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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Volker Doormann says:
April 15, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Over time the skeptical position has been infected by people who reject that the planets influence the sun and they Know that the sun is not the driver the climate.
When asked for proof, when asked for a physical mechanism with proper forces and units, when asked for experiments, falsifiable experiments about the existence of time, the existence of space, the existence of velocities, the prove that gravitational forces between objects are delayed after Einstein – in case of Quaoar/Sun 6 hours in one direction – without any effect of the trace of the bodies after Kepler, the response is silence or very silence.
If there are simple questions whether the space is infinite or finite, whether has time a beginning or whether time has an end, whether physicians have falsified the dimension of time, there is only entertainment consumed.
If the folks want to understand the physics before they claimed knowledge, and claim knowledge about the physics of time, the physics of space, the physics of velocity, that’s fine. What velocity has a ball which is fling by a woman walking backwards in a running train to South East in Finland out of the window in noon on the 3th of January while the distance Earth/Sun is lowest, but the Earth is running clever without any energy input?
Who have knowledge how gravitational force is transmitted from Moon the Earth? Who have knowledge why time is decreases by gravitational force, and atomic clock running slower?
Just been discussing the last:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/08/a-couple-of-pertinent-quotes/#comment-956548
Waking up this morning and recalling a thought I had about this yesterday re that light slows down through different mediums, it’s slowed down by our atmosphere and slows down even more in the ocean, that is, different pressures affect it, I’ve decided to check to find out exactly what is being adjusted in GPS. It’s not Einstein’s ‘time dilation’, it’s adjustment for a physical phenomenon that there’s a difference in travelling from east to west from travelling west to east. Nothing to do with Einstein’s speed slowing down time.
The GPS and the Constant Velocity of Light
Paul Marmet
“One must conclude that there exists no space-time distortion of any kind. It is no longer necessary to fascinate people with the magic of relativity. Unless we accept the absurd solution that the distance between N.Y. to S.F. is smaller than the distance between S.F. and N.Y., we have to accept that in a moving frame, the velocity of light is different in each direction. As mentioned above, this difference is even programmed in the GPS computer in order to get the correct Global Positioning. This proves that the experimental velocity of light with respect to a moving observer is c±v.”
http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/illusion/index.html
sophocles says: …. “At 10^-4 or less, the forces are too trivial to matter for anything
except the most subtle effects—and these would probably take millions
of years to be felt. ” …
Thus .. if it takes millions of years for it to be felt, and considering that the phenomenon is ongoing, and the Universe is 5 Billion years old ……. errrr … wouldn’t that mean that every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every year … is a point in time where those “millions of years” are achieved??
I”m no physicists … but I do know that once you get something roling, it takes less energy to keep it rolling, because you are no longer accelerating. This paper says there is a “small effect”. Over Billions of years, who’s to say that that small effect doesn’t have some effect on the sun? And like I said, this process has been going on for billions of years. Thus, it would seem to me that yes, the energy involved is very small, and it would take millions of years for it to achieve effective movement, but .. it’s been at for billions of years.
Robert Sheaffer says:
April 15, 2012 at 11:40 am
“…tidal forces vary with the inverse fourth power of the distance…”
Inverse cube.
More interested in that big ugly thing that’s about to poke it’s head around the corner. Let’s see what it looks like around the 23rd.
As a teacher and future administrator (which seems unlikely as I don’t play along with the music fad of the day), I can tell you for sure, belief trumps data, maths, proofs, and direct observations. Belief trumps all things. Period. And the plethora of “But…” comments coming at breakneck speed above proves it.
Myrrh says:
April 15, 2012 at 5:08 pm
“It’s not Einstein’s ‘time dilation’, it’s adjustment for a physical phenomenon that there’s a difference in travelling from east to west from travelling west to east.”
.Unh-uh. I assure you GPS uses both Special and General Relativistic corrections.
So, Pamela, you should be able to explain it all to us then, ……….
Pamela .. not all “but”s are associated with believe, .. but .. sometimes it’s associated with an inquirey. But’s .. Butts’, whichever, are what push science forward, and beyond dogma.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 15, 2012 at 1:49 pm
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 paper is taking Leif’s heliocentrism to extremes. As Soren Bungaard states (and also see http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/extrasolar_planets/extrasolar/radial_velocity.html ) Extra solar planets are found by detecting the parent star’s wobble. Or as the link above puts it:
“The radial velocity method, also known as Doppler spectroscopy, is the most effective method for locating extrasolar planets with existing technology. Though other approaches hold great promise for the future, the vast majority of Exoplanets discovered so far were detected by this method.
The radial velocity method relies on the fact that a star does not remain completely stationary when it is orbited by a planet. It moves, ever so slightly, in a small circle or ellipse, responding to the gravitational tug of its smaller companion. When viewed from a distance, these slight movements affect the star’s normal light spectrum, or color signature. If the star is moving towards the observer, then its spectrum would appear slightly shifted towards the blue; if it is moving away, it will be shifted towards the red.”
We are so FORTUNATE our Earth is orbiting the only star in the universe that does not wobble due to its orbiting planets
Perhaps Anthony you can persuade Leif to provide the mathematics supporting this uniqueness of our home star. Or alternatively, he could produce a paper showing how misleading the claims are for finding extrasolar planets using Doppler spectroscopy to detect changes in stars’ radial velocity, as they are based on incorrect mathematics. This would be a seminal moment overturning a scientific consensus!
And no – there is no sarc tag – there are two totally contradictory claims here. One of them must be false.
This is so weird.
It’s as is Anthony, Mosher, and several other skeptics don’t understand resonance. Please see e.g. Scafetta 2010, Figure 6. http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4639
Steve Mosher: You said ” 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.” “That’s testable. But to do that yu must express the effect of Jupiter in PHYSICS.”
Why so much negativity? There are some impressive correlations and some basic guesses at the mechanism. Just because we don’t know the precise mechanisms — after all, we are talking about complicated vibrations of a ball of plasma and the resultant effect on the magnetic fields on multi-year/multi-century timescales — doesn’t mean that we should discount this difficult line of research. I see it is highly plausible and it warrants further study. The correlation is quite suggestive of causation, and “barycentrism” is certainly not dead just because the “causation” has not been nailed. Nobody is claiming that the specific physics of the causation has been nailed. However causation is quite plausible.
From the intro of the paper that you just posted!:
“In Section 3 we present evidence to show that there is a direct link between the decreases and increases in the Sun’s orbital angular momentum about the CM of the Solar System, and the observed decreases and increases in the Sun’s equatorial rotation speed.We believe that this
link provides strong circumstantial evidence that there is a spin–orbit coupling mechanism operating between the Jovian planets and the Sun. We propose that it is these
changes in the Sun’s rotation speed that are responsible for variations in the speed of themeridional flow.We postulate that it is the planetary induced changes in speed of the
meridional flow that control both the duration and strength of sunspot activity on the Sun’s surface.”
“In this paper, we have followed Jose (1965) lead and looked for a possible links between the torques applied to the Sun by the Jovian planets and the level of sunspot activity. The evidence that we found to support such a link was both direct and indirect.”
BTW in my post I am assuming that modulations of the solar magnetic field has a strong influence on Earth’s cloudiness through the Svensmark effect, which I see as well supported by CLOUD results, the Danish experiments, Nir Shaviv and Svenmark’s papers, etc. etc. See Kirkby’s slides at http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073 .
I thought everyone knew that the gravitational effect of the planets on the Sun has minimal effect in the short term, I don’t believe the paper is wrong on this!
At the moment I’m currently studying this area of solar physics and the relationship of the Sun with the planets (it is still very interesting to me and hasn’t lost it’s mystery yet) and I have made no major conclusions only that I do believe that the entire solar system has it’s interactions.
The “influence of planetary attractions” on the solar tachocline has a wide area of study left that this paper has not touched on, It’s not what this paper is saying that is important and warrants study, it’s what it isn’t saying, if every time a new paper came out and all scientists, engineers etc.. downed the tools of their trade, went home and call it a day ‘job well done, problem solved’ then there would be no more reason to study anything further and a lot of progress would be lost.
It is very interesting to note what the long term relationships of the outer planets have on the fluid mechanics that drive the higher or lower activity of the sun’s conveyer belts, If anything this paper is only regurgitating what I thought we already know. Better still, when people study they study at their own pace and they are always discovering and rediscovering the information at completely different times and may have a different outlook based on their current understanding of the information, that’s how personal educational development basically works.
Anthony, did you wake up this morning and think ‘Hmm, I’ll think I’ll pick a fight with the solar geeks!!’. Bravo mate!
Somehow my hyperlinks have gotten crossed here. I was quoting sentences from the paper at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/28/astronomical-society-of-australia-publishes-new-paper-warning-of-solar-quieting-and-global-cooling/ ( http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/138/paper/AS06018.htm )
David Ball says:
April 15, 2012 at 5:46 pm
==============
You begged Leif to be nice.
Be nice to Pamela.
ARUN
I agree. a 180 degree phase change of a forcing input to the following response (resonance) is not obvious to 95% of scientists yet it exists in nature and any electrical engineer or physicist should be able to verify this.
Exceedingly small inputs yield infinite response… furthermore, if you bang a system it always rings in its naturally resonant harmonics. Whether that applies here I can’t say but simple minds breed simple models and simpler minds breed no models at all.
I say since we see wobbly stars all over the place… it bear reason that planets gravitationally effect stars so why not ours.
The wind in the Tacoma Narrows should not have been able to blow down the suspension bridge, yet the bridge came down nevertheless. So much for convensional wisdom.
anthony, whats your theory on why the sun has a 11 yr cycle and flips polarity every 22 yrs?
seriously…just dont tell me its some wackadoodle solar dynamo theory thing…
u.k.(us) says:
April 15, 2012 at 7:09 pm
There is some background there that you may not be aware of. If you read her posts, she always claims to have it all figured out (climate) and talks of the AMO, PDO, etc. and acts as if she understands the entire mechanisms and process, yet never explains herself fully or what drives those processes. I am afraid you have confused lack of kindness with calling her bluff.
Nice of you to be a gentleman.
ed says:
April 15, 2012 at 7:35 pm
anthony, whats your theory on why the sun has a 11 yr cycle and flips polarity every 22 yrs?
Here is the modern theory of the solar cycle: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1008.2432v2.pdf and it flips every 11 years, not 22.
vukcevic says:
April 15, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Since the ‘magnetic rope’ is connected to the source, i.e. the sun, the short circuit effect is fed back to the solar surface
And here is where you go wrong. Such changes can only be transmitted at the Alfven speed which is less than 50 km/sec compared to the 500 km/sec outward flow of the solar wind [or even faster for a CME].
Geoff Sharp says:
April 15, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Interesting that de Jager offers no rebuttal to the Wollf & Patrone paper which of course has nothing to do with tidal effects.
Part of the reason is that the W&P paper is an embarrassment to the authors and no rebuttal is needed. You have been told several times what is wrong with W&P. Here is the story once more: http://www.leif.org/research/Gough-Comment-on-Wolff-Patrone.doc
Douglas Gough is the foremost expert of solar dynamics.
Crispin in Johannesburg:
Excellent, excellent point on reinforcing harmonics, and very pertinent. That same aspect has come across my mind in the past. You can only say something of a force’s effects if it is either one-time or doesn’t reoccur in matching frequencies, even if those frequencies do no exactly match across time. I can still swing the kids high even though my timing is, what should I say, in perfect harmony. Far too many ‘scientists’ toss such perfectly correct science questions and possibilities in the trash bin, why?, it doesn’t match the current mantra (which is really not questioning, thinking and exploring all corners at all)
David Ball says:
April 15, 2012 at 4:42 pm
I wish Dr. Svalgaard would take the time to look closely at your stuff and help guide you.
I don’t think anybody has looked more carefully at Vuk’s stuff than I. I have tried to guide and help him, but Vuk is learning resistant. A trait often found in this pseudo-debate.
wayne says:
April 15, 2012 at 8:35 pm
I can still swing the kids high even though my timing is, what should I say, in perfect harmony.
What is wrong with that analogy and all the other resonance pleadings is that the ‘pushing force’ is too small. To stay with the analogy, it is like a mosquito landing on the little girls knee at every swing. That tiny influence is swallowed up by the friction and noise of the system and will have no effect.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 15, 2012 at 8:35 pm
“I don’t think anybody has looked more carefully at Vuk’s stuff than I. I have tried to guide and help him, but Vuk is learning resistant. A trait often found in this pseudo-debate.”
Is not constructive dialogue.