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
David Ball says: April 15, 2012 at 8:49 pm
…………..
Thanks for your help, even if Dr. Svalgaard agreed with some of my ideas it would not change anything.
While I am guided by intuition, Dr. S’s knowledge in this field is immense, he has my respect, his comments via email exchange are always helpful, but even he occasionally may be wrong, often intentionally…
Dr.S.’s theory is successful in predicting SC max one cycle ahead; my hypothesis allows to go further in time by using the ‘Svalgaard’s method’, and that definitely would not do.
5-6 years ago Dr. Hathaway also totally rejected what I was suggesting, since then his theory failed him dismally, while my equation is still holding the line.
Some of the baricentric advocates take themselves far too seriously, I do it for fun.
We certainly need open investigative minds on this subject. I also believed that the Solar Cycles were the result of internal mechanisms.
Whilst looking at past cycles I noticed something that looked very interesting, so last July I created a simple Planetary model and from the output I could see that from about mid December it was likely that the overall activity of the Sun should take a tumble.
On the 5th October when this was posted on this site “Big jumps in September solar activity metrics”, I made a small post predicting this ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/05/big-jumps-in-september-solar-activity-metrics/ ) . My model also shows that we are likely to see a further significant drop between August through January 2013, which might be significant enough to produce some completely spotless days. If this proves to be so, we are witnessing a very interesting Cycle.
It may be that what I am doing does not prove that the Planets modulate Solar activity, but we must all continue with our investigations with open minds.
Sorry.
This link http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/05/big-jumps-in-september-solar-activity-metrics/#comment-759841 takes you directly to my posted comment.
Leif Svalgaard says:
Leif Svalgaard says:
…Vuk is learning resistant ……. but simple application of well-known physics.
Hi doc, like that one, I made a progress from ‘man of superior ignorance’.
It appears your colleagues at NASA are also learning resistant but simple application of well-known physics
Two Models: THEMIS Decides Which One is Right: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/two_models.html
Somewhere up the thread Dr.S mentions ‘one electric turkey/sec’, for those not ‘with it’ he is referring to:
“NASA’s fleet of THEMIS spacecraft discovered a flux rope pumping a 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic. “The satellites have found evidence for magnetic ropes connecting Earth’s upper atmosphere directly to the Sun,” says Dave Sibeck, project scientist for the mission at the Goddard Space Flight Center. “We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms”. Even more impressive was the substorm’s power. Angelopoulos estimates the total energy of the two-hour event at five hundred thousand billion (5 x 1014) Joules. That’s approximately equivalent to the energy of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake.”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2007/11dec_themis/
That is some turkey !
vukcevic says:
April 16, 2012 at 1:32 am
Thanks for your help, even if Dr. Svalgaard agreed with some of my ideas it would not change anything.
The problem with your polar field correlation is that it [as I said] conflicts with observations. Your formula predicts that the polar fields do not reverse signs in in the cycle with minimum in 2031 and in 1911:
http://www.leif.org/research/Vuk-polar-fields-13.png
We don’t know about 2031 yet, but we do know that in 1911 the polar fields changed sign as usual. How do we know this: there is something called the 22-year cycle in geomagnetic activity that depends critically on the sign of the polar fields. The explanation of this can be found here http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf [section 9]. We can follow that effect back to the 1840s and see that the cycle continues unbroken, hence that the polar fields behaved as usual, also in 1911.
tallbloke says:
April 16, 2012 at 12:00 am
“The paper by Wolff and Patrone narrates one of those fairy tales that has not gripped me sufficiently to read beyond the first few pages.”
Because the error occurs in the very first few pages, so no need to continue.
The embarrassment belongs to Leif for touting Gough’s comment as a rebuttal, not to the reviewers of Wolff and Patrone’s paper for accepting it.
The embarrassment belongs to Wolff and Patrone. As Gough says
“What they should do is go back to the original publications of Rayleigh and Chandrasekhar and try to understand them. If they succeed, and if they are honest, they would then withdraw the paper.”
Gough’s comment was not meant as a rebuttal, but as an explanation of why it is not worthwhile to write a formal rebuttal [which you and other faithful would not accept anyway].
Paul Westhaver says:
April 15, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Leif,
Fluid instability requires infinitesimal triggers. A step gravitational event can have long lasting and durable consequences.
It is noticeable that Leif chooses not to respond to Paul Westhaver’s pertinent comments.
Argumentum ad ignore’em?
Theo Landsche..t found that when the Sun’s surface lies within ~0.1r of the solar system’s centre of mass for several years, there is a disturbance in solar activity. Geoff Sharp thinks Landsche..t only used that observation to correlate ‘phase reversals’ but I’m not so sure about that. Let others here judge for themselves. Here’s what Landsche..t said:
“As has been shown already, the Sun’s surface is a boundary in terms of the
morphology of nonlinear dynamic systems. Thus, it makes sense that the
major instability events starting about 1789, 1823, and 1867, and later about
1933 and 1968, occurred just when the centre of mass remained in or near the
Sun’s surface for several years.
When the Sun approaches the centre of mass (CM), or recedes from it, there
is a phase when CM passes through the Sun’s surface. Usually, this is a fast
passage, as the line of motion is steeply inclined to the surface. There are rare
instances, however, when the inclination IS very weak, CM runs nearly
parallel with the Sun’s surface, or oscillates about it so that CM remains near
the surface for several years. Fixing the epochs of start and end of such periods
involves some arbitrariness. The following definition is in accordance with
observation and meets all requirements of practice: major solar instability
events occur when the centre of mass remains continually within the range
0.9 – 1.1 solar radii for 2.5 to 8.5 years, and additionally within the range 0.8
– 1.2 soIar radii for 5.5 to 10 years. The giant planet Jupiter is again involved.
In most cases major instability events are released when Jupiter is stationary
near CM.
The first, sharper criterion yields the following periods:
1789.7 – 1793.1 (3.4 yr)
1823.6 – 1828.4 (4.8 yr)
1867.6 – 1870.2 (2.6 yr)
1933.8 – 1937.3 (3.5 yr)
1968.4 – 1972.6 (4.2 yr)
2002.8 – 2011.0 (8.3 yr)
The first decimal is only given to relate the results rather exactly to the aiterion.
The epochs of the onset and the end of the phenomenon cannot be assessed
with such precision. The second, weaker criterion yields periods which begin
earlier:
1784.7 – 1794.0 (9.3 yr)
1823.0 – 1832.8 (9.8 yr)
1864.5 – 1870.9 (6.4 yr)
1932.5 – 1938.3 (5.8 yr)
1967.3 – 1973.3 (6.0 yr)
2002.2 – 2011.8 (9.6 yr)
Henceforth, the starting periods 1789, 1823 etc. of the first criterion will be
quoted.
In case of major instability events that affect the Sun’s surface and the
incidence of features of solar activity displaying in this thin, sensitive layer
the instability seems to spread out in the planetary system and seize all events
in time series that are connected with the Sun’s activity.”
It is noticeable that we did get a low solar cycle in the 1970’s, and that we are getting another now. It is also noticeable that the first period is followed by the very low cycles of the Dalton Minimum and after the second period, solar activity recovered. The third and fourth and fifth periods also coincide with cycles which are lower than the cycles either side of them. Would these simple observations have been missed by Landsche..t? I doubt it.
The offer to Geoff Sharp to submit a guest post to the Talkshop, where we are currently running several lively threads on planetary effects on solar activity has been on the table for over a year, and I hope he can drop the personal stuff long enough to accept it and discuss the science there.
Myrrh says:
April 16, 2012 at 1:02 am
Volker Doormann says:
April 15, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Paul Marmet
“One must conclude that there exists no space-time distortion of any kind.
I do not know, what it means.
He is referring specifically to Einstein’s theory of relativity and means as he continues in that paragraph:
“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.”
No. I have worked some years (1967-1970) on a compass. If you propagate light in a fiber ring in both directions on a non rotating place the frequencies both are identical on the detector. If there is any rotation on a ship, a rotating planet or an aircraft, both frequencies are different because of a Doppler effect.
No one ever has given a proof for a velocity of any kind.
“An other fact, that spacetime is an element in nature, is the fact that the linearity of spacetime getting nonlinear in gravitational fields as we all know from the Mercury trace, which is different to the linear Kepler relation.”
Einstein’s spacetime is nonsense
EOD because of ignore my arguments + OT.
V.
From the abstract:
>>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.
That seems to leave them a little wiggle room, or maybe it should be called “wobble” room.
I admit to being an ignoramous on this subject so we can dispense with which category I fit into. However, speaking from the standpoint of an ignoramous and someone who has much to learn, I admit to having been pursuaded by the barycentric theory. On the surface, it has seemed like common sense. Its attractive to me because its intuitive.
Soooo, maybe someone here can explain to me how the sun, as well as other stars, can be “tugged” by their orbiting planets, but not have their “internal motions” influenced as well. I don’t really have a horse in this race; I’m just curious.
Leif says of Gough’s ‘criticism’ of Wolff & Patrone 2010:
Because the error occurs in the very first few pages, so no need to continue.
Well, you keep saying this, but argument by assertion doesn’t carry any weight, and a reviewer would quite rightly reject it.
vukcevic says:
April 16, 2012 at 2:25 am
650,000 Amps …. That is some turkey
Someone’s goose is cooked, I agree. 😉
tallbloke says:
April 16, 2012 at 3:06 am
Skimming papers and picking comments out of context is not a good look. Theodore makes it very clear in all his papers that the PTC event (what you think is a solar downturn) is a mechanism for changing phase. ie phase reversal. Show me in one of his papers where the PTC event is linked with grand minima. I find it lame we are even discussing this issue, you have no idea. Do you understand what the PTC event is?
Your offer of a guest post is 2 years late, and considering your recent censorship performance I would not entertain the idea.
I am still wanting to know what this comment on your blog meant?
“Geoff wants to claim the glory to himself and in the memory of the late Carl Smith”
vukcevic says:
April 16, 2012 at 2:25 am
Somewhere up the thread Dr.S mentions ‘one electric turkey/sec’
Wrong. I was talking about the mass of the solar wind impacting. No electricity here. The solar wind is electrically neutral as Lindeman showed back in 1919 http://www.leif.org/EOS/Lindemann-1919.pdf
“NASA’s fleet of THEMIS spacecraft discovered a flux rope pumping a 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic. “The satellites have found evidence for magnetic ropes connecting Earth’s upper atmosphere directly to the Sun,” says Dave Sibeck, project scientist for the mission at the Goddard Space Flight Center. “We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms”. Even more impressive was the substorm’s power. Angelopoulos estimates the total energy of the two-hour event at five hundred thousand billion (5 x 1014) Joules. That’s approximately equivalent to the energy of a magnitude 5.5 earthquake.”
They are way behind. This was calculated by me back in 1973 http://www.leif.org/research/Geomagnetic-Response-to-Solar-Wind.pdf “Therefore the total substorm energy dissipation amounts to 5 x 10^14 Joule corresponding to an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 on the Richter scale”. A 5.5 quake only releases 10^13 Joule [or 50 times less] so Angelopoulos needs to learn a bit too. Anyway, the point is that the Earth and other magnetospheres extract only about one percent of the energy of the solar wind impinging on them so do not disturb the solar wind significantly and any disturbance cannot travel upwind. I mentioned that the interaction with the magnetosphere concentrates the extremely weak solar wind into a small area [the auroral zone], so you can get relatively large local effects, enough to melt transformers and disrupt power lines. But melted transformers do not control the solar cycle.
vukcevic says:
April 16, 2012 at 2:25 am
“NASA’s fleet of THEMIS spacecraft discovered a flux rope pumping a 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic. “The satellites have found evidence for magnetic ropes connecting Earth’s upper atmosphere directly to the Sun,”
again, they are way behind [or you are, believing that this is news and contrary to what I’m telling you]. This was discovered in 1968 by me: http://www.leif.org/research/DMI-R6.pdf
“3) it shows that the geomagnetic field in high latitudes, and in turn the configuration of the magnetosphere, is high influenced by the interplanetary magnetic field. The close correlation between the type of daytime-perturbation and the sense of the interplanetary magnetic field seems to indicate that the magnetosphere is open as suggested by Dungey”
Dungey [1961] suggested that the solar wind magnetic field is connected to the Earth’s magnetic field and I showed that that was indeed the case.
Steve, you made a lot of self-evident and obvious good sense in this comment with one gigantic exception:
You must know that this proposition isn’t even remotely true.. Mann, Jones, Trenberth along with their AGW clergy of Ehrlich, Hansen, McKibben, Algore, Suzuki (… ad nauseum) would never be laughed out of the room. Their ‘side’ has already far, far exceeded any of these ‘out there’ pet theories and opinions about gravity wells and electric suns from ‘skeptics’ that get you so agitated. I mean, certainly after the obvious whitewashes of the unbelievable admitted thwarting and obstruction of FOI requests you cannot really believe what you wrote!
Even if Mann’s UVA or PSU emails were found to contain Mark Foley like bad behavior with young boys he would still be A-Okay with all of the eco-Kooks and .99% of the major media as well as with Scientific journals and public pseudo-Science rags like Nature and Scientific American.
ferd berple says:
April 15, 2012 at 11:18 pm
„Why is the sky blue?
Is it blue because of the wavelength of light it reflects? It is it blue because it had to be some color, and that color turned out by chance to be blue? Or is it blue because if it was some other color life would not have developed on earth and we would not be here to discuss the matter?”
It is not the sky, which is blue.
Physics is a part of science, which deals [only!] with forces and energies. Physics can measure the energy [eV] of photons, the polarisation, and the phase because these properties of photons are outside world.
Physics cannot work with elements in nature, which have neither a force nor a matter or an energy. Alike brightness, or recognized truth, or the reckonable harmony in music, color has no dimension in physics; it exist only in a living immaterial consciousness. This means that the term color is a social convention of a number of living humans sayings. Like a meter of a kg or a second or a velocity these objects are not observables in physics.
This knowledge is a taboo in physics, because physics and their gurus claims to be the science per se, but that is wrong. Physics is good to start wars or warm the own house, or tell people that CO2 is a killer of our Earth; physics is blind to reality, truth, woman, judge/rightness, love, music, poetry, art or the own consciousness.
V.
Peter Hodges said:
Also, it seems to me that if the combined action of the planets can pull the entire sun
around the solar system barycenter, then the combined action of the planets could also pull around a little surface material in tidal effects.
Gross misunderstanding of physics.
The barycenter has 0 mass. The gravitational force goes F=constant*M1*M2/r**2.
M1, the sun, M2 the barycenter. F=0
There is no force exerted according to classical mechanics.
The motion of the barycenter that so fascinates people weak on physics is just like a planetarium, like a clock keeping time where the gears are the sun and planets. Any correlation with a physical measurement cannot be causal, because there is no force to cause effects.
Observations are full of correlations, but correlation is not causation , it is just a datum to be examined in order to find the true cause.
An example by what I mean that the motion of the barycenter is just like a clock hand: Take a clock where you are, and a clock in the north pole, and note the times. They are higly correlated but are not causing each other; the true cause being that the gears have been calibrated to have this correlation.
Now the motion of the barycenter, as the result of the chaotic dance of the solar system, has a lot of peaks and valleys that can give a lot of frequencies when analysed. The sun also has a
lot of peaks and valleys in its output. Similar periods can by nursed out. This does not mean that the correlation has a cause. It is just a clock coincidence unless the dynamics are demonstrated.
Leif says:
Anyway, the point is that the Earth and other magnetospheres extract only about one percent of the energy of the solar wind impinging on them so do not disturb the solar wind significantly
And solar variation in TSI terms is maybe 0.1 to 0.3% on the centennial scale. And the Earth’s average surface temperature variation is maybe around 0.5% from the little ice age to now.
I’m not making any claim for causation here, just comparing the magnitude of some pertinent figures.
Just to add to the pot: 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?
I am impressed by the correlations of the torque feedback to both sunspot and climate cycles…and not at all impressed by the ansence of mechanism arguments..considering the history of scientific discovery of mechanisms whereby elucidation of mechanims followed observation. 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.
Given the power of the solar wind to impact the electric body of the Earth (through magnetic storms) – a power amplified by the angle of the fields as they interact, could not reverse currents have similar pulses and powers?
Incidently – Leif: the law of the conservation of matter and energy would lead me to infer that as no significant amount of energy/matter leaves the heliosphere (held in by the galactic wind pressure), yet there appears not to be a build-up at the boundary, logic would infer that it is cycled back into the Sun (as Alfven thought). I presume that the countercurrent back to the Sun could flow along the sheer lines of the magnetic tubes….even at 1/10th their speed. Alfven calculated the electron flux back to the Sun….the return circuit, and thought it powerful enough to cause the sudden rise from 10,000 to several million degrees C of the photosphere (now thought due to magentic fields heating the surface – but heck, as a generalist I am aware these things come in fashions as paradigms shift and change).
Finally….often left out of everyone’s equations are voltage shocks. Anyone studying these? When Svensmark wanted to clear his experimental chambers of seeded cloud particles, he applied a voltage shock. The transparency of the atmosphere has a large effect on climate – most particularly, the rate of ocean surface heating and cooling. Global warming is not global…it is regional, where accummulated ocean heat stores (gyres) are dissipated by prevailing winds and low pressure vortices (the vortices track the jetstream).
These are all mechanisms that are not favoured by detailed studies….of heat accumulation in gyres, of heat transfer to land, or rates of transfer, and the effects of transparency….and virtually nothing on atmospheric voltage variations and ‘shocks’ and their spatial distribution.
So – many mysteries still to be resolved to understand both solar magnetic cycles and terrestrial climate cycles, where the correlations are very suggestive of a linking mechanism. What is required is a combination of open minds, scientific scepticism and analytical skill married to a wilingness to actually investigate (along with some time and/or money)!
“In addition, the periods of revolution of the planets (in particular Jupiter) do not seem compatible with the solar cycle over long times.”
False. Superior and inferior conjunctions of Earth and Venus with the Sun that are also in closer heliocentric alignment with Jupiter follow the solar cycle for hundreds of years. The alternating nature of superior Ea/Ve conjuntions (in line with Ju) in odd numbered cycles, and inferrior Ea/Ve conjunctions (in line with Ju) in even numbered cycles, track the magnetic reversal of the solar dipole at each cycle maximum.
anna v says:
April 16, 2012 at 4:24 am
Peter Hodges said:
Also, it seems to me that if the combined action of the planets can pull the entire sun
around the solar system barycenter, then the combined action of the planets could also pull around a little surface material in tidal effects.
Gross misunderstanding of physics.
The barycenter has 0 mass. The gravitational force goes F=constant*M1*M2/r**2.
M1, the sun, M2 the barycenter. F=0
There is no force exerted according to classical mechanics.
Gross misunderstanding of Peter Hodges.
He said the sun was pulled around the barycentre by “the combined action of the planets”
Which is the correct physics.
Now the motion of the barycenter, as the result of the chaotic dance of the solar system, has a lot of peaks and valleys that can give a lot of frequencies when analysed. The sun also has a
lot of peaks and valleys in its output. Similar periods can by nursed out. This does not mean that the correlation has a cause. It is just a clock coincidence unless the dynamics are demonstrated.
Like this:
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/rotation-solar-windspeed-adjusted.png
That’s Jupiter and Earth and a little bit of Venus (weak magnetosphere) interacting along the Parker Spiral in relation to the timings of the solar cycles. The amplitudes maybe have more to do with the action of the outer big four gas giants via the Wolff-Patrone mechanism for the general curve, modulated by the effect outlined by Landsche..t in my comment above.
So we’d be talking about a combination of electro-magnetic, gravitational in combination with solar convection, non-linear boundary effects via Paul Westhaver’s infinitesimal force starting major fluid disturbance via the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and maybe a little bit of tidal effects too.
Simple it ain’t, but we’re working on it before we’re ready to make any claims, because we’re not ‘The Faithful’ as Leif likes to insultingly characterise us, but interested and productive thinkers working on this topic, unlike the naysayers.
An interesting set of responses, from a flat rejection that the quoted paper has ANY implications for the hypothesis that barycentric variation affects the solar cycles, to an appeal to ‘keep and open mind’. As if ‘skepticism’ is equivalent to an avoidance of judgement.
That the energy signature of the possible influence is several orders of magnitude below any credible possibility of direct influence makes it certain that barycentric variation is NOT a direct factor in solar cycles.
The only way for it to have any effect on solar activity is if it indirectly affects an inherent non-linear system that will vastly amplify the very small gravitational changes.
But that faces the same problem that negates the hypothesis that GCRs modulate cloud cover. As the CERN experiments are showing, the rate of cloud formation may be affected by GCRs, but IF cloud formation is THAT sensitive to GCRs, then that effect is swamped by the much stronger influence of biogenic DSM and other sources of cloud condensation nuclei.
I would guess that the extreme reluctance of some to abandon the barycentric hypothesis is rooted in an ideological/emotional adherence to an ‘Anything but CO2’ belief.
This is most explicit when the negligible influence of planetary tidal effects on the Sun is compared to the change in CO2 which is also asserted to be infinitesimal.
Except of course that it isn’t, the 30% rise in the component of the atmosphere responsible for around 20% of the GHE is not a negligible effect. It leads to a measurable increase of over 1W/m2 in DWLWR even without any likely feedbacks.
Unlike the barycentric variations it has a known, direct and measurable effect on the energy flows within the climate system. The energy changes are a significant percentage of the total and a clear physical process is known to be at work. In contrast the barycentric variation is tiny, has no known physical means of affecting the solar activity and its popularity in the face of such counter evidence is surely more to do with those rejecting the role of CO2 finding solace in any possible alternative, however unlikely, or just plain incomprehensible, as a amelioration of their cognitive dissonance.
Leif Svalgaard says, April 15, 2012 at 8:22 pm
All well and good but where does the ‘random kick’ come from that brings it back out of a grand minima?
This comment is repeated as I was caught in the Landsche..t sin bin.
Geoff Sharp says:
April 16, 2012 at 3:31 am
tallbloke says:
April 16, 2012 at 3:06 am
Skimming papers and picking comments out of context is not a good look. Theodore makes it very clear in all his papers that the PTC event (what you think is a solar downturn) is a mechanism for changing phase. ie phase reversal. Show me in one of his papers where the PTC event is linked with grand minima. I find it lame we are even discussing this issue, you have no idea. Do you understand what the PTC event is?
Your offer of a guest post is 2 years late, and considering your recent censorship performance I would not entertain the idea.
I am still wanting to know what this comment on your blog meant?
“Geoff wants to claim the glory to himself and in the memory of the late Carl Smith”
tallbloke says:
April 16, 2012 at 5:33 am
Gross misunderstanding of Peter Hodges.
He said the sun was pulled around the barycentre by “the combined action of the planets”
Which is the correct physics.
Even this interpretation is wrong. The sun is a huge gravitational well and is pulling the planets in their dance around it; you are putting the cart before the horse. If one takes the center of mass of all the planets, when to first order one could legally add the planetary mass and look at it like a satellite of the sun, it will be going around the sun like a fly around honey. The sun is pulling the planets and not the other way around. It is as if you said that the moon pulls the earth around it, where what it does at most is create the tides; and we know that the tides on the sun due to the planetary pull are just a few milimeters or so.
Leif has been saying for yrs basically the same thing as this post.
Just a friendly tip, those who ignore high-school physics (orders of magnitude) risk losing any interest in their posts, even if they otherwise make valid points. Some have unfortunately already reached this point. Too bad.
izen says, April 16, 2012 at 5:39 am
Psycho babble about CO2 ‘belief’ in the face of the giant heat pump with a gigantic heat sink under it in which we live that seems to by-pass most of the claimed effect of the 5 – 2 = 2 hypothesis has no place in this discussion. In case you missed it, we’re talking about the origin and timing of the of the solar cycle; not Gaia Worship Disorder (GWD).