Planetary effects are too small by several orders of magnitude to be a main cause of the solar cycle.
Argiris Diamantis writes in with this tip:
Professor Cornelis de Jager from the Netherlands has put a new publication on his website. It is a study of Dirk K. Callebaut, Cornelis de Jager and Silvia Duhau. They conclude that planetary effects are too small by several orders of magnitude to be a main cause of the solar cycle. A planetary explanation of the solar cycle is hardly possible.
The paper is titled:
The influence of planetary attractions on the solar tachocline
Dirk K. Callebaut a, Cornelis de Jager b,n,1, Silvia Duhau c
a University of Antwerp, Physics Department, CGB, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020 Antwerpen, Belgium
b Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, P.O. Box 59, NL 1790 AB Den Burg, The Netherlands
c Departamento de Fı´sica, Facultad Ingeniera, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Abstract
We present a physical analysis of the occasionally forwarded hypothesis that solar variability, as shown in the various photospheric and outer solar layer activities, might be due to the Newtonian attraction by the planets.
We calculate the planetary forces exerted on the tachocline and thereby not only include the immediate forces but we also take into account that these planetary or dynamo actions occur during some time, which demands integration. As an improvement to earlier research on this topic we reconsider the internal convective velocities and we examine several other effects, in particular those due to magnetic buoyancy and to the Coriolis force. The main conclusion is that in its essence: planetary influences are too small to be more than a small modulation of the solar cycle. We do not exclude the possibility that the long term combined action of the planets may induce small internal motions in the sun, which may have indirectly an effect on the solar dynamo after a long time.
…
From the Introduction:
So far the study of solar variability has identified five solar periodicities with a sufficient degree of significance (cf. the review by De Jager, 2005, Chapter 11).
These periods are:
- The 11 years Schwabe cycle in the sunspot numbers. We note that this period is far from constant and varies with time, e.g. during the last century the period was closer to 10.6 years.
- The Hale cycles of solar magnetism encompasses two Schwabe cycles and shows the same variation over the centuries.
- The 88 years Gleissberg cycle (cf. Peritykh and Damon, 2003). Its length varies strongly over the centuries, with peaks of about 55 and 100 years (Raspopov et al., 2004). The longer period prevailed between 1725 and 1850.
- The De Vries (Suess) period of 203–208 years, with a fairly sharply defined cycle length.
- The Hallstatt cycle of about 2300 years. An interesting new development (Nussbaumer et al., 2011) is the finding that Grand Minima of solar activity seem to occasionally cluster together and that there is a periodicity in that clustering. An example of such a cluster is the series of Grand Minima that occurred in the past millennium (viz. the sequence consisting of the Oort, Wolf, Sp¨ orer, Maunder and Dalton minima). This kind of clustering seems to repeat itself with the Hallstatt period.
It should be remarked in this connection that virtually none of the papers on planetary influences on solar variability succeeded in identifying these five periodicities in the planetary attractions.
Another approach to this problem is the study of climate variations in attempts to search for planetary influences. As an example we mention a paper by Scafetta (2010), who found that climate variations of 0.1–0.25 K with periods of 20–60 years seem to be correlated with orbital motions of Jupiter and Saturn. This was, however, not confirmed in another paper on a similar topic (Humkin et al., 2011). This is another reason for a more fundamental look at the problem: can we identify planetary influences
by looking at the physics of the problem?
The challenge we face here is twofold: planetary influences should be able to reproduce at least the most fundamental of the five periodicities in solar variability, and secondly the planetary accelerations in the level of the solar dynamo should be strong enough to at least equalize or more desirably, to surpass the forces related to the working of the solar dynamo. In this paper we discuss the second aspect, realizing that the attempts to cover
the first aspect have been dealt with sufficiently in literature while the second aspect was grossly neglected so far. A first attempt to discuss it appeared in an earlier paper (De Jager and Versteegh, 2005; henceforth: paper I). They calculated three accelerations:
1) One by tidal forces from Jupiter. They found aJup=2.8=10^-10 m/s^2.
2) One due to the motion of the sun around the centre of mass of the solar system due to the sum of planetary attractions (ainert).
3) The accelerations (adyn) by convective motions in the tachocline and above it.
It was shown in their work that the third one is larger by several orders of magnitude than the first and second mentioned accelerations. Soon after its publication it was realized that some of the forces are effective for a long time, which demands an integration of the forces over the time of action. That might change the results. It was also realized that more forces may be operational than the two mentioned in paper I. Therefore, in the present paper, we improve and expand these calculations; we investigate a few more possible effects; moreover, we study the effect of the duration of these actions as well.
…
Conclusions
We calculated various accelerations near or in the tachocline area and compared them with those due to the attraction by the planets. We found that the former are larger than the latter by four orders of magnitude. Moreover, the duration of the various causes may change a bit the ratio of their effects, but they are still very small as compared to accelerations occurring at the tachocline.
Hence, planetary influences should be ruled out as a possible cause of solar variability. Specifically, we improved the calculation of ainert in paper I and gave an alternative estimation. If the tidal acceleration of Jupiter were important for the solar cycle then the tidal accelerations of Mercury, Venus and the Earth would be important too. The time evolution of the sunspots would then be totally different and the difference between the
solar maximum and its minimum would be much less pronounced.
Taking into account the duration of the acceleration aJup does not really change the conclusions of paper I: the planetary effects are too small by several orders of magnitude to be a main cause of the solar cycle (they can be at most a small modulation); moreover,
they fail to give an explanation for the polarity changes in the solar cycle. In addition, the periods of revolution of the planets (in particular Jupiter) do not seem compatible with the solar cycle over long times. In fact, a planetary explanation of the solar cycle
is hardly possible. Besides, we estimated various other effects, including the ones
due to the magnetic field (buoyancy effect and centripetal consequence)
and those due to the Coriolis force; their relation to the tidal effects can be indirect at its utmost best (by influencing motions which might affect the solar dynamo).
As all planets rotate in the same sense around the sun their combined action over times of years may induce a small motion e.g. at the solar surface. This may have an influence on the meridional motion or on the poleward motions of the solar surface (Makarov et al., 2000), having in turn an influence on the solar dynamo (maybe leading to an effect like the Gnevyshev–Ohl rule). Again, this will be very indirect and the effect of one planet or one orbital period will be masked.
Full paper: > http://www.cdejager.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/2012-planetary-attractions1.pdf
Looks to me like Barycentrism just took a body blow – Anthony
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about the Franciscan order of Bacon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franciscan
@Nicola Scafetta: Professor Leonid B. Klyashtorin of the Federal Institute for Fisheries and Oceanography, Moscow, Russian Federation (e-mail: Klyashtorin@mtu-net.ru)
in a paper prepared for the UN´s FAO finds:
Thin solid line – dT (global temperature anomaly), 1861-1998,
dashed line – its model (harmonic oscillation with period T = 55 years + AR(2)-process)
thick solid line with standard deviation errors bars – its forecast for 1999-2099.
See graph at page 50
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
@Nicola: Be careful some dominican monks may be waiting for you, to make you suddenly as famous as Galileo… 🙂
Nicola, Bacon has nothing to do with anything, its just a distraction. I second Leif’s observations – time to look at your paper reviews. If there’s no problem with the work, you have nothing to fear, and you shouldn’t fear open science inquiry. You keep telling everyone they need an open mind. I think what we need here is open science. Defend your work.
Paul Westhaver says:
April 17, 2012 at 9:24 am
If the models advanced were any good then NASA et al would not be updating their predictions with serious fractions of error on a monthly basis. Since the models fail to predict, I think it is fair to say that they are fruitless.
NASA is not predicting anything. The graph you see at Hathaway’s website is his own private one and is not a prediction [even if labeled as such] but an empirical fit of an average curve to the cycle as observed so far.
Nicola Scafetta says:
April 17, 2012 at 10:14 am
Leif, if you try to read my paper with an open mind, you will find that I am not talking about a perfect 60 year cycle
That is not my point. You were claiming Chylek found a 60-yr cycle which he did not: http://www.leif.org/research/Chylek-2011.png
His scientific career does not seem to be so higher than other average scientists.
But you rank way above the average? Has it come down to that? A measure of one’s standing is how often one is invited to give talks at scientific conferences. How do we stand there? I count some 25 invited talks since 2001.
Now about publication quality:
You had two papers recently rejected by solar physics. Rejected by six reviewers.
The reviews from all reviewers of which I was but one list several errors and comment on the low quality of the papers. As Anthony says “put up or shut up”. Publish those reviews and attendant email exchanges and threats and we can go from there. If you are not humble enough to do that, give me permission to publish them all. If you do not explicitly forbid me to publish them in your next comment, I’ll take that as permission to publish them as I please. Since you did not forbid to publish, I now take it as permission for me to publish what I want. So, please acknowledge this here.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 17, 2012 at 9:08 am
The claim is not there there is no effect whatsoever, but that any effect is bound to be very small and therefore will be submerged in the noise. Possibly one can eventually dig it out of the noise by sophisticated analysis on enough data, but that does not provide any predictive value.
————————-
Yessir! That’s along the lines of what I was trying to say and it seems this point is being overlooked by some here. Modeling will necessarily have to well capture first and second order processes before they will be able to successfully predict lower order processes such as this topic.
fwiw, I’m not interpreting your shootdowns as you claiming to know everything like some other people are, I just wanted to interject the “process order” into the discussion – as I see it you’ve been saying “here’s why they are not a primary, secondary order process.”
Anthony, that is not a distraction. People needs to be humble and apply the scientific method correctly.
My paper is already published and it is very open science.
I already asked you:
So, Anthony, where is the scientific argument?
Are there mathematical errors in my analysis? where?
Are there physical errors? where?
Are there philosophical errors? where?
Presents your personal doubts, ask a clear question and be precise and polite, and I will try to respond.
But if you do not present any argument that can be discussed, what do you want?
REPLY: What do I want? I want to see what the reviewers said. Who better than they to make arguments using the scientific method. – Anthony
Peter Taylor says:
April 16, 2012 at 5:14 am
In astrophysics there is an understanding that in the early evolution of stars angular momentum is transferred to the stellar disc via the magnetic field. Can anyone explain to me how the magnetic field transfers angular momentum?
There is a general timeless relation:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/vasangmagmom.jpg
So, where tidal forces are apparently too weak, and stochastic resonances under-studied, I would suspect another mechanism as yet unknown that correlates with the forces of torque.
Taking some few solar tidal functions you can see that there is a connection with the HMF published by Leif:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_23_hmf_ghi5.gif
I did make the graph two years ago.
V.
Nicola Scafetta says:
April 17, 2012 at 11:04 am
But if you do not present any argument that can be discussed, what do you want?
REPLY: What do I want? I want to see what the reviewers said. Who better than they to make arguments using the scientific method. – Anthony
And of the two Solar Physics papers that were rejected by six reviewers, of which I was but one, but you persist in the claim that I alone prevented publication. So, put the six reviews in a file with a link or publish them here. As I have begun to do [including, and especially, rejected papers]:
From my website:
1300 Semiannual-Comment.pdf (The Semiannual Variation is not Overestimated, Accepted GRL 2011) Review History
1200 Waldmeier.pdf (Calibration of Sunspot Number, submitted GRL, rejected, 2010) Review History
1080 Heliospheric Magnetic Field 1835-2009.pdf (JGR, 2010) Review history
775 McCracken Comment.pdf (Comment on McCracken HMF 1428-2005, JGR (rejected) 2008) Report-Reply
140 No Doubling of Open Flux.pdf (Rejected by Nature, 2003)
This is not complete, because I only recently saw the clear benefit of doing this. I am now of the opinion [not shared by many] that ALL reviews should be published; by the journal if accepted and by the author if rejected [provided he has the balls to do it].
According to NASA:
http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/
I wonder if all this cosmic fudge,and the awesome power of the magical mystery force might have a wee effect on our sun every so often?
Food for thought.
Leif says:
http://www.leif.org/research/Chylek-2011.png
I watched the 30 minute presentation Chylek gave at a conference today. Very interesting. Various Greenland locations give different results. One of them has a strong 60 year component along wit a 20 year component. The other areas were different, although the 20 year component is clear in all. 19.93 years is te Jupiter Saturn synodic period.
45 years also figures intermittently in Chylek’s wavelet analysis. This is a strong inner solar system repetition, with many different planets involved in various combinations.
Ian wilson recently gave a nice set of results on the Talkshop of these.
The beach ridges in eustatically lifting quiet northern shores around Hudson bay and nothern Siberia exhibit a regular sequence of 45 year ridges going back thousands of years, with extra high ridges at 1/3 and 1.2 millenium scale.
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/oliver-page252.jpg
The regularity of the signal seen in real beach ridges in the real world means Chylek’s intermittent signal should be treated with caution. Wavelet analysis is useful, but not infallible, just like all our mathematical signal processing techniques.
75 years is a Lunar component. Harald Yndestad published a paper a couple of years ago showing the effect in Northern Atlantic waters
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/the-moon-is-linked-to-long-term-atlantic-changes/
Clearly, the interaction of all these cycles is a complex system to try to unravel. There are no simple one to one relationships in non-linear systems. Simple minded rebuttals on the basis of linear thinking are of no use to anyone trying to understand te complexity and the underlying resonances and harmonics involved.
The Halstatt cycle being coincident with a repetition of the Jovian polanetary positions is strong evidence however:
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/178-year-jose-cycle-of-jovian-planets.html
Steve P says:
April 17, 2012 at 11:52 am
It turns out that roughly 70% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%.
There are people looking into what effect Dark Matter would have if present in our solar system. Dark Energy has no effect: the Universe is not expanding on the length-scale of galaxies or shorter.
Really liked rgbatduke’s input, which I found easier to follow than the majority of the posts here as most of the technicalities being argued unfamiliar, and helped with my question about what causes the Earth’s wobbles.
Here’s two looks at it:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090806141512.htm
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/chandlerwobble.html
The first says: “ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2009) — Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years – they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused by predictable changes in Earth’s rotation and axis.
..
To make their analysis, the researchers used an analysis of 6,000 dates and locations of ice sheets to define, with a high level of accuracy, when they started to melt. In doing this, they confirmed a theory that was first developed more than 50 years ago that pointed to small but definable changes in Earth’s rotation as the trigger for ice ages.
“We can calculate changes in the Earth’s axis and rotation that go back 50 million years,” Clark said. “These are caused primarily by the gravitational influences of the larger planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, which pull and tug on the Earth in slightly different ways over periods of thousands of years.”
That, in turn, can change the Earth’s axis – the way it tilts towards the sun – about two degrees over long periods of time, which changes the way sunlight strikes the planet. And those small shifts in solar radiation were all it took to cause multiple ice ages during about the past 2.5 million years on Earth, which reach their extremes every 100,000 years or so.”
The second article, July 18, 2000, says:
A MYSTERY OF EARTH’S WOBBLE SOLVED: IT’S THE OCEAN
The century-old mystery of Earth’s “Chandler wobble” has been solved by a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The Chandler wobble, named for its 1891 discoverer, Seth Carlo Chandler, Jr., an American businessman turned astronomer, is one of several wobbling motions exhibited by Earth as it rotates on its axis, much as a top wobbles as it spins.
Scientists have been particularly intrigued by the Chandler wobble, since its cause has remained a mystery even though it has been under observation for over a century. Its period is only around 433 days, or just 1.2 years, meaning that it takes that amount of time to complete one wobble. The wobble amounts to about 20 feet at the North Pole. It has been calculated that the Chandler wobble would be damped down, or reduced to zero, in just 68 years, unless some force were constantly acting to reinvigorate it.
But what is that force, or excitation mechanism? Over the years, various hypotheses have been put forward, such as atmospheric phenomena, continental water storage (changes in snow cover, river runoff, lake levels, or reservoir capacities), interaction at the boundary of Earth’s core and its surrounding mantle, and earthquakes.
Writing in the August 1 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, Richard Gross, a JPL geophysicist, reports that the principal cause of the Chandler wobble is fluctuating pressure on the bottom of the ocean, caused by temperature and salinity changes and wind-driven changes in the circulation of the oceans. He determined this by applying numerical models of the oceans, which have only recently become available through the work of other researchers, to data on the Chandler wobble obtained during the years 1985-1995. Gross calculated that two-thirds of the Chandler wobble is caused by ocean-bottom pressure changes and the remaining one-third by fluctuations in atmospheric pressure. He says that the effect of atmospheric winds and ocean currents on the wobble was minor.”
If it’s this clear that it’s the gravity pull from the larger planets which accounts for the periodic returns in and out of the Ice Age, which are dramatic changes, then these planets must be having some effect on the Sun, surely?
tallbloke says:
April 17, 2012 at 11:52 am
Wavelet analysis is useful, but not infallible, just like all our mathematical signal processing techniques.
And is certainly inferior to strong faith in cyclomania 🙂
My humble mention of Chylek was solely to point out that Scafetta made an invalid claim of what Chylek found.
“REPLY: What do I want? I want to see what the reviewers said. Who better than they to make arguments using the scientific method. – Anthony”
Anthony, I am sorry. You need to think with your brain, not with the brain of anonymous people.
Leif was one of the anonymous referee and he has already presented his arguments many times. For example, he claimed that the tidal elongation of the planets according his calculations are small, just a millimeter. I already responded that it is not the right way to do the calculations because Leif’s equation would not be able to reproduce the ocean tides that we know. Internal resonance already amplifies ocean tides up to a 200 factor here on the Earth in many places. So, until the amplification factors inside the sun are fully understood and the right internal physics is clarified Leif’s criticism is irrelevant and it is only an argumentum ad ignorantiam.
In science that kind of argument cannot be used to rebut a paper focusing on empirical findings such as mine. However, Leif used such an argument to reject my paper and by doing that he abused his position as a referee.
As also Tallbroke said above
“Hi Anthony, The development of scientific theory doesn’t begin with a full understanding of underlying mechanisms. It begins with observation, correlation and hypothesis generation. Then it continues by making predictions, testing them against observables, and refining the hypothesis. Eventually, with good luck and a following wind, a hypothesis will gain sufficient support through the accuracy of its predictions that the corpus of knowledge it must be reconciled with might be forced to reassess some of its underlying assumptions in order to accommodate the new theory.”
Leif twisted the scientific method by arguing as if a scientific theory begins with a full understanding of underlying mechanisms. Bacon would be very displeased with him.
About the other referee, what he said was even worst (and the biased editor was forced to reject him and substitute him with Leif), but before answering other people, they need to come out, reveal their name and then we can discuss their arguments.
If they do not come out, their criticism is void. What do you want? that I answer people who do not have the courage to put their name on what they say?
REPLY: “Anthony, I am sorry. You need to think with your brain, not with the brain of anonymous people. ”
OK that’s it for me. Nicola, your currency of trust here is now bankrupt. – Anthony
REPLY: “If Anthony bothered to visit my site, he would know that:” Well when a) you post with a made up name, and b) don’t include a website, it is rather hard to even know of its existence. For all I know you are just another blathering kid living in his mom’s basement. If you want respect and recognition, stand up and be counted, otherwise don’t blame me for not figuring out your writings due to your own lack of transparency. – Anthony
Hi Anthony,
That would be Ian Wilson Phd (Astrophysics).
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au
Given the paucity of good data for the various ‘oscillations’, AMO, PDO and long solar cycles, of more than a few putative iterations of the cycle, I am surprised that people will still assert that there is a definitive oscillation. And even try and attribute a cause.
Invariably on examination the cyclic behavior turns out to vary in period, amplitude and phase by a significant percentage from its ‘average’ or nominal value. And is rarely sinusoidal in its evolution.
If any electronic circuit, or mechanical pendulum arrangement exhibited the sort of variation seen in so many of these ‘cycles’ it would be classed as a source of chaotic (not random!) noise rather than as an oscillator.
Perhaps it is helpful to compare and consider the ENSO ‘cycle’. We do have sufficient data on that variation to know it is quasi-periodic. there is an envelope of values it may adopt which are most probable. But predicting it much more than 6 months ahead has proved … extremely difficult. Averaged over many periods the ENSO changes roughly balance out. The probable path of ENSO variations where the observation time is a large multiple of the ‘average’ period indicates the range of possible behaviour appears to be constrained, possibly by thermodynamic considerations.
But the actual direction it may take over the next few years seems to be chaotically unpredictable.
That might be a paradigm for many other claimed ‘cyclic’ processes in the planetary climate systems. The problem is that a quasi-periodic process that flips between 2,4 or 8 meta-stable states can appear to be a simple regular oscillation with sparse data. Or can be ‘Fourier transformed’ into the beat and interference of several simple frequencies with a little mathturbation. It is probably an error to conclude that just because it is possible to derive a underlying regular frequency from the data that the process is a simple oscillation, or resonating with a harmonic source. Chaotic noise sources, like ENSO, are not prone to entrainment by fixed frequency inputs. cycle capture is usually short-lived, and the CHAOTIC source may show some regularity, then phase- shift or period double/half unpredictably…. hmmmm. -grin-
Chaotic systems and processes do synchronise with similar chaotic sources however. Not so that they are working in lock-step, but so there is a clear correlation between two apparently independent, and weakly linked chaotic systems in how their envelope behavior changes. While that can add extra complexity to the whole system, the range of behaviour is still constrained by the thermodynamics.
There is one clear and unambiguous solar cycle. the 11/22 year sunspot cycle. Although as seen recently even that is not stable in magnitude and period. I have seen no credible argument to locate this cycle in an external driver. As far as I understand the present view, the length of the sunspot cycle is attributed to the internal dynamics of the Sun. No planetary, astronomical or external influence determines the cycle period, internal dynamics dominate. It seems unlikely that any significant other dynamic solar cycle would be entrained by planetary influence when it is so notably absent from the main variation.
Myrrh says:
April 17, 2012 at 11:59 am
The first says: “ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2009) — Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years – they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused by predictable changes in Earth’s rotation and axis.
More importantly in the shape of the Earth’s orbit, which is mainly controlled by Jupiter, so, yes, the planets are controlling the climate in the long run, but through controlling the Earth rather than the Sun.
The Chandler Wobble is driven by the climate, and is not of interest in what drives the climate.
@ur momisugly Leif Svalgaard says: April 17, 2012 at 11:37 am
the referees of my rejected work were chosen by the same biased editor. That the editor was biased was clear by his own dishonest behavior. Some of those referees were so stupid that even the arrogant editor could not but reject their opinion. What you say is irrelevant, Einstein had 100 scientists writing a booklet against him: Einstein is still here and nobody knows who those 100 scientists are any more.
Anthony say: “OK that’s it for me. Nicola, your currency of trust here is now bankrupt. – Anthony”
Sorry Anthony, what are the arguments against my paper?
There are a lot of people above that do not agree with your narrow way of thinking. But a day you will wake up from Leif’s spell on you. 🙂
REPLY: Witchcraft claims now? Sheesh. – Anthony
– – – – – –
Paul Westhaver/ rgbatduke/ phlogiston,
I congratulate you on providing what is, for me, the most intellectually fruitful sub-thread on this very stimulating WUWT post. (Anthony-thanks for bringing the post to WUWT)
I look for forward to the continuation of your gentlemanly conduct. And look forward to the possibility of you opening up the constrained discussion to other possibilities/unknowns that exist within the science of the solar system. The dialog has benefited from your input.
John
I’m closing comments, I’ve had more than enough of the issues, and I will not be posting any regular stories on this topic in the near future. I’ll leave the topic to alternate blogs such as Tallbloke’s Talkshop, where they belong.
As I said up-thread, I’ve seen nothing so far that impresses me in Barycentrism and its variants. As they say, correlation is not causation, and I don’t see the “several orders of magnitude too weak” planetary gravitational effects as anything convincing of causation. Plus, the authors say in their conclusion that “Hence, planetary influences should be ruled out as a possible cause of solar variability. ”
But as a hat tip to Duke physicist Robert Brown’s comment here, I’ll watch the publications, and if some paper can demonstrate that indeed the weak tidal forces down in the noise bands can have an effect on the sun’s patterns, and that in turn can affect Earths climate, I’m willing to take another look.
But for now, I’m totally burned out on the topic as it has become the theater of Sisyphus.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 17, 2012 at 11:56 am
We are part of the cosmos, expanding with it, and – one would assume – not immune to whatever magical mystery force is driving the theorized expansion.
As we can see only 5% of the theorized universe, I’d say our ignorance is massive. Better to keep an open mind.
REPLY: “Anthony, I am sorry. You need to think with your brain, not with the brain of anonymous people. ”
OK that’s it for me. Nicola, your currency of trust here is now bankrupt. – Anthony
Anthony, Nicola is not trying to insult you, he is saying that anonymous reviewers are able to say things they wouldn’t if they knew their names would be revealed. He’s asking you to see the oppotunity that affords them by putting yourself in their shoes.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 17, 2012 at 11:56 am
Steve P says:
April 17, 2012 at 11:52 am
It turns out that roughly 70% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%.
There are people looking into what effect Dark Matter would have if present in our solar system. Dark Energy has no effect: the Universe is not expanding on the length-scale of galaxies or shorter.
Heh, so now the universe only expands in the places where it wouldn’t cause inconvenience.
Give it up Leif, Hubble, a good empirical scientist did.
“The model is closed and very small—a large fraction can be observed with existing telescopes—and is packed with matter to the very threshold of perception—. The rate of expansion has been slowing down so that the past time scale is remarkably limited. In short, the necessary adjustments and compensations suggest that the model may be a forced interpretation of the data.” In plainer language, this meant that Astronomer Hubble is now willing to abandon the expanding universe to mathematical cosmologists and philosophers, pending a further development of theory, or the erection in 1940 of Caltech’s 200-inch super telescope, which may finally settle the question.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/time-calls-time-on-big-bang-theory-in-1936/
Steve P says:
April 17, 2012 at 12:59 pm
We are part of the cosmos, expanding with it
Apart from my waistline, we do not.
As we can see only 5% of the theorized universe, I’d say our ignorance is massive. Better to keep an open mind.
That we with confidence can make the statement that we only see 5%, I’d say that our knowledge is massive.