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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My first impression on this was that I can see return of medieval astrology – depending on which zodiacal sign which planet occupies, good or bad things will happen.
But now I want to be a bit more serious.
No, I don’t think Jupiter or Saturn can have any significant influence on Sun cycles. I just don’t see any way they could have any non-negligible influence there, considering the amplitude of their tidal forces compared with how violent and largely chaotic processes does the sun produce itself. Similarity between sun cycle length and Jupiter orbital period is most likely just a coincidence.
What I am not so sure about, though, is planet’s influence on Earth orbit. This influence is not too great, Jupiter’s mass is 0.1% of Sun’s and Saturn is half of that. But it still means Earth’s orbit is sometimes a bit more eccentric and sometimes a bit more round, causing greater or smaller variations in incoming sun energy during the year – and, due to the fact that radiation decreases with square of distance, also small variations in the integrated energy income over the year. No, I don’t mean Milankovich cycles. I mean “real-time” tidal deformations of the orbit caused simply by the presence of the planet at certain relative position to the Earth’s elliptical orbit. Yes I know these changes are small, maybe in order of 0.1%. But it still is more than what planets do to the Sun and I have already learned that changes in order of 1% in many Earth climate parameters are considered huge. Has anyone looked at this?
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: …
To this I would echo what Olavi says:
March 21, 2012 at 8:43 am
Leif said, that there is no found tidal effects in exoplanet systems. How long we have examine exoplanets, and is it easy to find those effects?
What Leif is trying on here is perhaps the most extreme case you could find of argumentum ad ignorantium. He is saying, in effect, that “we should expect to be able to detect climate change on distant, non solar system planets hundreds or light-years away, under the influence of other large planets in the same system”. If we cant – then we conclude that barycentric effects cannot affect climate.
Where can you start in addressing this? We have enough difficulty as it is assessing the presence or absence of climate change on our OWN PLANET – but we can happily use our failure to detect climate change on some distant planet only detectable as a miniscule variation in light from a star – as evidence against any barycentric effects?
Leif – WHAT PLANET ARE YOU ON??
O yes and he finishes with – surprise surprise – a plug for his own conference presentation! Hooray!
Joachim Seifert says:
March 21, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Ah, yes, the famous 60 year cycle that is three Jupiter/Saturn synodic cycles, three because after three cycles it kind of returns to somewhere near where it started, except it’s off by 9 degrees … that’s real convincing, Joachim, science at its finest.
Spare me. He had no reason to pick the moon. He had no reason to get rid of the moon. This is curve fitting of the highest order, and is useless.
As to “overloading” Nicola, this is just the normal scientific process. Someone makes a claim, and other scientists try to find fault with it … sorry you and Nicola don’t like it.
I’m sure you and he would prefer a love-fest of sycophants and toadies, but that’s not gonna happen. Nicola has to face the questions just like any other scientist, especially a scientist making the ridiculous claim that his cycles are “astronomically based” because they are kinda sorta near the same length as (2X + Y)/4 where X and Y are lunar cycles … riiiight …
w.
phlogiston says:
March 21, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Leif said, that there is no found tidal effects in exoplanet systems. How long we have examine exoplanets, and is it easy to find those effects?
What Leif is trying on here is perhaps the most extreme case you could find of argumentum ad ignorantium. He is saying, in effect, that “we should expect to be able to detect climate change on distant, non solar system planets hundreds or light-years away, under the influence of other large planets in the same system”. If we cant – then we conclude that barycentric effects cannot affect climate.
The planets in question are close to their star, so their effect, if any, would be very large, and since the orbital period is short we don’t have to observe for hundreds of years. And it is not a question of ‘cant’ but of ‘dont’. The usual counterargument [which has also been used in this thread] is that perhaps we need the planets to be far away for them to have effect: a sort of homeopathy on a stellar scale: the weaker the impulse, the greater the effect.
Many a break through in Science has been blocked because supporters of the status quo gleefully put up paper-tiger arguments and then smash them down. They gain great comfort from the fact that they can so easily overcome their own self-created weak (paper-tiger) arguments, not realizing how ridiculous they look chasing their own tails.
One such argument is that put by Leif Svalgaard. He creates a paper-tiger argument by proposing that much stronger planetary tides in other stellar systems outside our Solar System show no correlation between stellar activity and planetary motion ergo – planetary cycles have nothing to do with solar activity.
However, any self-respecting scientist would have no problem seeing this silly argument for what it really is – as an obvious paper tiger.
Image that you have a person that is slowly swinging back and forth on a swing. The swing has a natural frequency of about five seconds i.e. ideally a person pushing the swing will be able to push the swing higher if they stand back and gently push on the swing roughly once every five, as the swing comes back up to where they are standing.
Any logical person would realize that it they wanted the person on the swing to go higher and higher that would have to match the natural resonance of the swing. Any attempt to try and push the swing half, a quarter or even three-quarters of the way through a swing would quickly destroy
any build up of energy/motion within the system.
Many physical systems have natural resonances e.g. the convective layers of solar-type stars.
It is very likely they these natural resonant frequencies are measured in years or decades and not days. Hence, it is scientifically stupid to argue that if you were to force the convective layer of a solar-type star with strong tides with periods 1 – 100 days you should get a much greater response in the convective envelop than if you forced it with much weaker tidal forces with periods of years to decades.
Leif may as well argue that you cannot push a person higher and higher on a swing (with a natural resonance of say five seconds) because randomly hitting the swing with sledge hammer every one to seconds produces no discernible swing.
In other words, Leif’s paper tiger arguments are just that – weak arguments put up by Leif to re-confirm his own well-established pseudo-scientific prejudices.
Why can’t Dr. Scafetta’s papers be presented without added commentary from Leif? The paper already passed peer-review, let people read it unbiased by Leif’s comments in the main article. Everything relating to solar physics does not revolve around Leif Svalgaard. This is getting old.
I continue to post wrong values for Force of gravity. Can I blame Excel?
Planet Mass (Kg) Dist (m) Force (N)
Jupiter 1.90E+27 7.73E+11 4.21E+23
Venus 4.87E+24 1.07E+11 5.61E+22
Saturn 5.68E+26 1.42E+12 3.75E+22
Earth 5.97E+24 1.49E+11 3.59E+22
Mercury 3.30E+23 5.76E+10 1.32E+22
Mars 6.42E+23 2.26E+11 1.66E+21
Uranus 8.68E+25 2.85E+12 1.42E+21
Neptune 1.02E+26 4.50E+12 6.70E+20
Pluto 1.25E+22 5.87E+12 4.82E+16
Sun 1.99E+30
So, if I’m correct, Jupiter has the largest force on the Sun, followed by Venus. What does it mean? To me the planet with the strongest force will cause the largest gravitational pull (tide). The only weakness is I’m using mean distance. Am I way off track?
Volker, you’re going to have to convince me that Pluto has an effect on anything, given both its distance away and small relative mass. It has less mass than Mars and is more than ten times further away from the Sun.
“… 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.”
I’m not convinced that we know enough about solar cycles to be able to explain how they are initiated and by what, nor how they might be different in other stars. Some stars are strongly variable, for example, while others less so and still others apparently not at all.
It is conceivable, for example, that a large planet near a star could so disrupt whatever process it is that causes our solar cycles to change that those dynamic changes never occur.
It remains that there does appear to be a relationship between perturbations in the net solar angular momentum and the appearance of Grand Solar Minima like the Wolf, Spörer, Maunder and Dalton… as well as the modern Landscheidt Minimum which is arguably just beginning:
http://www.landscheidt.info/
2. The effect is coincidental but not causative.
An effect that is predicatable that is co-incidental with an effect that is not predictable, will suddenly render the second effect predictable. This is often as important than any notional mechanism (which often turns out to be wrong). The ancients had no idea what caused tides, but the prediction of them was exceedingly important.
There seems to be a bias here against any work which doesn’t come with a “cause”, no matter how ludicrous. Except Livingston and Penn, who quite freely admit they have no idea what’s going on, yet they’ve ended up with a almost-mystical free pass on it here.
The assertion about the exo-planets misses the point about the barycentric idea. The point is that the barycentre moves within the star, with corresponding effects. A single big planet orbiting a big sun has a stable barycentre, so under the theory you should not expect to see any periodic changes. This is seen by observations. What you should be looking for are 2 or more planets which are a similar order of magnitude in mass, and have differing orbits (no twirling dumbells).
Questions: Are there any trinary star systems? How stable are their stars? The mass revolving the star should not need to be “unlit” for the effect to manifest, and multi-star systems have better lighting than most..
Inside the sun, there is the core which has an outward force to it.(photon pressure) and the surface which has an inward force to it (usually) due to gravity (magnetics and centripetal forces also play a part). This means that somewhere in the middle, there is a place where the net force due to the sun is zero. This “free floating” band will attempt to orbit the barycentre with the rest of the solar system and not the centre of the sun.
Questions: Where is it? Does it have a name? How big is it (i.e. the volume of the 3D “shell” where the net force from the sun is less than the net force from the rest of the solar system)? Does the barycentre ever enter this shell?
The planets will also produce “tides” upon this band, making a surface truly “free fall” (i.e. the net effect of the sun and the solar system will be zero). A particle below this band (and feeling an outward force), may find itself thrust above the band without moving (and hence feel an inward force). If it was doing something finely balanced, then it isn’t any more.
Question: How big are these tides at this “free fall” area?
I can’t say I’m convinced by the barycentric idea, but I wouldn’t shoot it down because of the use of exclamation marks.
populartechnology says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:14 pm
You ask, why can Leif post his comments and objections?
Because this is science, and anyone can propose objections to a scientific theory. Your attempt to censor Leif is a typical tactic of those positing pseudo-scientific theories.
You don’t want people to object to Dr. Scafetta’s outrageous claims? You want nothing but support?
Buy a bra …
w.
PS—If you think it actually means something that the paper passed peer-review, you need more help than we can give you here …
Leif said:
Some starspots are huge: http://www.noao.edu/noao/noaonews/dec99/node2.html and we can today easily measure stellar activity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What he doesn’t tell you is that there is almost no overlap between the set of solar-like stars that have measurable stellar activity (e.g. [CaII] emissions) and the set of solar-like stars that have known planetary systems.
Why? For the simple reason that until just recently, the bulk of the planetary systems discovered have been detected using the absorption line doppler-shift method. This measures the radial motion of the star caused by the motion of its surrounding massive planets. The doppler-shifts are so small in many cases that it is only possible to detect them in stellar systems that do not have a
lot of back-ground “noise” produced by stellar-activity on the star’s surface i.e the stellar activity
produces up-and-down motions of the stars surface that can mimic the radial motion of the star caused by the planetary forces acting on the star.
Needless to say Leif will fire back that current planetary searches (e.g. Herschel) are getting around this problem but what he will leave out is that it will take another decade of two before
enough data is collected to to figure out what is really going on in these external solar systems.
Ninderthana says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Any logical person would realize that it they wanted the person on the swing to go higher and higher that would have to match the natural resonance of the swing.
And it so happens that the natural resonances of the sun are just those that match Nicola’s several planetary cycles, right?
Many physical systems have natural resonances e.g. the convective layers of solar-type stars.
Those seem to have a period around 5 minutes, perhaps you could produce links to papers demonstrating convective resonances in sun-like stars of the order of decades or centuries. You are welcome to educate us here.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:33 pm
PS—If you think it actually means something that the paper passed peer-review, you need more help than we can give you here …
And the paper in question actually failed peer-review the first time around. When this happens the author often resubmits to a journal with a lower standard of quality or with only peripheral emphasis on the subject area of the claims.
Willis, please quote where I stated that Leif should be censored. You seem really confused about what I suggested in the main article. Try reading more carefully next time.
Leif said:
Without violating any ethics, I can say that I was a reviewer of an earlier version of this paper submitted to a better journal and the judgement of several reviewers was: “The paper is crap and based on cyclomanic derivations”.
Translation into English: Leif admits that he has closed mind and he is proud of it!
populartechnology says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Sure, glad to. You said:
Short of censoring Leif, how were you planning to accomplish that?
All the best,
w.
Willis, the word censored did not appear in that quote and you have instead chosen to butcher the context of my statement for your strawman argument. Your reading comprehension problems are not my concern. I was referring to the main article not the comments. I am not surprised you would jump insane conclusions by carelessly reading what people write. This sort of behavior is getting fairly embarrassing for you.
I find it interesting that magnetic envelopes caused by the planets and other bodies is so easily dismissed. Paraphrasing Tall Bloke, a weak pulse which repeats in a rhythmic fashion can demolish hardened steel.. To write them off as insignificant is unwise…
Just look around you today…something very rhythmic is pulsing the earth to its core, causing increased earthquake activity along with increasing intensity of those quakes… If the Earth is being pulsed by magnetic waves ( and it is) then the terrestrial reaction is not just earth responding… the star we call our sun is affected as well. To think otherwise is foolish.
Very interesting to watch some throw this away, even when the results are very real, observable,and quantifiable.. It s sad to see some think their “knowledge” is greater than everyone else and thumb their nose up.. We get to much of this from warmists and alarmists… time for a good look in the mirror..
One simply has to hit a nuclear reactor with high pulsed magnetism to see it disrupt the reaction.. our sun is no different..
Z says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:31 pm
The point is that the barycentre moves within the star, with corresponding effects.
the point is that the barycenter has no effect [not even Nicola believes that]
What you should be looking for are 2 or more planets which are a similar order of magnitude in mass, and have differing orbits (no twirling dumbells).
How about just looking at my diagram at the top of the page…
Inside the sun, there is the core which has an outward force to it.(photon pressure) and the surface which has an inward force to it (usually) due to gravity (magnetics and centripetal forces also play a part). This means that somewhere in the middle, there is a place where the net force due to the sun is zero.
This is complete nonsense. At every point from the center to the surface the inward pressure [gravity] balances exactly the outward pressure [of a hot gas]. This is called hydrostatic equilibrium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_equilibrium
Milankovitch cycles appears to explain full scale ice ages, however, it does not explain little ice ages. These appear, from what little data we have, to coincide with periods of low sunspots, and possibly with periods of higher cosmic radiation. So full blown ice ages may be not related to changes of the suns performance, yet mini ice ages appear to be strongly related to exactly that.
The current article under discussion tries to find out exactly why the sun changes. it may or may not succeed (I would lean toward not). However, something is causing the sun to change, and we need to find out what and how (and how that effects climate).
Currently, I would say that we do not really understand why the sun changes, what causes it to go into active or passive phases. One reason for this can be that we really don’t know what is going on under it’s surface, or even what is under there, especially at the core. Recent unexplainable activity by the sun has at least shown present science that we know a lot less about it than we thought we do.
So, I would have to complement the author on at least trying, however, I would say, back to the drawing board.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:06 pm
==================
Ok,
Willis, you have taken over another thread, as if it was your own.
FYI, without WUWT, you, along with the rest of us would be lost in the wilderness.
Let’s not mess that up.
Leif said,
Many physical systems have natural resonances e.g. the convective layers of solar-type stars.
Those seem to have a period around 5 minutes, perhaps you could produce links to papers demonstrating convective resonances in sun-like stars of the order of decades or centuries. You are welcome to educate us here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How about David Hathaway and the 11 year Solar meridional flow?:
Science 12 March 2010: Vol. 327 no. 5971 pp. 1350-1352
Variations in the Sun’s Meridional Flow over a Solar Cycle
David H. Hathaway, and Lisa Rightmire
The Sun’s meridional flow is an axisymmetric flow that is generally directed from its equator toward its poles at the surface. The structure and strength of the meridional flow determine both the strength of the Sun’s polar magnetic field and the intensity of sunspot cycles. We determine the meridional flow speed of magnetic features on the Sun using data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The average flow is poleward at all latitudes up to 75°, which suggests that it extends to the poles. It was faster at sunspot cycle minimum than at maximum and substantially faster on the approach to the current minimum than it was at the last solar minimum. This result may help to explain why this solar activity minimum is so peculiar.
Oh, I forgot, Science one of those lesser journal that you spit on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OR
The Sun’s Shallow Meridional Circulation
David H. Hathaway
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
(Submitted on 8 Mar 2011 (v1), last revised 29 Mar 2011 (this version, v2))
The Sun’s global meridional circulation is evident as a slow poleward flow at its surface. This flow is observed to carry magnetic elements poleward – producing the Sun’s polar magnetic fields as a key part of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Current theories for the sunspot cycle assume that this surface flow is part of a circulation which sinks inward at the poles and turns equatorward at depths below 100 Mm. Here we use the advection of the Sun’s convection cells by the meridional flow to map the flow velocity in latitude and depth. Our measurements show the largest cells clearly moving equatorward at depths below 35 Mm – the base of the Sun’s surface shear layer. This surprisingly shallow return flow indicates the need for substantial revisions to solar/stellar dynamo theory.
Arrrh… of course, Solar and Stellar Astrophysics is just another fly-by night journal,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star
About two-thirds of all variable stars appear to be pulsating. In the 1930s astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington showed that the mathematical equations that describe the interior of a star may lead to instabilities that cause a star to pulsate. The most common type of instability is related to oscillations in the degree of ionization in outer, convective layers of the star.
I could go on and on….
Ninderthana says:
March 21, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Leif admits that he has closed mind and he is proud of it!
when it comes to crap, from Nicola, from you, or from anybody else, I have a good crap-detector and am duly proud of how well it works. It would be refreshing if you would restrict yourself to science or at least pseudo-science, rather than continue down the stinking ad-hom path you have chosen…
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 21, 2012 at 10:19 am
I fear I find this totally unconvincing…
– – – – – – –
His critique is reminiscent of the critique on numerology. No one is saying Dr. Scafetta is up to this, but then you have to realize if you start looking for numerical coincidences or patterns in phenomena, objects, pieces of literature, images, whatever, you are going to find them. Wherever you want to find them.
It may be a trap, if you don’t realize this creative aspect of the human mind. Many patterns we perceive are but artefacts of the human mind. So there are methods developed to distinguish these from the real patterns out there. I think that’s what science is about.
Dr. Scafetta uses an “phenomenological” approach in his analysis of data I did learn from earlier comments on WUWT. I am curious about this. As I understand the phenomenological approach is a paradigm in the social sciences where you deal with phenomena too complex and unique in terms of a pure “physical approach”, as that would become pretty meaningless, say to understand the mechanisms of a political movement of psychological processes. So it is the object here that defines the paradigm: social and psychological phenomena, and the meaningfulness (to individuals) of these phenomena. I cannot see such objects in climate science, but then, I don’t know how Dr. Scafetta uses this approach.
populartechnology says:
March 21, 2012 at 6:09 pm
If your meaning was restricted to just the main article and not the comments, then I did misunderstand you, poptech, and you have my apologies.
I still say that it is perfectly valid for Dr. Svalgard’s comments to be in the main article. Why should they not be there? I have said many times that if you have a new scientific theory, the best person to hand it to for evaluation is your worst enemy. If they can’t find holes in it, that’s a good sign.
You, on the other hand, want to keep Leif’s comments out of the main article. You may not understand that Leif’s comments provide information about the other side of the story, and Anthony does not want to be seen as either a supporter or an opponent of Dr. Scafetta’s theories. Anthony wants it to be a balanced presentation of both sides of the issue.
I’m sorry if you object to a balanced presentation, but if Dr. Scafetta’s theories can’t survive that, then he should publish elsewhere.
w.
PS—As to what embarrasses me, you don’t have a clue and you’re wasting your time guessing. Mostly I’m embarrassed by pseudo-scientific trash like Dr. Scafetta’s claims getting any space at all on WUWT, but hey, that’s just me.