FOREWORD: I don’t agree with many of the claims made in this paper, particularly the retrograde tri-synodic Jupiter/Saturn cycle claims. This is not a peer reviewed paper. That said, I’m willing to allow discussion of it, so be skeptical of these claims and force the authors to defend the work. As the author writes:
All open-minded readers are invited to discuss the strengths and the weaknesses of this theory or to falsify it.
There’s a summary PDF here. – Anthony
Guest post by Joachim Seifert, www.climateprediction.eu
In our new study (PDF), which we introduce here for discussion, we identify five macro-climatic mechanisms that govern a long time span of 20,000 years. In order to “govern”, they have to comply with two basic requisites: (1) clear visibility in paleo-climate proxy records and (2) continuous presence or multiple recurrence in a longer than one millennium time frame.
The state of the art in climate-forcing mechanism analysis is that presently available General Circulation Models (GCMs) underperform substantially in terms of predictive power, showing significant mismatches and model deficiencies in model-data comparisons. This may not surprise when macro-forcing mechanisms were substituted by coupled micro- and nano-forcings and feedbacks. It is evaluated in the literature that all GCMs perform well for the first 500 years backwards from the present, but then lack skill for the previous 9,500 Holocene years. This is critical for climate models, as they have also to show their validity on time frames of more than 1,000 years.
Our study proceeds with the selection of 10,000 years of the entire Holocene interglacial and, for comparison, of another 10,000 years of a purely glacial time span (37,000-27,000 BP). For the purpose of identifying macro-forcing mechanisms, we use the GISP2 record due to its high time and temperature resolution and its visibility of macro- and micro-temperature swings.
The presented climate-forcing study considers the effects of Milankovitch cycles, atmospheric CO2-concentrations, Solar Inertial Motions (SIM), the retrograde tri-synodic Jupiter/Saturn cycle, and of two major mechanisms, the Earth Orbit Oscillation (EOO) and the Cosmic Impact Oscillation (CIO).
After detrending the GISP2 data according to SIM and Milankovitch cycles, the EOO and CIO remain as dominant climate drivers. Both the two EOO and CIO cycles act as solar amplifiers: They do not act by increasing overall solar output, but they vary Earth-Sun distances, thus increasing or decreasing energy input received on Earth.
Detailed mechanisms for both oscillations are provided; their calculation methods are pointed out. The Holocene proves to be highly CIO disturbed over 8,000 years, whereas the 37-27k years BP time period remains CIO-calm with just one CIO-event to be noted.
As shown in the picture presented (above), the climate of the 37-27k period is overwhelmingly governed by the Earth Orbit Oscillation. We permit remaining small to medium deviations of the EOO from the GISP2 curve to undergo GCM-analysis for identifying and attributing micro- and nano-drivers in coupled systems. The EOO oscillation cycle is a continuously occurring mechanism. By knowledge of its dynamics, we are able to reconstruct the EOO cycle line from 37-27 ka BP, as displayed in the graphics. Comparison of the reconstruction line to GISP2 data yields an accurate curve match. Only one minor CIO impact event occurred at 31,000 BP. By knowing impact date and energy, we were able to reconstruct the missing EOO oscillation peak.
Concerning the most interesting time span of 10,000 years Holocene: We were able to identify 13 CIO events out of 24, which, according to impact mechanism dynamics, must send Holocene temperatures steeply down after each impact event. As the Earth orbital line oscillates, temperature recoveries follow after each cold temperature peak. The striking feature of this recovery pattern consists of a higher solar energy yield and higher GISP2 temperatures compared to the temperature level given for the date of any impact. We demonstrate this important feature in detail, because it remains left out in present GCMs, another modeling deficiency and obvious cause for GCM model-data mismatches.
The 37-27 ka BP period, as presented in the graphic, can easily be reconstructed based on the calculated EOO cycle combined with one minor CIO impact. The same applies to the Holocene, which can easily be reconstructed based on the course of the EOO cycle, and then enhanced with the superimposition of given 13 random CIO events.
Concluding the study, we zoom in onto EOO and CIO forcing of the past 3,000 years (1,000 BC to present) and provide an outlook onto forcing mechanisms, which are expected to act within the future 500 years. The GISP2 proxy temperature curve and macro-forcing mechanisms are compared to the Hockey Stick temperature evolution pattern.
Details of demonstrated astro-climatic relations are as of today, 2012, new and original climate change knowledge. The IPCC has not been able to provide supplementary data on cycle mechanics. The identification of 5 macro-climatic drivers, missing in current GCMs, unmistakably proves that climate science is not settled yet. One missing driver may be excused, but not five. The notion of “The science is settled”, upheld since the days of Galileo, is a spiritual relict of the past.
The paper is available here. Again, this is new knowledge, a new view on what drives climate in the long run. All open-minded readers are invited to discuss the strengths and the weaknesses of this theory or to falsify it. Productive criticism, in other words.
Just to be clear, I am not arguing the JPT factors and the standard formulas used to calculate space travel through various tugs and pulls from gravitational forces. What I question are the joule potentials in your “derived” numbers you apparently believe capable of affecting Earth’s climate but then do not consider how your values would also affect the trajectories calculated for space travel. Joules are joules are joules. If the joule capacity of your numbers are sufficient to change climate status quo in spite of Earth’s mulitple powerful intrinsic variables, your numbers are sufficient to affect travel trajectories. Wonder why NASA is not knocking down your door for your “derived” calculations?
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 16, 2012 at 10:03 am
Another quote from Shirley’s [who is from JPL, btw] paper:
“Thus, there can be no relative acceleration of any two constituent particles of the body of the Sun that is solely due to the revolution of the Sun about the Solar System barycentre and the spin-orbit coupling hypothesis […] must be discarded”
Not so fast Svalgaard. 🙂
Shirley is setting an unphysical clause here. No-one ever said that the strong correlations between the motion about the barycentre and solar activity levels were “solely due to the revolution of the Sun about the Solar System barycentre”..
Such games with dead particles are for dummies.
No, the emanation of energy from solar centre outwards is also involved, as Wolff and Patrone so ably demonstrated, and Gough so stupidly missed, because he didn’t bother to read their paper beyond the first couple of pages before his preconceptions got the better of him.
tallbloke says:
October 16, 2012 at 11:54 am
No, the emanation of energy from solar centre outwards is also involved, as Wolff and Patrone so ably demonstrated, and Gough so stupidly missed, because he didn’t bother to read their paper beyond the first couple of pages before his preconceptions got the better of him.
Wolff and Patrone surmised, not demonstrated. In any event it takes 250,000 years for the energy produced in the core to make its way by random diffusion through the radiative zone [out to 0.7 of the radius]. Any periodicity there might have been in the energy production is completely washed out by that slow random diffusion. About Gough and the first few pages: once it becomes clear that the paper has derailed, further study is not worth the effort.
Geoff Sharp:
“You really should have more respect. Ian is doing a lot of good work. In comparison you are yet to rise above troll status.
Ian’s website below.
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/”
And which Ian would that be? Ian Wilson or Ian W?
In any case, I have been asking straight questions based on basic physics, and have got nothing but bluster, and now silence, in return. That tells me all I need to know.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 16, 2012 at 12:00 pm
In any event it takes 250,000 years for the energy produced in the core to make its way by random diffusion through the radiative zone [out to 0.7 of the radius]. Any periodicity there might have been in the energy production is completely washed out by that slow random diffusion.
Who said the periodicity has to be embedded only in the core?
About Gough and the first few pages: once it becomes clear that the paper has derailed, further study is not worth the effort.
Wolff and Patrone have already said via email that they will respond to properly published criticism. What are you and Gough afraid of? Why won’t you submit the criticism for peer review? I think it’s because appeals to the authority of Chandresekar would be laughed out of the journal. There is nothing of substance there. Wolff and Patrone’s paper consists of a proper description of their model. Gough’s note consists of an armwaving appeal to authority.
It is worthless crap you repeatedly wheel out here to try to discredit two NASA scientists with. It is the action of a cowardly propagandist. Put up or shut up.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
October 16, 2012 at 12:25 pm
And which Ian would that be? Ian Wilson or Ian W?
If Daleks are so clever, why can’t they get up a staircase?
J. Seifert: The inspiration to try to struggle against our great celestial analysis paper came
not by lifting your eyes toward the sky but clearly originates from the opposite
direction somewhere down……..
That foolish criticism of Willis Eschenbach is false. He looked at the relative masses of a large known impactor and Earth, and showed that they are in the same ratio as a fly to an automobile. This directly addresses a point that has been made in different ways: nowhere have you shown that the impactors you listed have the necessary energies and momenta to change the Earth’s orbit as you claim they did: they are all smaller than the Ixhculub impactor. They (the energies and momenta) are too small by non-negligible orders of magnitude. Unless you have another source of energy, or posit that the impactors had a high rate of speed, or you posit some other energetic innovation, the events that you propose can’t have happened.
To both Matthew and to Willis:
I apologize that sometimes I am slow and take arguments more than seriously…..
Willis, look: If you had told me from the start: (1) You present a paper and I will
(2) play the DEVIL’S ADVOCATE in order you may watch for arguments
you would expect to be confronted with by the AGW climate villains. Be prepared,
the following argument chain will await you, under all guarantees:
A.) We dont need/want to read any of the paper because its hilarious, based on
B.) doing a simplistic KE calculation and complain that
C.) astronomical numbers do not add up, D.) because all impacts have to be of
at least a half-star size, not less in mass, and therefore, your paper is low quality.
Then I would have understood more rapidly that we have to be preemptive in the
paper, right before our introductory part and counter from the very beginning this
argument tactic We will get this done before Christmas and are happy that we
received all blog comments. We prefer being told this on Anthony’s blog than being outmaneuvered by above indicated A-D tactics through other AGW sites. JS
tallbloke says:
October 16, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Who said the periodicity has to be embedded only in the core?
You hinted at that with the vague and ambiguous statement “the emanation of energy from solar centre” and W&P did it too: “Occasionally small mass exchanges near the solar center would carry fresh fuel to deeper levels. This would cause stars like the Sun to burn more brightly than stars without planets”. Their other mechanism [convection cell movements of zero measure] will not work because the conditions for instability are not met.
Wolff and Patrone have already said via email that they will respond to properly published criticism. What are you and Gough afraid of? Why won’t you submit the criticism for peer review?
We thought of that [with Ken Schatten] but decided that it was better simply to let the paper suffer the fate of all bad papers: oblivion. Furthermore I don’t think you would abandon W&P even after their paper had been shown in published literature to be faulty. Would you?
I think it’s because appeals to the authority of Chandresekar would be laughed out of the journal.
It is W&P that appeals to Chandresekar [“the following analytic approximation provides simple formulas for plotting where the available energy is located. It was used by Chandrasekhar (1961)…” so perhaps the journal would laugh out W&P for that…
It is worthless crap you repeatedly wheel out here to try to discredit two NASA scientists
They do a good job themselves in that department.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 16, 2012 at 1:07 pm
[…]
Quote mining their paper won’t help you understand it.
tallbloke says:
October 16, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Quote mining their paper won’t help you understand it.
It might help you correct your mistakes.
Tallbloke : “If Daleks are so clever, why can’t they get up a staircase?”
If you knew anything about Daleks, you would know they can go up stairs.
They also know how to use the Science Citation Index.
“Science Citation Index”
Ah, the consensus clause.
That’s why Daleks go round in gangs, and all talk with the same monotonous voice. When confronted with something which challenges their world view they cry in unison:
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
Have a look at a some more interesting correlations, and lose the dalek suit.
http://catriskglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/charvatova.pdf
Tallbloke : You don’t know all the uses of the CSI do you – it can be used to find all the papers published by a certain person, and work out how many people with a given name are active in a particular field, say astronomy – quite revealing.
J. Seifert says:
October 16, 2012 at 3:07 pm
Thank you very, very much for your time and effort here, and your courage in asking for criticism and comments.
Is facing a public forum easier, or harder, than facing a degree panel? 8>)
To RACook: The question arises: To whom to talk to, who is the panel, who takes
part in a forum…. word is out “judged by the authors peers”……Fine, who is my peer to
judge my paper? Presenting it to a climate journal…..question: Tell me, which one.
All were outfitted by “AGW gatekeepers”. I read Lindzen/Choi needed 2 years to get
into a Korean paper…..Shall I wait 2 years to get into a Korean paper?
Our paper is not of AGW interest. Whether it is complete, whatever the quality is,
is unimportant, they will not even reject the paper they do not even acknowledge they
have received it. If you ask, “please, just to confirm, that you received a paper….”
will be answered with total ignorance, not one line, not one sound of reply…..
For this very reason, Anthony is the one to be appreciated for open discourse
and climate reason. He gives a chance to all new knowledge and he deserves
respect for this…. whereas AGW gatekeeping gives a chance only to AGW peers….
Anthony is open: He puts : “”Claim…..of XYZ ” and may stay out of all comments.
This would be unthinkable over at RealClimate….they use an AGW-filter and
anything with a sceptical touch will fall through the screen…JS
I raise questions about the GISP2 data used in the paper as available for download, note obvious problems.
I get silence.
I spend hours on a comment noting the differences between the Alley 2000 temperature reconstruction used and the Kobashi 2011 dataset, and between it and reality, concluding the Alley 2000 dataset as available for download is wrong.
I get more silence.
Will someone please tell me what’s going on? Are you accepting without comment that Alley 2000 is wrong? Has it been known that it is wrong and people are too embarrassed to point out I should have known it? Or are people thinking I must be wrong, despite what I’ve shown Alley 2000 as downloaded must be correct, and they are too embarrassed to tell me I must be wrong?
Please, will someone tell me why I am not getting any responses on this issue?
J. Seifert says:
October 16, 2012 at 4:25 pm
who is my peer to judge my paper?
Any competent physics/astronomer scientist is a peer that can judge your paper. Most of the lay people here are good judges too with well-honed eyes and good BS-detectors. Performing the necessary back-of-envelope calculations [that you cannot or have not], checking your sources to the extent all the data is available and you don’t keep something secret or hidden, and generally auditing your use [or lack thereof] of the scientific method. You had a fair shake here and it didn’t turn out too good for you. So, more homework is needed. The way to get a paper published is not to argue with the reviewers, but to follow their advice and improve the paper along the lines they suggest.
Dr Seifert, If you are unsure which journal to try, have a look at the Open Journal of Astronomy
http://www.benthamscience.com/open/toaaj/MSandI.htm
You will have to tidy up the manuscript a lot however to meet their criteria
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 16, 2012 at 9:57 am
Just for the record you could answer the following:
Should we enter a Maunder type Grand Minimum the next few cycles, that will falsify your theory, right?
100% right. I am very confident of my prediction of a short Dalton type experience because I have a physics based tool that hindcasts almost perfectly back through the sunspot record and then onto the Holocene proxy record. I have something solid where you only have a false trend that is displayed by L&P (and now questioned by many) to amazingly predict a Maunder type event. You do not even have a theory that can be falsified.
If the tool continues to correctly predict the future solar cycles the mechanism argument becomes increasingly unimportant.
Pamela Gray says:
October 16, 2012 at 11:04 am
Just to be clear, I am not arguing the JPT factors and the standard formulas used to calculate space travel through various tugs and pulls from gravitational forces. What I question are the joule potentials in your “derived” numbers you apparently believe capable of affecting Earth’s climate but then do not consider how your values would also affect the trajectories calculated for space travel. Joules are joules are joules.
I think you are getting a bit lost here Pamela. Have a read of my paper and get back to me. It seems too many jump to criticize without understanding what they are criticizing.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
October 16, 2012 at 12:25 pm
In any case, I have been asking straight questions based on basic physics, and have got nothing but bluster, and now silence, in return. That tells me all I need to know.
If you had something constructive to add you might fare better, otherwise its just feeding the troll.
Geoff Sharp says:
October 16, 2012 at 7:25 pm
I have a physics based tool
As the mechanism is not based on valid physics, it can hardly be called a ‘physical tool’.
But it is good to see that you will drop your ‘theory’ if we get a Maunder -type minimum.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
October 16, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Please, will someone tell me why I am not getting any responses on this issue?
There are so many holes in the paper being reviewed that another shot gun blast might make little difference?
J. Seifert: We dont need/want to read any of the paper because its hilarious,
What makes you think I didn’t read the whole paper? I pointed to three obvious inadequacies, and you have not addressed them. You want I should proof-read it and recommend you use “rebound” for “rebounce” everywhere?
From Geoff Sharp on October 16, 2012 at 8:16 pm:
GISP2 is cited in many historical climate discussions, as in the Alley 2000 temperature reconstruction since Kobashi is rather recent. The version available for download has obvious flaws. In the case of that version being corrupted, I would like to know if a “pure” version is available somewhere. Otherwise I have to disregard anything using Alley GISP2 as not trustworthy, which is a lot of material.
I also think that version is likely corrupted as it seems unlikely that no one else has ever noticed such obvious flaws before.
The alternative is those are somehow not errors, but something known about the dataset that those using it should be aware of. If so, I really wish someone would let me know what I, someone who wants to use that dataset, am supposed to know about it.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
October 16, 2012 at 9:31 pm
GISP2 is cited in many historical climate discussions, as in the Alley 2000 temperature reconstruction since Kobashi is rather recent. The version available for download has obvious flaws. In the case of that version being corrupted, I would like to know if a “pure” version is available somewhere.
Maybe you could contact Kobashi and ask for advice.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
October 16, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Tallbloke : You don’t know all the uses of the CSI do you – it can be used to find all the papers published by a certain person, and work out how many people with a given name are active in a particular field, say astronomy – quite revealing.
Maybe you could give an example of why it is useful to know why there are more astronomers called Smith rather than Brewer. I’d also like to know why it is that in a science discussion you think it more pertinent to discuss the gap in someone’s publication history rather than the scientific content of their work relevant to the discussion.
From here it looks like casting aspersions on the person instead of discussing the basic physics or the strength of correlations. If you look at the Charvatova paper I linked, you’ll see that she doesn’t worry about the mechanism, but shows that the regularly recurring trefoil motion of the Sun about the barycentre coincides with periods of warmth in the historical and paleo proxy records, and a lack of floods in Czech and Slovak lands during the same periods over the last 1000 years. The mechanism is an interesting question, but not a crucial one which allows the dismissal of real correlations. Many well accepted and quantified relations exist in science with no well defined mechanism to explain them.
Her conclusions in that 2008 paper read:
The results obtained indicate a primary, controlling role of the SIM (Solar Inertial Motion) in solar-terrestrial and climatic variability.
The exceptional, stable intervals of the nearly identical trefoils in the SIM can
serve as the supporting bases in searching for mutual relations between the
SIM, solar activity, geomagnetic activity, volcanic activity, surface air
temperature, etc. This will be in focus of our future research
The SIM is computable in advance (celestial mechanics). If steady mutual
relations between the SIM and above phenomena are gradually found, then
predictive assessments of their future behaviours could be established, first of
course on the basis of known previous mutual relations (behaviours).
Proper mechanisms are so far not known.
She quite rightly points out that successful predictions, not mechanisms define the usefulness of science.
Since she wrote that paper, several works has successfully passed peer review which offer plausible mechanisms. If Leif Svalgaard is determined to refute them, why is he wasting his time here propagandising instead of rolling up his sleeves and using ‘basic physics’ to write proper rebuttals to submit to the relevant journals? It’s because the false arguments he uses can successfully bamboozle laymen on blogs, but not the scientists who peer review such efforts.
Tallbloke,
I linked to Motl’s piece on Charvatova’s work upstream.
So every 179 years the Sun returns to a trefoil (three-lobed) trajectory, if that’s what you want to call the barycenter-Sun imagined motion, which is noted for a temperature maximum on Earth.
Which is three complete PDO cycles in length, and the PDO does yield temperature maximums.
She also found a longer 2402 year solar cycle, which leads to a long-term thermal maximum.
Which is also a multiple of the approximately 60 year complete PDO cycle.
So obviously the missing element is the linking of the barycenter motions to the PDO. Bob Tisdale should have a worthwhile opinion on the matter.
Then you can explain the many other oscillations that are not of such convenient lengths, that do not match the barycenter motions, that have been shown to match with long-term warm and cold and flood and drought periods.
Then determine if such work is merely closing the loop, or closing the Möbius strip.