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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This reminds of the “TSI variation is too small” argument against solar mechanism for multi-decadal climate change.
Edim says:
April 15, 2012 at 12:29 pm
This reminds of the “TSI variation is too small” argument against solar mechanism for multi-decadal climate change.
And both hold true for precisely that reason: “too small”.
Leif, that’s argumentum ad ignorantiam and also very dogmatic. Paradigm paralysis?
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 15, 2012 at 12:20 pm
1: TSI [in March or any other month] varies 1.5 W/m2 over the six years of half a solar cycle and the 2 W/m2 change in the last 100 years is not established. BTW, during the year from January to July, TSI varies about 100 W/m2 simply due to the elipticity of the Earth’s orbit. None of this has anything to do with the planets.
____________________________________
I was talking about changes to TSI introduced by changes to Earth orbit only – changes by the Sun activity go on top of it, i.e. either add or subtract. I know the annual variance is about 100 W/m2 but we are already all used to subtracting the annual period and looking at variations in the rest so I’m not doing anything new here.
And yes there is a shift in TSI caused by gradual distortion of Earth’s orbit, I actually went ahead and made the necessary calculation (with a huge help of NASA tools usually used for astronomic purposes which provided precise historical space coordinates of Sun and Earth).
http://www.volny.cz/kasuha/temperatures/TSI1850-2050.zip
(there is a graph at about line 210 in the first sheet)
I am not saying these variations are big. I am not even saying they have any measurable effect on climate as I did not perform any analysis in that regard. I am just saying they definitely are there.
A teacher struck my daughter when she was in grade 3. I went nuts. The principal of the school said it didn’t happen. about 28 days later my daughter came home with bruise marks on her arm from the same teacher. I took my daughter to the ER and had the “finger mark” bruises diagnosed and photographed.
I wrote a letter to the principle that if my daughter was ever touched by the teacher again i’d sue him and the school as well as have criminal charges laid.
27 days later that teacher was out on “sick” leave.
27 days after that she was out again… then the weekends got in the way and the pattern collapsed.
My point is that patterns avail themselves. It is contingent on us to discover the nature of the pattern. Why did the teacher freak out on my daughter at 27 day intervals? I don’t know. I speculate that she had a recurring event in her life, like a paycheck issue or a hormonal issue or her wicka group meetings influence her.
People are very good at sensing patterns and rhythms and 1s usually the foundation of the first guess in a new discovery. History is replete with people who thought that all that is to discovered is already discovered. In the mythological words attributed to Galileo…. yet it moves.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 15, 2012 at 12:12 pm
@ur momisugly vukcevic The supersonic solar wind expels all electric/magnetic effects.
except that
The Supersonic solar wind is pushed out of the way by the CMEs. As you know far better than I do, during CME there is a direct electric and magnetic connection between a magnetosphere and solar surface layers, but for some reason forgot to mention.
The Origin and Development of the May 1997 Magnetic Cloud
C. E. DeForest , Stanford University, Stanford, California
This topic does not seem to include the well known concept of self-organized criticality (SOC, Per Bak) —
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality
For example, an artillery round is sometimes used to trigger an avalanche. Californians are waiting for a big earthquake, and the trigger could be very small as the stress slowly builds up to the rupture point. Thus one could get an approximate correlation of SOC events with tiny perturbations — and endless disputes from those who demand an impressive mechanism.
Stephen Wilde: Rather than being a body blow against a planetary effect this paper seems to accept the possibility of a small such effect over enough time.
How small does the effect have to be to be considered negligible for Earth atmospheric/climate science?
Authors say: their combined action over times of years may induce a small motion
e.g. at the solar surface…
This was already noted by Peter Hodges, and probably others. Does not this quote of the authors tend to support claims by the solar enthusiasts that gravitational effcts are not so small as to be negligible?
A “body blow” is not a knockout. If this is indeed a body blow, it will take many, many more such for a TKO.
REPLY: Oh, please, next I’ll be hearing about the “iron sun”. What part of “…the planetary effects are “too small by several orders of magnitude” don’t you understand? – Anthony
———————-
The problem I have with the “too small by several orders of magnitude” argument is the same one I have with the “It must be CO2 causing the warming because we don’t know of anything else that could do it” argument. Evidence can prove something but a lack of evidence doesn’t necessarily disprove it.
Not saying I’m accepting the Barycentrism argument, but I won’t write it of just because someone says they can’t figure out how it might work.
On a lighter note I love Oliver’s “Iron Sun” theory. Neutron Repulsion makes a great power source to go between Fusion and Anti-Matter in my star fighter RPG. great science fiction.
Edim says:
April 15, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Leif, that’s argumentum ad ignorantiam and also very dogmatic. Paradigm paralysis?
Not sure who the ignoramus is here.
Kasuha says:
April 15, 2012 at 12:43 pm
I am not saying these variations are big. I am not even saying they have any measurable effect on climate as I did not perform any analysis in that regard. I am just saying they definitely are there.
The Earth’s orbit is not static and in calculating the effect the actual orbit [perturbations and all] are taken into account. It is even necessary when compensating for the orbital changes to take into account that the photons of TSI left the Sun 8 minutes before they hit the Earth. The point is that Earth’s orbit is what it is [changing all the time].
vukcevic says:
April 15, 2012 at 12:54 pm
The Supersonic solar wind is pushed out of the way by the CMEs.
So the CMEs are even more supersonic than the solar wind, thus adds to the effectiveness of sweeping all electric/magnetic effect outwards preventing them from reaching the sun.
This four-page paper provides both theoretical and empirical evidence of a physical planetary cause for the observed periodic variations in the differential rotation of sunspots:
Periodicities in the Sun’s “Torsional MHD oscillations” and planetary configuration,
Javaraiah, J.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1996BASI…24..351J
From p. 352:
“In the present paper we show that the amplitudes of the symmetric and antisymmetric torsional oscillations of the Sun depend upon the contribution of the major planets to the symmetric and asymmetric parts of the angular momentum of the solar system.”
When I was a child I didn’t need any help wrapping a swing around a crossbar.
One of the reasons I was first attracted to WUWT? was all the interesting perspectives that were presented. One of the reasons I hated reading realclimate was the dogmatic insecurity presented. It is creeping into this blog even though Anthony definitely tries to be reasonable. Not a big fan of the barycentric idea ( it is apparently used to locate extrasolar planets) as a solar influence. Even though I do not agree with it, I am intelligent enough to know that we do NOT have all the pieces to the many puzzles of our universe. The insecure closed minds are doing a great deal of harm to what should be a friendly informative discussion.
Another point is that a person (everyone) cannot be right about everything. Every great figure from science has some important contributions, but also a great number of things they were wrong about. Often due to lack of all the information necessary to draw correct conclusions.
Chill and enjoy the process. Bring your best information. People can draw their own conclusions. My humble opinion only, for what it is worth.
A friendly question to Dr. Svalgaard. Isn’t the earth’s magnetic field protecting us from the “far stronger” solar wind? Or did I miss something? Be nice, thank you.
We are now able to identify planets in other solar systems, because their sun wobbles. We know their numbers of planets, their size and so on, but we could not measure any planet impact on our sun, if we measured it from another Solar System?
In the begining climate skepticism was sound. Folks wanted to see the data, wanted to see the code, wanted to understand the physics before they claimed knowledge. Over time the skeptical position has been infected by people who actually believe they Know that the planets influence the sun and they Know that the sun drives the climate. When asked for proof, when asked for a physical mechanism with proper forces and units, when asked for experiments, falsifiable experiments or even predictions, the response is silence or speculation or desk pounding: it could be x, it could be y, you havent ruled out grelims, or leprauchans. At best you get chart showing corelations and models whose functional form is aphysical. If mann or jones wrote some of the crap you see from the barycenter crew, they’d be laughed out of the room. But, up until recently, they’ve been tolorated. Tolerated perhaps because they attack climate science. Folks have looked the other way with respect to the sharing of code. They’ve looked the other way and not asked the tough questions about physics and tests and completeness. The planets do not explain the appearence of sunspots. They dont explain the timing, the size, the strength. They dont explain
ANYTHING. Imagine they were perfectly corelated. They still would EXPLAIN nothing. And even if sun spots were perfectly corelated with temperature they would not EXPLAIN the climate. They would not explain the ph of the ocean, hurricanes, clouds, rain, temperature, the carbon cycle, volcanic effects, dust in the sahara, multi year ice, you name it. The climate is, as we all know, very complex. Sunspots do not explain it. cannot explain it.
Does the sun play a role. Of course. Do sunspots. of course. Do GCR? maybe. Do GHGs? of course. Is our current understanding of the climate complete? nope. Check a GCM, it doesnt capture ALL of reality. it cant. Will adding the position of Jupiter to a GCM improve the hindcast.
That’s testable. But to do that yu must express the effect of Jupiter in PHYSICS.
David Ball says:
April 15, 2012 at 1:25 pm
A friendly question to Dr. Svalgaard. Isn’t the earth’s magnetic field protecting us from the “far stronger” solar wind? Or did I miss something? Be nice, thank you.
Indeed it does, but to a point. And the solar wind is not ‘far stronger’. It is extremely weak. Its magnetic field is 10,000 times weaker than the Earth’s. The mass hitting the magnetosphere is equal to about one good-sized turkey per second. On the flip side, the magnetic field of the Earth concentrates and magnifies the effect of the solar wind: strong currents [with their attendant magnetic field variations] are set up by the interaction. These can have bad effects on transformers, satellites, and other technological infrastructure.
Steven Mosher says:
April 15, 2012 at 1:32 pm
But to do that you must express the effect of Jupiter in PHYSICS.
And therein lies the difficulty.
Leif Svalgaard says:
“Not sure who the ignoramus is here.”
I am sure. You are. I am too, just like everybody else. We’re all ignorant of something.
Maybe the argument from lack of imagination fits better – P is too incredible or I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true; therefore P must be false. It’s a logical fallacy.
SØREN BUNDGAARD says:
April 15, 2012 at 1:32 pm
We are now able to identify planets in other solar systems, because their sun wobbles. We know their numbers of planets, their size and so on, but we could not measure any planet impact on our sun, if we measured it from another Solar System?
This is a good point. Unfortunately no effects on planets around other stars on stellar activity have yet been found. See the final slides of http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202011%20SH34B-08.pdf
But this research is still ongoing, so perhaps one day we will get the final proof/disproff of this, althoung I have already gotten arguments from various sides that our solar system is unique in just the right combination of planets, etc, and that therefore only in our system will the planets drive solar activity. So strong is the belief in the planetary hypothesis than it, almost by definition, becomes impossible to falsify. Go figure…
This is the correct link to the Javaraiah paper referred to by me at 1:21 pm:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1996BASI…24..351J
Please note that the last part (…24..351J) needs to be included in the link, and the link must be a single color to open correctly in most browsers. It will open if copied to your web browser as a text line.
The most glaring deficency in the paper is the lack of N body calculation or surface integrals – or any numerical results other than a handful of point calculations.
I would expect more from undergraduates.
Since they haven’t evaluated even a single integral and the argument is based entirely on point calculations, this paper is equilvalent to claiming since the power production of the Sun is roughly 280 Watts/m^3 (note the units) – which is roughly equilvalent to the power production of a salmon – then it’s impossible to get a Sun burn.
[SNIP: if you can rephrase that without being insulting it might get through. -REP]
@clipe
You must be dreaming. By 4 orders of magnitude.
@Leif
Thanks re the frequency. There is a lesson from HAM radio history that relates to frequency. In the early days LF was king. Transmissions reached hundreds of miles. As transmission frequency rose so did distance until one fine day they tried 14MHZ and the whole world was ringing with chattering in Morse Code.
I predict that when the low frequencies of the sun are probed sudden things will appear. Someone above mentioned the sun spots and planets. There is a clear relationship between the butterfly pattern and the position of the Earth-Moon-Venus barycenter. I found that very confirming re the ability of planets to affect the sun.
Castor and pollux are incredible multi star systems. Hard to believe they even exist in the configuration that they do. Multiple links if you bing “castor and pollux”.
Thank you for your kind response. Please correct me if I misunderstood, but does your response not contradict what you posted to Vukcevic?