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.
repeatedly referring to this as “new knowledge” is a bit presumptuous. New ideas may be more accurate.
Davidmhoffer suggests: “… historical TSI reconstructions produce variations of only 3 w/m2 which are insufficient to explain temperature variations over the same time period…”
TSI, though, accounts only for the output of the Sun, and not for the effects that changing solar actity has on the atmosphere.
The whole problem with most of the arguments presented here is that boxes have been draw by so called “open-minded readers and presenters” and they define anyone who dares to think outside these self-constructed boxes as insane nuts who are not worthy of a moments consideration.
Yes, it is true that there are people who do not use rigorous scientific principles and logic to try explain the world around them and yes, they are annoying and it would make life much easier if they would shut up.
However, some of these so-called “close-minded readers” are actually using sound scientific principles and logic to point to a phenomenon that may [and I emphasis the word may] be worthy of further (reasoned) consideration and study.
Imagine that you were an alien who was observing Earth for the first time. After a period of observation, you noticed that many people who coughed also had brown stained fingers and yellow teeth. You might come to the (erroneous) conclusion that having brown stained fingers and yellow teeth might actually cause people to cough.
Imagine that when you presented your finding back on your alien home-world, you were laughed off the podium by fellow scientists who told you that there was no physical reason why brown finger and yellow teeth could cause coughing in humans. Not only that, you were told that if you even mentioned the topic of humans coughing and colored human anatomy again you would be driven from the hallowed halls of scientific discourse.
Now the question arises, who gains and who loose from this blanket ban on discussing this “sensitive” topic.
Those who gain are the people who are the self-appointed “gatekeepers of Science” who genuinely feel they have once again rescued the scared realm of scientific discussion from the vile stench of pseudo-science.
Those who loose are those who have a genuine interest in understanding why so many humans cough. It may be true that brown stained-fingers and yellow teeth does not cause humans to cough but there is the possibility that having brown fingers and yellow teeth may point to a third factor that is actually causing humans to cough excessively (e.g. the fact that many of the people who cough also smoke cigarettes).
The same is true of the topic of SIM (solar inertial motion) and the Earth’s climate. Couldn’t it be just possible that a third phenomenon (not necessarily directly related to SIM) that just happens to vary on time-scales that match is having an influence on our climate? Or should we do what our scientific gatekeepers ask and make this a taboo topic which must never see the light of day?
One of these two choices may lead to scientific progress while the other just makes the self-appointed gate-keepers feel good. I’ll let you guess which one does which.
I am with Leif on this and cannot be open minded in discussing this analysis. The only meaning that the motions relative to the barycenter can have is as a type of clock, a time measuring machine. The barycenter is just a very useful point to describe the whole planetary system with respect to the galaxy, in larger frameworks:
The barycenter has no mass and no meaning for the forces appearing within a planetary system; it is just a parametrization, as the geocentric system is just a parametrization of the planetary system. It makes no sense to discuss angular momenta etc in the barycenter system as in the geocentric system.
I will also agree with the criticism that any many parameter periodic system of functions can be used to analyze/parametrize , a la Fourier transform , any mathematical function, but will point out that using Fourier analysis is standard practice and nobody worries about the origins of the underlying function or the meaning of the sines and cosines if the fit is useful.
The value of this work will lie in predictions for the future where it will be validated as a useful parametrization or not.
dalek suggrsts: “Total angular momentum is conserved…”
The changes in angular momentum of the planets change the angular momentum of the Sun.
As seen in the link below.
http://www.landscheidt.info/
I do not claim that the mechanism is well established, but the predictive ability of the hypothesis considerably exceeds that of the AGW alarmism.
More particularly the effects of angular momentum have observable consequences for overall solar activity. Not merely TSI, which is close to invariate, but for cosmic ray changes discernable in the Be10 record:
http://www.landscheidt.info/
And changes in cloud cover, driven by cosmic ray variation, itself modulated by solar activity, are referred to in the various IPCC Reports as ‘poorly understood’ .
But, there is no reason that cycles have to be of a fixed constant and that they may not grow in their
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Well they just contradicted the definition of a cycle. There is reason to claim cycles have a fixed period and amplitude and oscillate around a fixed point. It’s a definition.
After this it’s just gets worse by arbitrarily assigning random peaks to a supposed period. Somehow if there is a period marker and no corresponding peak, no problem.
Anthony is right to suspect this paper comes from crank land.
p.s. to my previous : as there are such a great number (13) cosmic impacts needed in the holocene I will also state that it is not a very good map either for future predictions. One would need to predict the impacts to get any predictivity.
Von Neuman is attributed with the saying : Give me four parameters and I will fit an elephant, give me five and it will wave its ears.
“The changes in angular momentum of the planets change the angular momentum of the Sun.”
Yes. But since angular momentum is conserved, the changes in the sun and changes in the planets’ angular momenta are equal and opposite. So where are the changes in the planet’s orbits?
From LazyTeenager on October 12, 2012 at 8:47 pm:
There could be frequency modulation. You clearly have cycles but the period is not fixed.
That is something I wonder about when seeing the curve fitting attempts to the SSN. They’ll vary the amplitude modulation fit, but while the variation of longer and shorter cycles is visible they don’t try a frequency modulation fit. People trained in signal processing looking for a signal in the solar cycles, don’t think to try FM?
jimmi asks: “So where are the changes in the planet’s orbits?”
It’s not the orbits of the planets that make a difference to solar activity, but rather disruptions in the smooth flow of changes in the orbit of the Sun.
Having discovered that LazyTeenager is disparaging the paper, I decided to give it another chance.
Sorry, but it gets no better with time. In brief, there’s a buncha stuff that sorta kinda correlates to a bunch of other stuff, but there is no physical process to connect them together. The one thing that could in theory tie them together is TSI, which the paper itself says is not of large enough magnitude to explain the temperature variations they are trying to correlate to. Even worse, the paper essentially begins by proposing the existance of 5 long term forcings, and then pretty much finds them by excluding anything that doesn’t match them so that all that is left is data that does match.
This is akin to standing on the side of a highway, certain that by analyzing the traffic patterns, one can discern the inner workings of a combustion engine. Sorry to be so negative, I think some of the criticisms of the models are fair, but the paper presents a theory that simply has no merit.
Until the authors can provide data to substantiate the Earth Orbit Oscillation and the SIM effect on the Holocene there is no point discussing this paper. The EOO data is only available if you buy their book?
So much information to process, and as usual so little time to do it in.
Colour me sceptical on the impacts. The analysis appears to use some circular logic, ie. saying wiggles show there must have been an impact, and then saying the impact explains the wiggles. Apologies to the authors if I have misinterpreted this, but it does seem to be lacking in rigour.
On the planetary cycles,however, we have something extraordinarily interesting, Leif’s dismissal notwithstanding. There appears to be no possible mechanism, yet the solar minima do seem to line up with the planetary cycle. It looks like the ‘next’ solar minimum (as in Maunder, Dalton, etc) was due to start a decade or more ago, with the low Earth temperatures starting within a very few years at most. So it appears that, unlike most climate science, Earth is about to provide us with the experiment that can disprove the theory. Thus far the theory seems to be on track, with a very long solar cycle #23, a weak #24, and the Ap index falling off a cliff in 2005. We shall see. Of course, it could all be caused by something else with the same ~170yr cycle length.
Give me four free parameters and I will fit an elephant. Give me the fifth parameter, and the elephant will be wading his tail.
Mike Jonas says:
October 12, 2012 at 11:22 pm
Thus far the theory seems to be on track, with a very long solar cycle #23, a weak #24, and the Ap index falling off a cliff in 2005. We shall see. Of course, it could all be caused by something else with the same ~170yr cycle length.
Yes, but the planet correlations in respect to angular momentum theory (which is quite different to the paper questioned in this post) go back at least 5000 years. Wolff and Patrone have provided one mechanism that has so far not been rebutted via any paper.
It is interesting to note in relation to suggested pseudo-cyclic variations of ~170y and ~60y that these are essentially the frequencies that characterise the met office Hadley processing and ‘bias corrections’.
Subtracting hadSST3 from it’s source data in ICOADS and fitting a two cosine model find 67 and 184y cycles both peaking around year 2000.
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/hadsst3-cosine-fit1.png from the article here
http://judithcurry.com/2012/03/15/on-the-adjustments-to-the-hadsst3-data-set-2/#comment-188237
That does not mean that affecting cycles was their intended outcome but since the size and timing of the adjustments are largely hypothetical rather than observation based it may be a result of underlying assumptions that causes the processing to remove these longer cycles or some unexpected result of their data processing.
From the discussion that followed with John Kennedy, it seems they had never looked at what effects their processing was having on the frequency content of the data.
Part of the process involves projecting the “climatology” (mean seasonal variations) of 1960-1990 period onto the pre-war part of the record, any deviation is then considered to be a measurement “bias” and is removed.
There is no discussion of why the annual variations of that period should be of the same magnitude as those of the arbitrary reference period, it is apparently so ‘obvious’ it does not need proof or justification.
In any case the net effect is the removal of the long cycles from the SST record.
PS. It is possible that the Hadley processing has inadvertently _detected_ the nature of the long term variations by their implicit assumptions that there aren’t any.
anna v says:
October 12, 2012 at 8:43 pm
“The barycenter has no mass and no meaning for the forces appearing within a planetary system; it is just a parametrization, as the geocentric system is just a parametrization of the planetary system. It makes no sense to discuss angular momenta etc in the barycenter system as in the geocentric system.”
Tidal forces could influence the internal oscillations of the “solar dynamo”.
So far the alarmist side of science for climate change has been some what lacking in predictive skill. This would indicate that their models and ideas are not particularly cosher and new ideas are needed. That our little blue planet seems to respond to a repeating climate change with a sine wave type frequency would indicate that the cause is external and although you can not set your watch to it. The change happens with a regularity that can only be a cycle of either our solar system or our galaxy or both. This study one of many by people over a long period are trying to come to terms with some very complex interactions. Do not throw out the baby with the bath water.
That science has failed to explain the basic forces and their interactions makes the task very difficult, and looking at patterns and cycles, and, trying to make sense of them is all we do.
Geoff. Presumably this is the link you omitted to give when you mentioned Wolff & Patrone.
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/218
Not sure I understand what the difference is between Milankovich cycles and Earth Orbit Oscillations. I thought Milankovich was about the changes to the Earths orbit?
As I’ve pointed out before, for those folks distressed at “no mechanism” and at the barycenter orbit changes not mattering (and in keeping with the stained fingers model 😉 there is a lunar tidal cycle that explains the connection. As orbital resonance locks various things in fairly fixed relationships, the lunar tidal cycles match the planetary / SIM cycles (as the planetary movements determine orbital resonance timing). That’s enough to be the ‘mechanism’ and explain why solar variations can’t be causal, yet are coincident.
No, not proven… but peer reviewed:
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/3814.full
The same orbital mechanics “issues” also moves the earth into / out of the center of the swarm of debris that make up the Taurids, so also could be modulating atmospheric dust and impact events directly as well.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/lunar-resonance-and-taurid-storms/
Basically “the all go together when they go” so you will get all sorts of “correlations” that are not causal. Yet the lunar / tidal cycle has a clear mechanism and tie to shifting cold water / overturning currents in the oceans. Wiggle matching will not sort it out, and there is the potential for each effect to be “too small” yet in concert sufficient. Thus we risk serial elimination and the fallacy of ignoring the whole by dismissing all the parts individually.
OK, commenting without reading the paper, but it’s very late at night so likely Sunday before I’ll have time. From the summary here, I’m concerned about “double booking” SIM / Earth motion and ‘wiggle matching without mechanism’ along with the potential for “double booking” the planet cycles as well. (Triple booking?).
anna v says:
October 12, 2012 at 8:43 pm
“The barycenter has no mass and no meaning for the forces appearing within a planetary system; it is just a parametrization
As is the centre of the Earth-Moon system , yet the two rotate about their common centre of gravity. One of the two daily tides is a centrifugal effect with respect to rotation about this point.
So I guess tides have no meaning and are also just parametrisations.
Is there any independent evidence for this Cosmic Impact Oscillation? Something like craters dated to the times?
In the absence of that, it just looks like something thrown in to make the graphs turn at the right times.
Reply to James Cross: What you suggest, is the typical AGW-science, we stay
away from those methods….. Please read the cosmic impact chapter, all info is given,
There are historical accounts over the past 3,000 years….. the impact science
is still young, as I wrote, in public memory, impact consequences are (almost) forgotten,
who in Alexandria today remembers the AD 365 impact megatsunami, which wiped
the town from the map?
What we need is high accuracy impact field dating to identify the remaining impacts,
because, as I also pointed out, the are more then 10 impacts outstanding
Get into detail reading, check Wikipedia and other sources first and question me
after….JS
Re Charvátová “….discovered the solar motion can be classified into two elementary types. Motion along a trefoil-like trajectory governed by the Jupiter-Saturn order…..”
She discovered the sun cycles between these two types of SIM at regular intervals. One type is very smooth trefoil type curves, the other is more chaotic.
It seems to me that ‘tugs’ away from a regular motion could perhaps have ‘internal effects’ on the sun (ie, “shaken, not stirred”).
Is it possible this affects the sun’s output (energy, cosmic rays)? Has any such cyclic change been detected?
It would seem likely if there is any significance in SIM that it is its effect on the sun itself that matters, as the earth will maintain its position in relation to an earth/sun barycenter which is very close to the center of the sun.
The only conceivable alternative might be that little ‘tugs’ on the earth’s orbit somehow affect airflows in the atmosphere, and tides in the oceans. (Oh yes, and IIRC, Charvátová also posited some relationship with volcanic eruptions… also plausible?…. small gravitational ‘tugs’?)