does not mean those with the same or nearly the same period have anything to do with one another.
Bart: Thanks for the kind words and I hope you’ll contribute more in the future too.
I do understand what you are saying, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d take a look at the post anyway, because the 45 year and associated harmonic periodicities are fundamental to the entire solar system scheme. The 45 year beach ridges are extra high every 360 years, and even higher every ~500 years. These beach ridges go back thousands of years with regularity on the evenly glacially rebounding substrate. This is not an centenially appearing and disappearing 3 x 60 year PDO/AMO flash in the pan. Please take the time to read the text accompanying this image: http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/oliver-page252.jpg
Willis Eschenbach says: “You are right that anonymous blog commenters such as yourself have no risk at all. I, on the other hand, have all of the risk that any scientist has when I put my name to a post about some scientific ideas. In some ways it is a greater risk, because if I fall my fall is much more public than some paper in some obscure journal. So it is greatly in my interest to be as scrupulously honest as I can, and I do so. ”
Since bloggers are generally expressing their opinion mainly based on other original research, the risk is pretty minimum. We do not hold them responsible for their opinions to same level. If you publish original research, go through the review process, and get a published paper that will be cited over and over again on how wrong the prediction was, then that is a different matter. In other words, if your nature paper is wrong, then you have problems. Such publications are permanent while blogs can be deleted or removed at a later date.
Terry Oldberg says:
March 25, 2012 at 3:24 pm
My friend, with all due respect, I fear that makes no sense at all. Please restate it with actual ideas. When I try that, I suppose that idea XXXX is “mammals”, and idea YYYY is “creatures with hair who lactate and give birth to live young”.
You say that if I use those two ideas as synonyms, that “Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction is negated”.
Huh?
There are so many assumptions in that sentence I’m not sure where to start. The “IPCC” doesn’t lead anything, it just issues reports full of hand-waving and unfalsifiable claims. Who are the “dupes” of the IPCC? How did it “dupe” them? What “subterfuge” are you talking about? Did someone clandestinely break Aristotle’s Law and not get arrested for it? How do you distinguish CAGW from AGW?
“Implementing a policy”? Who is doing the “implementing”? Who will enforce the policy? What will be the consequences of violating such a policy?
So I’m guilty of “refusing to abide” by some policy that I didn’t know existed, put in place by … someone, somewhere? I suppose that next you’re going to tell me “Ignorance of the policy is no excuse, citizen!”.
I thought you were the logician. How can I possibly “refuse to abide by” (a conscious act) some vague policy I’ve never heard of?
I went over and tried to read your paper at Judiths, which is my second attempt to scale that particular mountain. I tried before when you first posted it. I failed to attain the summit both times. I lost the trail to the top, it was so shrouded in a fog of philosophy and you spent so much time disambiguating one trail from another that I ended up totally ambiguated myself.
If you are willing to give me the elevator speech about why calling a forecast a prediction is a serious violation of some policy, bring it on, I’m interested in the underlying thoughts. But not more than three or four paragraphs that clearly lay out the issues and ideas. I’m more than willing to listen to that, the length of a speech you can give in an average elevator ride. If you can’t pack your ideas up like that, if you can’t give the elevator speech for your own ideas, you’ll find it very hard to get much traction in this world.
Because I fear I just can’t wade through your incredibly convoluted prose. Perhaps that kind of thing convinces professors. It doesn’t work for me at all.
In friendship,
w.
[SNIP: Terry, please address the thread topic and refrain from abusing other commenters. -REP]
Robert says:
March 25, 2012 at 3:33 pm
I see the problem. You think I was talking about bloggers in general, but if you re-read the part you have quoted, you’ll see I did not discuss bloggers at all. I was comparing an anonymous commenter with my own personal position.
I have published and continue to publish a host of original research here at WUWT. I’ve also published a couple of pieces directly in the journals. Finally, a couple of pieces I first published on WUWT have subsequently appeared in peer-reviewed journals. I do not see the journals and the web in opposition, but as complementary. The web is a marvelous place to expose new ideas, because of the immediacy of the feedback and sometimes falsification. I’ve been totally blown out of the water on some posts, and it wasn’t pretty, I hate being wrong as much as the next man.
But that’s how science moves forwards and how I learn, through my mistakes. They all have been totally visible, no hiding up in some ivory tower protected by tenure. I put my scientific ideas on the public chopping block and hand around the axes. Don’t you think I’d rather be wrong in some obscure journal? But then I’d never get the feedback, I’d never learn a thing.
I’m not interested in how I will look to history. I’m interested in affecting the current scientific discussion and debate. I would strongly argue that the real climate science discussion has moved from the journals to the responsible science blogs. The journals still do what they always did. But the issues are hammered out on the blogs.
I let the grandkids worry about the future, I want to be a force in the present.
Best regards,
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 25, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Terry Oldberg says:
March 25, 2012 at 11:17 am
… “Projection” is a term from the field of ensemble forecasting.
Terry, having read a bunch of your claims about “projection” and “prediction”, I find I must object. “Projection” was used to mean a forecast before there was even a field called ensemble forecasting. Fifty years ago people were saying things like “Our projections for next years profits are that they will exceed this years profits by 25%” and the like. Your claim about “ensemble forecasting” simply won’t wash.
I find your insistence that we perforce must agree to your highly idiosyncratic definitions to be curious. As far as the way the terms are ACTUALLY USED, both in and out of science, there is no significant difference between a projection, a prediction, and a forecast. Here’s some scientific uses of “projection”, from the titles of scientific papers: …
I could find hundreds more, but I’m sure you see the problem. They are all using “projection” to mean “forecast of the future”.
All three words, projection, prediction, and forecast, mean essentially the same thing—using what we know to make an informed guess about the future. And while there are slight differences in meaning, generally they are used interchangeably, both in and out of science.
For example, if I look at the way that interest rates have gone in the past and I say that interest rates are going to fall next year, is that a prediction, a forecast, or a projection? Ask ten people and you’ll get ten answers. I say it’s any of them.
So I find your continued insistence on your particular definitions of the words to be running in the face of how they are actually used, either in science or out.. You may certainly claim that the words should be used the way you say …
… but they aren’t, they are used pretty much interchangeably, and you’re gonna have to get used to that.
===================
You’re assuming they’re being used interchangeably…
http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/files/WarmAudit31.pdf
GLOBAL WARMING: FORECASTS BY SCIENTISTS
VERSUS SCIENTIFIC FORECASTS
by
Kesten C. Green and J. Scott Armstrong
ABSTRACT
“In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group One, a
panel of experts established by the World Meteorological Organization and the
United Nations Environment Programme, issued its Fourth Assessment Report.
The Report included predictions of dramatic increases in average world
temperatures over the next 92 years and serious harm resulting from the predicted
temperature increases. Using forecasting principles as our guide we asked: Are
these forecasts a good basis for developing public policy? Our answer is “no”.
To provide forecasts of climate change that are useful for policy-making, one
would need to forecast (1) global temperature, (2) the effects of any temperature
changes, and (3) the effects of feasible alternative policies. Proper forecasts of all
three are necessary for rational policy making.
The IPCC WG1 Report was regarded as providing the most credible long-term
forecasts of global average temperatures by 31 of the 51 scientists and others involved
in forecasting climate change who responded to our survey. We found no references
in the 1056-page Report to the primary sources of information on forecasting methods
despite the fact these are conveniently available in books, articles, and websites. We
audited the forecasting processes described in Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report
to assess the extent to which they complied with forecasting principles. We found
enough information to make judgments on 89 out of a total of 140 forecasting
principles. The forecasting procedures that were described violated 72 principles.
Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical.
The forecasts in the Report were not the outcome of scientific procedures. In
effect, they were the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and
obscured by complex writing. Research on forecasting has shown that experts’
predictions are not useful in situations involving uncertainly and complexity. We
have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts of global warming. Claims that
the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.”
When the IPCC stops saying that its modelling is “scientific” and can give probabilities/possibilities of 100% which it says is prediction justifying the models’ claim that AGW is real and trillions of dollars of taxpayers money well spent and restrictions on personal freedoms required because of it, then they can use the word in any general way they want.
I’m sick of excuses being made for them by snivelling arguments that claim the IPCC ‘doesn’t make predictions but projections’, or as you’ve given above variation. The IPCC AGW claim is the SCIENCE IS SETTLED and they’ve been shouting it loudly for the last two decades while consistently failing to provide one shred of science rationale to back up their claims. How does Carbon Dioxide heat the Earth? How are these models the scientific proof on which their claims are made?
Until they are held accountable for this gross misappropriation of accepted science terms in promoting their models as real science and in claiming their fictional fisics is real world physics, then they will continue to deliberately and with malice aforethought con the population and dumb down the education of same.
From: http://www.ipcc-data.org/ddc_definitions.html
Definition of Terms Used Within the DDC Pages
“Projection
The term “projection” is used in two senses in the climate change literature. In general usage, a projection can be regarded as any description of the future and the pathway leading to it. However, a more specific interpretation has been attached to the term “climate projection” by the IPCC when referring to model-derived estimates of future climate.
Forecast/Prediction
When a projection is branded “most likely” it becomes a forecast or prediction. A forecast is often obtained using deterministic models, possibly a set of these, outputs of which can enable some level of confidence to be attached to projections.”
Meaningless drivel excusing the methods of these claims and dismissing those pointing out the real manipulations in these claims is a very great part of the problem – scientific gravity is what is required here because they are making predictions claiming it is science.
And they are believed because of this specific claim.