Is there a planetary influence on solar activity? It seems so according to this new paper

But… but but the sun doesn’t effect the earth weather or climate useless research is useless.

What about a outside influence that synced both over time. Pulsar, binary star…

I believe that tidal influence has been known. But do these influences change any other solar metric outside of variation noise? That is the question even CO2 enthusiasts deal with. And so far, all these external and anthropogenic influences do not rise above intrinsic natural variation noise.

In the 1980’s -90’s it was theorized that solar, lunar and planetary gravitational effects influenced earth’s volcanic activity and subsequently climate. Dr. Iben Browning was a noted supporter of this idea and predicted global cooling as a result.

If they got such a good match then weren’t they just a little bit curious to extend it forward in time ?
204 years ago we had the Dalton, and 500 years ago the Maunder was about to get into its stride. The next few years might be interesting. Presumably the authors felt that we wouldn’t be interested, or perhaps they thought that it would be better if we didn’t know.
Oh, I know why they didn’t, co2 has already saved us.

My sarc tags disappeared, guess I can’t use ><
/sarc Oh, I know why they didn’t, co2 has already saved us. /sarc

I like the fact that this paper connects (at least arguably) plausible physical mechanisms to observations. What it is basically saying is that things that happen within the thin shell of the thermocline — in particular the formation of defects, convective rolls — are the proximate cause of surface solar activity. Defects that form there nucleate magnetic flux tubes that much later emerge as sunspots and solar surface magnetic activity. Even small degrees of modulation of the nucleation process can make big differences at the surface, just as only micro-droplets of water nucleated around particles or aerosols reach the critical size necessary to grow into actual clouds or raindrops.
In the case of rain, it is surface to volume plus some surface chemistry that largely determines the success of the process initially, but tiny modulation in terms of aerosol concentration makes a big difference in the probability of cloud formation because there are strong positive feedbacks once a cloud reaches the point where it starts reflecting sunlight and differentially cooling the interior and lower layers.
Two things I would like explained in more detail before I completely buy the argument, though, are:
* The forces/torques involved are very, very small — I would like to see some sort of numerical magnetohydrodynamic computation that made plausible assumptions about the viscosity, density, lapse rate and UNinfluenced nucleation process (plausible enough to reproduce at least approximately observed surface phenomena) that, when the very weak planetary tidal torque was turned on altered the flux-tube nucleation rate as is asserted by the paper. Or COULD alter it, for some not unreasonable values of the parameters, across the critical boundary where the grow if the tidal forces are large, fail to grow if they are small. It’s one thing to say “this could be happening”; another to say “when we solve the equations of motion for a plausible model system, we observe that this happens”.
Lacking this, their argument is much weaker.
* I find myself vaguely disturbed by the fourier transforms above. Figure 5 is reasonably plausible — note well that the solar proxy peaks are broad and smeared out, with the long period peaks being much broader than the short period peaks and with a lot of undifferentiated “noise” in the short period high frequency domain. This can be understood very simply — the dataset being fourier transformed has a finite length, a length commensurate with (within an order of magnitude or so) the longest period peak displayed. Consequently those long period peaks are poorly represented in the sample, and the peaks are broad and accompanied by peaks that might well be entirely spurious, artifacts of the length of the dataset and the accidental noise. Basically, the fourier transform itself has artifacts that correspond to (inverse) Gibbs phenomena arising from the de facto decomposition of a Heaviside function representing the length of the data set, which broadens the longer period peaks and introduces irrelevant shorter period peaks both.
The shorter period peaks have many more periods in the integral and hence are much narrower, although they are quite reasonably accompanied by a lot of short period noise because the Sun is a chaotic turbulent magnetohydrodynamic system and probably has internal e.g. breathing mode oscillations with a variety of frequencies that also modulate the phenomenon (if the hypothesis is correct, that small variations in the thermocline can and do produce macroscopically resolvable differences in surface output).
Figure b is similar. Obviously they did a F.T. on the same interval as used in a) so that the peak at e.g. 506 years is similarly broad even though one would rather expect it to be quite sharp given that one is simply doing a fourier decomposition of the vector sum of a set of completely determined torques due to the periodic planetary orbits. If they’d done the F. T. on a much longer time interval (as they easily could have) one would expect the 506 year peak to be much sharper. This also explains why the widths of the 88 year peaks etc scale pretty well between a) and b), and shows that their hypothesis has a very hard time accounting for the largest peaks in the Be proxy in the broad zone between 200 and 500 years. Nor can these peaks in a) be easily explained away as Heaviside/Gibbs artifacts, as the artifacts would be expected to appear in figure b) as well.
Again, perhaps these correspond to breathing mode oscillations, the sun’s internal furnace “chuffing” a bit due to some sort of resonance between gravitational force, fusion rate, and thermal expansion (a feedback loop where the sun contracts slightly, increasing the efficiency of the core fusion process, which heats the core a bit more, which then takes a long time to propagate to the thermocline, which expands the thermocline a bit, which decompresses the furnace so that its output cools/decreases a bit, which propagates outward to cause the thermocline to contract a bit, which recompresses the core a bit, resulting in a wave train of small modulations in output due to coupled breathing mode oscillations of solar density in the “critical” domain of the thermocline). Again, it would be lovely to see a model that reproduces this sort of coupled nonlinear phenomenon even qualitatively.
So figure 5 is moderately convincing. The short period peaks line up very nicely with peaks in Be production, there is at least a peak at 508 years in both (along with a lot of unexplained structure in between), and yes, it could be true that small forces drive relatively big changes if there is any possibility of resonance, where 5a actually provides some evidence of undriven resonances as it is.
What I don’t like so much is figure A.1. To be frank, it looks impossible. The peaks are far too sharp, far too localized, and utterly inconsistent with figure 5. The interval of integration is only around 20x the size of the longest period and yet the 508 year peak is sharp as an arrow in the radionucleotide data. If anything, the SHORT period peaks have widths. I would have rather expected this figure to look a lot more like 5 for all of the proxies, even if they did the FT of the torque over a long enough interval to sharpen up the long period peak(s). This F.T. looks more like a quantum spectrum, where there is actual physics prohibiting most of the possible frequences in the temporal signal, not the FT of a chaotic, noisy process.
Where is all of the noise?
To conclude — it convinces me that planetary tides are a plausible physical mechanism for modulation of the magnetic state, one that is empirically correlated with proxy derived data. Some of the data expressing the correspondence is “reasonable”; other data is rather puzzling although they may have some explanation for it and my intuition of the wrong shape and lack of noise of the FT on a 20x interval in multiple proxies may be wrong. Finally, this is probably not the only important factor — note the other peaks in figure 5 — and the entire argument would be greatly strengthened by even a crude model calculation that can reproduce the result qualitatively and demonstrate that small torques are indeed “capable” of producing the large modulations observed via nucleation and growth in an actual magnetohydrodynamic convective model of the Sun.
rgb

Central to the torque mechanism is that the solar dynamo is working in the overshoot layer just beneath the tachocline. BTW, Abreu et al. accepts that a dynamo is creating the solar cycle.
Central to many dynamo mechanisms is a shear layer across which the solar rotation speed changes. There is such a layer at the tachocline [that is what defines the tachocline which is about 30% of the solar radius below the photosphere]. Another important ingredient is a Meridional circulation that recycle surface magnetic flux back into the interior where it can be amplified for the next cycle. This is the idea of the ‘conveyor belt’. Modern observations seem to indicate that there is no such single large conveyor belt. There is a shallow belt just under the surface where, BTW, there is also a shear layer, so dynamo models may be moving to a shallow dynamo rather than the deep one needed for the torque mechanism to work.

To me the title of the paper seems somewhat rhetorical IMHO.
Simply put, if gravity is real (which, of course, it is) – the planetary gravitational exchanges and combinations via elliptical orbits MUST have a corresponding change on the gravitational forces experienced by the sun and its surface (if we are simply considering sunspots for example).
Irrespective of the actual suns ‘burning’ processes – simple logic dictates that if its ‘surface’ is subjected to an external variation in gravity – it must likely affect the way that that ‘surface’ emits its radiation/plasma, etc, etc. The gravitational ‘impacts’ will presumably also affect the magnetic fluxes and so on. Perhaps, the gravitational effects of planetary motions can also affect the ‘spin’ of the sun or some of its component parts (does it have a rotating core?), e.g slowing them down or speeding them up.
Following this through, it is quite obvious that the summary solar output/activity WILL almost certainly be affected in some way by planetary gravitational effects (irrespective of what those effects actually are!). I suppose the argument is then about how much of an effect these gravitational changes are on the (largely unknown?) actual internal processes of the suns ‘workings’.
We know that lunar influences cause tides on earth, what’s to say that ‘jovian’ influences don’t have a similar effect on the actual gas/plasma ‘surface’ of the sun? – albeit on a much ‘longer’ timescale (perhaps a bad analogy, but readily understood I think).
Thence, it is a simple deduction to conclude that if the suns output can vary (for whatever reason) and that solar energy is primarily what drives our climate – then logically, changes in solar output can and will likely result in a change to our climate. (I do largely subscribe to the ‘it’s the sun stupid’ meme, because, in the end, even if TSI only varies by 1% – 1% of a lot of energy, is still a signifcant amount! My secondary view is that earth’s biosphere and atmosphere has the ability of adjusting to such solar changes amidst all its complexity, and thus perhaps to mitigate such minor solar effects)
If gravitational forces are also considered as able to cause an effect on the space betwixt sun and earth and indeed affect the earth itself, altering its magnetosphere/heliosphere, etc – then this is another ‘influence’ of planetary motions which can change the actual solar ‘input’ reaching earth?

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:04 am
The AM ‘mechanism’ would not have worked anyway because the Sun is in free fall.

Thank you for this, Leif, it is a critical distinction to make.
I’ve never found planetary tidal arguments very plausible, you’ve always enlightened us on the facts.

DAV says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:40 am
“One may wonder how effective peer-review of this paper has been. “Received 17 Mai 2011 Accepted 17 Mai 2011″. Usually, such instant acceptance is reserved for climate papers from the “Team”.”
Not to mention they reference a 2012 paper presumably prior to 17 Mai 2011:
Steinhilber, F., Abreu, J. A., Beer, J., et al. 2012, PNAS, 109, 5967
It is not unusual that such references be added during the actual publication copy-editing.
But it does not seem plausible that the paper could be submitted and reviewed and accepted on the same day. The authors’ even say in the acknowledgement session that “We would like to thank the anonymous referee for valuable and constructive suggestions”, indicating that a referee was also involved. The date of ‘May 2011’ is also interesting, because they submitted their paper to Nature [where it was rejected by several referees for a variety of reasons] in July of 2011. Something is not quite right. Even if the year 2011 is wrong, that still makes the acceptance implausibly quick.

This is pretty interesting. To the extent this pans out it would appear to bolster Svensmark’s GCR cloud hypothesis if I’m understanding correctly. Leif pointed out the extent to which this would be a “butterfly effect” if true (my paraphrase, apologies if I misunderstood). It’s kind of mind-boggling to imagine planetary influences contributing to perturbations in the sun’s output, which in turn influence temperature and climate on those planets.

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:48 am
re your comment – I fully accept that may well be the case. However, we still have a large number of Earth events to ‘explain’ – e.g. Ice Ages, etc. It is not logical to consider that in a ‘generically’ static climate system (over periods of millenia, say) relatively sudden changes occur to cause things like Ice Ages, WITHOUT some form of external influence. As I said, given that the biosphere and climate is primarily driven by solar energy – it would logically follow that such events may be derived as a result of changes in solar activity. The issue then becomes – is it possible for solar activity to change significantly, and along with other changes, (such as biospheric derived albedo changes)? – could this lead to sufficient loss of incoming solar energy to result in Ice Ages?
Whether its a direct cause and effect issue is of course, difficult to derive without clear mechanisms and feedbakc effects, etc – but the summary idea that solar changes do occur would suggest these will most likely be the prime ‘initiator’ of major climatic changes…..

Ed_B says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:19 am
I backed up my position by asking for a prediction. My opinion is the proposed mechanism is rubbish, and the results are simply coincidence. Just because you happen to get a correlation, it doesn’t mean you have anything understood or otherwise of value. Show us the beef by making predictions. I’ve seen plenty of data having been a lab rat for over 25 years. After a while, you develop a BS detector. I now deal with billions of DB records, building analysis tools. Data management and analysis is the rate limiting step in many fields of science these days.
From the paper, it is hard to have confidence in the statistical analysis performed to support their conclusions. They mention ‘monte carlo tests’ and tell us “the probablilty of finding the same five spectral lines by chance is is about 10^-7 to 10^-11”. They don’t tell us how these numbers are calculated, perhaps something like: make 4 to 25 year bins across the 600 year period, and see if 5 peaks randomly fall into them, so (25/600)^5 = 1.3×10^-7 and (4/600)^5 = 1.3×10^-11. Wow, I’m impressed. We already expect the solar activity represented by Φ to correlate with cosmogenic 14C and 10Be. If one fourier analysis matches the torque produced by the planets, they all will.
What wasn’t tested was whether the observed real data can be matched by different sets of hypothetical planets producing different torques. Looking at Fig 5, it seems likely a set of five peaks will line up easily. Furthermore, although the amplitudes are shown, do the phases match? That is critically important for the analysis. And will the results hold up for longer than the 9400 year period studied? Will it work with cosmogenic 26Al?
Until questions like these are answered, I’m going to remain very skeptical.

They adopted a different view by regarding the planets and the solar dynamo as two weakly coupled non-linear systems.
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
Isaiah 9: 2

The paper by Abreu et al. is surely interesting and important.
The only complain is that they do not reference most of the litterature on the issue that has already found related and similar resuts (eg the works of Charvatova, Landscheidt, Fairbridge etc.).
More issues are discussed in my two papers
1) Scafetta N., 2012. Does the Sun work as a nuclear fusion amplifier of planetary tidal forcing? A proposal for a physical mechanism based on the mass-luminosity relation. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 81-82, 27-40.
2) Scafetta N., 2012. Multi-scale harmonic model for solar and climate cyclical variation throughout the Holocene based on Jupiter-Saturn tidal frequencies plus the 11-year solar dynamo cycle. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 80, 296-311.
In particular in (2) I study explicitly Steinhilber TSI proxy model (fig. 4B) and as well as other solar proxy models (Bard, Bond) and paleoclimatic records during the holocene.
About Steinhilber TSI proxy model I noted the same major cycles (e.g. ~87 yr and ~207 yr) which in Ref. (1) and they are associated to the Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus system. As I write inmy papers, it is easy to get these cycles:
 ~60 year is the great conjunction cycle of Jupiter and Saturn (which is made of three J/S conjunction periods);  ~85-year is the 1/7 resonance of Jupiter and Uranus; and  ~205 year is the beat resonance between the 60-year and the 85-year cycles.
The physical issue remains the same and not addressed in the paper. The tides are too weak to influence solar dynamo. The only way the mechanism may work is through a solar nuclear fusion amplification mechanism, which is actually calculated in my paper (1) above. The things work well.
And in my paper I built the major solar cycles from the 11-year to the millennial oscillation.
Hoping that Anthony realizes that Leif’s comments are based only on his prejudices, not on real science, and his past behavior is highly unprofessional. As all solar scientists who reject the planetary theory of solar variation, Leif too has no idea of what causes the solar dynamics to behave as it behaves, beginning with the origin of the 11-year solar cycle.
Only the planetary theory of solar variation has the potentiality to explain solar dynamics, and also climate change as argued in my papers.

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:48 am
That limb is very thin.
I do not claim it isn’t.
“Solar radiation pressure does have an effect on minute dust particles [basically cleans them out], but is MUCH [too weak] to have any influence on planets or even comets. It was once speculated that radiation pressure was the cause of comet tails pointing away from the Sun. Both theory and the discovery of the real mechanism [the solar wind] showed that radiation pressure was not effective.”
Solar radiation momentum flux is up to three orders of magnitude greater than that of the solar wind. I agree it appears a stretch that, e.g., the orbit of Jupiter could be significantly affected as the flux density falls off as 1/R^2 but, on the other hand, Jupiter presents a LOT of area to intercept the momentum flux. I have not done any calculations, and so can only speculate that it might prove significant. It does have a very significant effect on Earth-bound satellites, so I would not blithely discount the possibility.
Comet tails require a differential force, which results from ionization and magnetism. As the solar radiation pressure is largely uniform in the neighborhood of the comet, it cannot do that job. But, that does not mean it does not have a significant effect on the orbit of the overall mass.

Re Figure A.1: It isn’t “Drowning Maud Land” unless you believe the Antarctica is melting. The name is “Dronning Maud Land”, which is Norwegian for “Queen Maud Land”.
Reply: Fixed. Thanks. -ModE

With top authors such as Steinhilber, McCracken and Beer joining the lead author Abreu attributing a planetary influence on solar activity is a large leap forward in the solar/planetary theory arena. With many papers of this realm now appearing, the balance is now shifting to other causes of a solar driver outside of the Babcock/Leighton theories. The solar dynamo is still intact but perhaps it is modulated by planetary forces?
In regards to the Abreu et al paper there are some points that need to be fleshed out. A full understanding of how the torque values are calculated in perhaps layman’s terms would be useful. Is the torque produced only from the rocky planets and Jupiter (tidal mechanism) or is there a solar torque contribution incorporated. The main diagram shows a SSB vector that is there for a reason.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/abreu1.png
A major contribution to this paper would be a timeline plot of the torque calculations. I imagine this would represent a sine wave of sorts that should allow hindcasting of the Holocene and future forecasting of grand minima events not unlike my own research. How this graph compares with Carl Smith’s AM graph would be interesting.
I have a small article dealing with this paper last month that also questions the viability of FFT type analysis in regard to solar proxy records.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/290
It would be helpful to receive informed comment from qualified reviewers other than Leif to get a more balanced perspective.
Thanks David for promoting this paper to Anthony.

tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 1:24 pm
My own research (following on from work originally done by Theodor L in the 1980′s indicates that deep minima events are precipitated by a non-linear reaction to a set of possible planetary positions which make the barycentre of the system coincide with the solar surface within 0.1 solar radii for several years.
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/radial-ssn.png
Solar radius, solar torque and solar angular momentum are pretty much all the same with your graph imitating Carl’s original work. As pointed out previously Landscheid*s work in this area had nothing to do with solar output or grand minima.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/?q=node/243
There is also a new method of identifying solar AM perturbations that slightly enhances the perturbations shown on Carl’s graph. The method is to simply take the solar/Jupiter distance away from the SSB/Jupiter distance.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/jup_dist_diff.png

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:45 am
so if Ice Ages are a result of orbital changes – what is the net result of orbital changes on solar ‘incoming’ radiation? – obviously, it changes. Ergo, Ice Ages are related to solar activity changes? Yes?
These may seem like trivial points – but they are crucial in deciding where to start to look for climate changes. It is all very well trying to state that natural solar variation changes are small – but in truth, we only have limited valid observational evidence for that when compared to real geological timescales. And thence to discuss solar activity ‘mechanisms’ and ‘processes’ which are largely speculative (the last I heard, nobody or no probe has visited the internal bits of the sun and provided answers!) is somewhat clouding the issue when, in a nutshell, the primary biospheric and hence climatic energy source – is the suns energy.
Sure, this is simplistic – but it is fact, is it not? The fact that recent solar observations do not appear to suggest massive solar variation (i.e. TSI) does not automatically discount that it has not happened in the past.
I appreciate that yourself and others are working on other ‘effects’ – but they sum to the same thing – a change in incoming/outgoing radiation/reradiation, whether caused by magnetospheric, cosmic rays, planetary movements, solar flares, CME’s, etc, etc – the NET result is the same – a change in the incoming/outgoing radiative ‘budget’ with resultant climatic changes.
The net signal of any one of these individual effects will likely be difficult to isolate. And then when we look at actual biosphere measurements (temp and the like) we are thus measuring ‘lagged’ effects too, of a multi-affected ‘subject’, with combined positive and negative feedback effects, all masking or countering the supposed ‘external’ cause of change. The temp/co2 lag issue from ice cores is a classic example – and in terms of not knowing where we are in any cause and effect timelagged signal – finding that was a scientific eye-opener. The earth is like a big pan of water, with a net ‘average’ temperature that takes a definite time to change, either from increased energy or decreased energy. That change may occur centuries down the line, from a cumulative effect of a very minor (almost indetectable?) change in some parameter or other!
In a climatic sense, they call it climate sensitivity – but assigning values to it is complete BS (IMHO) because we have no way of knowing the lag effects of previous ‘changes’ given our paucity of actual measurements. Modelling individual or even suites of cause/effect paramteres, is just guessing on a grand scale.
As a geologist, for example, we know that in order to lay down coal measures, the seas went through different depositional stages as a result of tectonic and climatic changes over millions of years. What caused them? or more accurately, what are they the net result of? Obviously, it has to be at least partially due to climate (and thus possibly solar) changes?

tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Geoff Sharp says:
November 10, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Landscheid*s work in this area had nothing to do with solar output or grand minima.
————————————-
We can respect our differences in interpretation on that issue.
As long as the differences are pointed out. I am taking all of the information from his book whereby you are taking a paragraph or two out of context.
I still think you have a duty to clarify this to your readers.

Bart says: “It does have a very significant effect on Earth-bound satellites, so I would not blithely discount the possibility.”
I would do those calculations, if I were you. You may have to consider surface to mass ratio when comparing Jupiter to and orbiting satellite. 😉

tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:46 am
Those of us who have been aware of the progress of this paper throughout that time know how rigorously it has been vetted prior to publication.
It is not credible that you have been aware of this.
tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 12:19 pm
So, what have you got to offer us in the way of a “well grounded in solid physics” shallow dynamo theory? Who has been publishing a broad overview we can read?
Hathaway has something on the observations http://www.leif.org/EOS/20111212_NSO-Hathaway.pdf
The theory may be over your head. Try http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0512637v1.pdf or
Bart says:
November 10, 2012 at 12:26 pm
I would not blithely discount the possibility.
But you blithely put it forward. The solar radiation momentum flux is TSI/c and [although much larger than the solar wind’s] is too minute to affect the planets at all and varies as little as TSI does. The flux is always in the same direction so the planets are always pushed out [never in]. Comet tails are not due to solar wind pressure, but to ions picked up by the magnetic field in the wind.
Martin Lewitt says:
November 10, 2012 at 12:42 pm
No extended body is in “free fall” under general
I don’t think anybody will claim that planetary effects are General Relativity effects.
Geoff Sharp says:
November 10, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Is the torque produced only from the rocky planets and Jupiter (tidal mechanism) or is there a solar torque contribution incorporated. The main diagram shows a SSB vector that is there for a reason.
The torque depends on the mass, not on the composition and Saturn is also involved. The SSB vector is there for the sole reason of providing the reference coordinate system [which they immediately transform to a sun centered one]
A major contribution to this paper would be a timeline plot of the torque calculations.
I asked them to do that, and they did, but the result was so poor that they did not want to publish it.
Kev-in-Uk says:
November 10, 2012 at 2:15 pm
so if Ice Ages are a result of orbital changes – what is the net result of orbital changes on solar ‘incoming’ radiation?
Almost none, but the orbital changes determine where on the Earth and when that radiation falls, and that makes the difference.
J Martin says:
And a couple of weeks ago you also said that you think that temperatures are going to go down, possibly approaching a Maunder
No, nothing like that, no mention of temperatures. What I said was that the number of visible sunspots will go down [it has already gone some of the way]
figures on Jupiter altering the orbit of Earth to influence even control climate. I am very interested indeed on anything you have to offer on this subject
This is standard ice-age theory that has around for decades.
Presumably the influence of Jupiter is to move Earth’s orbit further out.
It can’t. The influence is the change the eccentricity and when during the year the Earth is farthest from the sun.
I need to know more.
Standard theory. Try google it.

tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 12:19 pm
So, what have you got to offer us in the way of a “well grounded in solid physics” shallow dynamo theory? Who has been publishing a broad overview we can read?
Hathaway has something on the observations http://www.leif.org/EOS/20111212_NSO-Hathaway.pdf
The theory may be over your head. Try http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0512637v1.pdf or http://www.leif.org/research/SORCE%202010%20Schatten.pdf

David Archibald says:
November 10, 2012 at 4:03 pm
the unnamed cooling event associated with the Be10 spike centred on 1890.
The 1890 10Be spike is probably an artifact [McCracken, personal communication] as the signal was very noisy and uncertain around that time.

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 3:53 pm
The torque depends on the mass, not on the composition and Saturn is also involved. The SSB vector is there for the sole reason of providing the reference coordinate system [which they immediately transform to a sun centered one]
If that is the case then the paper is indeed a different theory to my own, but if so not mutually exclusive. Just as we have multiple drivers of climate there is no monopoly on the Sun. Perhaps Ian WIlson could confirm or deny any SSB xyz funtion included in the planetary torque values of this paper and also which planets are included.
I am aware composition is not important. Mass and distance for tidal forces is all that is required.
A major contribution to this paper would be a timeline plot of the torque calculations.
———————————————————-
I asked them to do that, and they did, but the result was so poor that they did not want to publish it.
If you can provide the data or detailed graph that would save a lot of time. I also take it you were involved in the review process?

Geoff Sharp says:
November 10, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Just as we have multiple drivers of climate there is no monopoly on the Sun.
Yeah, everybody’s theory is correct, they all contribute. Dream on…
If you can provide the data or detailed graph that would save a lot of time. I also take it you were involved in the review process?
I’m not at liberty to deny or affirm…

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 4:19 pm
“And of the mass of the Galaxy and that of the Virgo Cluster. All the masses in the solar system, the galaxy, the universe determine the local curvature of space-time where the Sun is. The Sun moves freely such that time goes the slowest. That is free fall. Experiments show that all objects in free fall accelerate at the same rate, as noted by Galileo, is the basis of the Equivalence Principle, on which Einstein’s theory of general relativity relies.”
Leif, of-course this is true to a degree, to be specific as to why your argument is inaccurate, is in the exchange of gravitational forces of bodies in “free fall” simply put, the potential of object [A] can interact and exchange it’s potential with the potential of object [B] in free fall and vise-versa.
I found a somewhat quick and basic example of what I mean here.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/grav.html

Geoff Sharp says:
November 10, 2012 at 5:19 pm
If you can provide the data or detailed graph that would save a lot of time
The best I can do is to use the graphs [not exactly what you want, but that is what we have to work with] from the published paper. Here is a comparison of the wavelet analyses of the solar modulation [at left] and of the calculated torque [at right] http://www.leif.org/research/Abreu-Wavelet-Comparison.png . I’m not impressed. Perhaps you will be convinced.
tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:46 am
Those of us who have been aware of the progress of this paper throughout that time know how rigorously it has been vetted prior to publication.
It is not credible that you have been aware of this.
And you have produced no evidence to back that claim up. Conclusion: you are a bit economical with the truth, perhaps.

Climate is complex but surely any influence on solar activity will finally be reflected on our weather.
The irony is that astrology might have some scientific basis afterall. Alignment of planets causing sever weather ! Druids would have said I told you so but morden mann wouldnt listen and finds his own doom.

P. Solar says:
November 10, 2012 at 3:39 pm
“You may have to consider surface to mass ratio when comparing Jupiter to and orbiting satellite.”
True enough. However, consider also the much longer orbit period, and what might happen on a similarly scaled time interval.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 3:53 pm
“But you blithely put it forward.”
And, quite clearly indicated it as such. This is bad?
“The flux is always in the same direction so the planets are always pushed out [never in].”
Effectively a modulation of the radially directed gravity. Orbit prediction is exquisitely sensitive to the gravitational parameter, as every OA worth his salt knows.
“Comet tails are not due to solar wind pressure, but to ions picked up by the magnetic field in the wind.”
You might even say it “…results from ionization and magnetism.” I’m pretty sure somebody said that previously.
Sparks says:
November 10, 2012 at 5:33 pm
If you are talking about tidal forces, nobody will have any disagreement. Point masses are in free fall. Bodies of measurable extent will experience tidal forces. If you search for “tidal” on this page, that is what almost everyone is talking about.

Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 5:49 pm
The best I can do is to use the graphs [not exactly what you want, but that is what we have to work with] from the published paper. Here is a comparison of the wavelet analyses of the solar modulation [at left] and of the calculated torque [at right] http://www.leif.org/research/Abreu-Wavelet-Comparison.png . I’m not impressed. Perhaps you will be convinced.
The only thing I am convinced about is that they might be onto something, but perhaps only at a high level. This would be confirmed if I could see a detailed planet torque graph and compare known grand minima. The detail would need to be at the level produced by the Carl Smith graph I use.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg9u22/images/sunssbam1620to2180gs.jpg

Bart says:
November 10, 2012 at 6:28 pm
“…nobody will have any disagreement. Point masses are in free fall.”
Bart, I haven’t stated in anyway that the Sun is not in free fall. I was elaborating upon this in regard to what Leif said. I’m thinking out loud, I hope it’s constructive and not seen otherwise.

Leif,
I know that you are educated enough to understand the following.argument. I am sure that most of those reading this blog will also understand it as well. The reason that I am giving it is to make sure that others on this list are aware that you have no pseudo-scientific hole in which Leif can “safely” hide.
If you start out with the hypothesis that: Changes in the relative rotation rate of layers in the convective layers of the Sun can influence the long-term strength of the solar dynamo (think of it as a Gedankenexperiment or thought experiment) {N.B. the following arguments are independent of the depth of the dynamo in the Sun’s convective layer}.
Ask yourself the question, is it possible for the planets to affect the relative rotation rate of layers in the convective layers of the Sun? .
Given the incredibly weak nature of gravitational and tidal forces between the Sun and the planets, the only feasible way to accomplish this is to:
a) produce an asymmetry in the spherical shape of layers in the convective zone of the Sun
b) have a tangential planetary gravitational force (i.e. a torque) acting upon these layers
c) assume that it is possible for these layers to slide over each other, allowing the layers to change in their relative rotation rates.
These three requirements logically leads to following TIDAL-TORQUING MODEL:
You need to use the strongest planetary tangential gravitational force to maximize b). This means that b) must be produced by the planet that acts on the Sun with the strongest gravitational force i.e. Jupiter.
You need to use the strongest planetary tidal forces in order to produce a)..Given that Jupiter is being used in this model to provide the tangential gravitational force, this leads to the choice of the alignments of Venus and the Earth, since they produce the greatest tidal distortions of the Sun’s convective layers, if you exclude Jupiter.
This model has the potential of producing the changes in the relative rotation rate of layers in the convective layers of the Sun that are required, however, it has two significant problems:
1) The combined tidal forces Venus and the Earth must be amplified by resonances between the orbital periods of these two planets and the layers in the convective layers of the Sun. [There is some evidence that this does in fact take place]
2) It assumes that it is possible for layers in the Sun’s convective zone to slide over each other, allowing the layers to change in their relative rotation rates..
If either of these problems are not overcome then the TIDAL-TORQUING MODEL fails.
The reason why I believe that these two problems are [in fact] overcome is justified by figure 8 on page 90 of our 2008 paper:
Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle?
I. R. G. Wilson, B. D. Carter, and I. A. Waite
which can be downloaded for free from :http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/AS06018.htm
Figure 8 shows that there is an observable correlation between equatorial rotation rate of the Sun and its motion about the Barycentre of the Solar system. A correlation of this nature is telling you that there must be a TIDAL-TORQUING interaction between the planets and the Sun i.e. the dominant gravitational force of Jupiter must be acting tangentially on tidal distortions in the out layers of the Sun.

Geoff Sharp says:
November 10, 2012 at 6:38 pm
This would be confirmed if I could see a detailed planet torque graph and compare known grand minima.
The best they have is their Figure 3: http://www.leif.org/research/Abreu-Torque.png
Did not impress me a whole lot.

Seesaw effect?

Ninderthana says:
November 10, 2012 at 9:11 pm
If you start out with the hypothesis that: Changes in the relative rotation rate of layers in the convective layers of the Sun can influence the long-term strength of the solar dynamo
I think it is the other way around: that solar activity via Maxwell stresses control the rotation rate: http://www.leif.org/research/ast10867.pdf
“A dependence of the solar rotation velocity measured by magnetic tracers and solar activity and interplanetary magnetic field was found. An interplay between the Reynolds and the Maxwell stresses is proposed for the interpretation. As stated by Ruediger & Hollerbach (2004), the more magnetic the Sun is, more rigid is its rotation”

pochas says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:18 pm
All that is required is an oscillating stressor that causes the tension in the wrapped up magnetic flux tubes to vary so that as the tension increases to near rupture only a small additional stress is needed to cause many flux tubes to reconnect at once. The paper seems to posit that the core is a rigid structure and the convective zone is a rigid structure so that the shear concentrates across the tachocline. As already mentioned this is questionable because the tachocline is deep inside the sun and it would take too long for the reconnected flux tubes to rise to the surface. More likely the shear maximizes at some point in the convective zone relatively near the surface.
If the flux tubes reconnect at a relatively shallow depth the argument really doesn’t change. It is shear between differentially rotating layers that causes the flux tube reconnection. It is known that the meridional differential rotation rate of the photosphere varies with the solar cycle. This is strong evidence of the presence of an oscillating shear stress near the surface.
Howe & Hill have shown recently through helioseismology that the torsional ossification bands look to be generated at the Tachocline and take about 2 years to reach the surface. These bands are thought to carry sunspots.

Agile Aspect says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:20 pm
“It should be clear if there are more than 2 bodies, then the “free fall” model breaks down.”
It doesn’t break down for more than 2 bodies. The number of bodies is immaterial.
The only way the presence of a neighboring gravitational body or bodies can be detected by another body is by differential stresses induced across the latter by the former, due to fact that the gravitational attraction is not constant across the physical volume. To the extent that the gravitational attraction is not constant, there is a divergence of geodesic paths for neighboring molecules.
This divergence gives rise to what we call “tidal forces”, and that is the only manner in which the “free fall model” can be said to “break down”. It does not matter if the path taken by a particular body appears to be a series of wild curlicues relative to a distant observer. If the motion is induced by gravitation, the body does not “feel” the motion, except and exclusively to the extent that neighboring differential volumes are being tugged in different directions.
This is precisely what makes gravity so special as a force of nature – it acts on all masses within its sphere of influence exactly the same, with no shielding of its influence possible. If you are thinking, e.g., of an analogy with the “forces” one feels on an amusement park ride like this, that is a completely inappropriate analogy. You feel those forces because your body wants to move in a straight line, while the teacup constrains you to move with it. The differential between the acceleration of the parts of your body in contact with the teacup versus those which are not in contact is what makes you sense the motion. In a gravitational field, to the extent that the field is constant throughout your body, every part of your body is being accelerated exactly the same amount. Ergo, you feel nothing.

In my house I have two heaters, a reverse cycle A/C and a French parlour stove that runs on wood. Both of these are ultimately powered by the sun. The Earth has but one ultimate heat source the sun, anything that affects dear old sol will change our heat source in some way.
That our climate tends to cycle in overlaying sine waves some times adding and some times subtracting, giving us variations, can only possibly be cosmological, as nothing on earth has these frequencies. The harmony of the spheres is coming back to haunt to catastrophists.
It is good to see Tallbloke here, for it is clear thinkers like he that may solve some of the deeper mysteries of our sun god without the need of sacrificing virgins.

For David Archibald,
What, if any, impact does this paper have on your 2008 prediction re the US and other mid latitude regions? In your March 2008 presentation “Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States” for the International Conference on Climate Change (available from your website), you stated:
“2008 is the tenth anniversary of the recent peak on global temperature in 1998. The world has been cooling at 0.06 degrees per annum since then. My prediction is that this rate of cooling will accelerate to 0.2 degrees per annum following the month of solar minimum sometime in 2009.”
I think the month of solar minimum in 2009 was January? Clearly the predicted cooling hasn’t happened. In fact the US in particular has warmed at a rate of +0.27C per annum since Jan 2009 (UAH). Globally, the temperature trend since the peak that occurred in April 1998 is currently slightly positive, at +0.01C per annum (UAH), well up from the cooling trend you reported in March 2008.
I just wondered if anything you’ve found in this paper might have influenced your predictions in 2008, and perhaps improved their performance? Thanks.

Leif said

“This is standard ice-age theory that has been around for decades.”

I was hoping you had a new slant on the standard theory as the standard theory in it’s current form does not adequately account for the timing of the onset of glacial periods and cannot be used to predict the timing of the next glacial period and perhaps more importantly the rate at which it will progress.
We do therefore need some innovative thinking and research on this subject as the implications for society exceed even the most extreme scenarios posited by the co2 brethren.
It is inevitable that any hypothesis or theory leading to an improvement in this situation will attract criticism, but,

“if the match is good enough”…

that’s a Leif quote, is it not ?

J Martin says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
November 11, 2012 at 3:01 am
The controversial result being a deeper minimum at about 2100 than the Maunder minimum.
That’s based on noticing that the graph delivers a pretty good match for the Maunder minimum with both the two largest curves going low during that period but not getting anywhere near coinciding.
BUT, it looks as if the two largest curves will virtually coincide at about 2100 thus producing a deeper low than the Maunder minimum. I can’t work out what effect the other smaller curves may have then just by looking at it, so it would be nice to see the author extend it to 2100 so we can see.

Angular momentum is conserved. Over time, the Earth’s rotation slows. To compensate for that loss of AM, the Moon moves further out. So AM CAN affect bodies distant from each other. Free fall has nothing to do with it.

I have a feeling here (in this article) lie the secrets:
Possible mechanisms?:
1. Alterations to the sun’s dynamo, hence magnetosphere.
2. Subsequent effects on solar output, or at least radiation reaching earth
3. Alterations to the sun’s core, effects of reactions output
4. Alterations to the earth’s dynamo (sometimes the core moves faster, sometimes slower) effect on radiation reaching earth.
5.Alterations to the processes of the earth’s core, reactions, heat output.
6. All or any combination of the above.
7. Others…?
Can’t grasp Leif’s idea there is no gravitational tidal effect due to freefall state – this effect is clearly illustrated by the effect of the moon on the earth.
Here lie the secrets, watch this space.

Just wondering how many times Leif and Tallbloke have been reviewers of submitted papers. That would give me an indication of who would have a better understanding of the actual process.

Correction for typos – sorry,
Leif Svalgaard said:
November 10, 2012 at 10:34 pm
“I think it is the other way around: that solar activity via Maxwell stresses control the rotation rate: http://www.leif.org/research/ast10867.pdf”
Thanks Leif,, a constructive comment and an interesting idea.
I may upset some of my allies hear but I support Leif’s contention that according to
current Physics principles the Sun is in free-fall about the Barycentre. It is always
possible that this claim may be wrong but it is up to those who disagree with the
Equivalence Principle to show why it is wrong [and yes, I know that good-faith
attempts have been made].

This actually makes a great deal of sense when you think about it. What would cause such reliable periodic changes in the output of the sun? Chaos was never really a satisfactory explanation. There’s only really one force on the sun that varies, which is gravity, and there’s only only one periodically changing source of that, which is the orbit of the planets.
Fascinating stuff, thanks for posting.

Re: Extra Terrestial Influences on Nature’s Risks. Brent Walker 2012 http://www.actuaries.org/HongKong2012/Papers/WBR9_Walker.pdf
The paper is a masterpiece of clear concise communication of scientific knowledge.
If you doubt that, read the above paper first, then try to do a very quick read of Hansen’s work: Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato
(here at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf)
(In my opinion Hansen and Sato is a masterpiece as an example of modern scientific obfuscation. If there were Nobel prizes for obscuring your meanings, methods and messages, these authors should win it. Anything authored by Michael Mann would be a close second).
The historical background at the beginning is fascinating enough, then the author goes on to discuss in detail:
Summary of our solar system
Sunspots and solar activity
Solar activity vs atmospheric effects
Covering Solar system barycentre (SSB)
Gravity, Tidal Forces, Tidal Heating
Effects of photons on the thermosphere and exosphere
Atmospheric temperatures and geomagnetic effects
ENSO/PDO interactions vs Solar cycles
Sun’s magnetosphere
Subatomic particles
An example of the clear communicative writing style, and the interesting information discussed is below:

The Sun dominates the solar system and contains 99.85% of its mass. The planets contain 0.135% of its mass of which Jupiter has more than 2/3rds. The planets’ satellites (moons) contain 0.0005% of the mass of the solar system…..
……The Sun is a gaseous body comprised primarily of hydrogen (71%) and helium (27.1%) and has a mass of some 333,000 times the mass of Earth. Sun’s tremendous gravitational forces give it an average specific density of 1.4 (times that of water) so most of it is in the form of plasma, which is subject to magnetic and gravitational influences. It has a thermo-nuclear core exploding the equivalent of around 700,000 hydrogen bombs per second. Though extremely hot at the core, the surface is only approximately 5,500deg C. But the actual surface temperature varies significantly and above the surface it can be higher than 1 million deg…….
…..The Sun has an additional peculiarity in that it does not spin at a constant speed. One revolution takes around 34 days near the poles and around 25 days at the equator. It is believed that its core does spin evenly – presumably at the same rate as near its poles……
…..The Sun’s diameter is approximately 1,391,000 kilometers but this also varies with it being slightly smaller at the beginning or end of a sunspot cycle and slightly larger in the middle of a sunspot cycle when it is also slightly hotter. This variation in diameter is of the order of 260 kilometers. There is also greater size variation between solar grand minima when it is smaller and the very active periods when it is larger. This variation is of the order of 600 kilometers……

It is mindboggling that there should have been any difficulty publishing a detailed readable, fascinating paper such as this which lays out all (most?) of the physical forces and cycles involved in our solar system, especially so the sun/earth interactions.

Ninderthana says: November 11, 2012 at 5:53 am
“….I may upset some of my allies hear but I support Leif’s contention that according to
current Physics principles the Sun is in free-fall about the Barycentre….”
Interesting discussion.
Taking into account the relative masses involved I presume it is the SSBC which moves about the sun, although all (?) the published diagrams seem to show the sun moving in relation to the solar system barycenter.
Quote from Walker’s paper: The Sun dominates the solar system and contains 99.85% of its mass. The planets contain 0.135% of its mass of which Jupiter has more than 2/3rds. The planets’ satellites (moons) contain 0.0005% of the mass of the solar system…..
But that detail would not alter all of those little tidal surges at all.

Robert of Ottawa says:
November 11, 2012 at 5:58 am
I still don’t understand why Sunspots look dark.
They are not dark at all. They are more that white-hot. If you took the smallest sunspot we can see and remove all of the rest of the Sun, leaving just that tiny, tiny spot ‘hanging’ in the sky, it would shine brighter than the full moon. Sunspots look dark because of the contrast to their even brighter surroundings. Sunspots are slightly cooler than the surrounding photosphere and therefore radiate 5 times less per square meter. They are cooler because the strong magnetic field in the spots interferes with the free convection of heat from below.

Sparks says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:57 pm
What do you think?
I am a coauthor of that paper…

Tom in Florida says:
November 11, 2012 at 5:47 am
Just wondering how many times Leif and Tallbloke have been reviewers of submitted papers. That would give me an indication of who would have a better understanding of the actual process.
For years I have reviewed a dozen+ of papers per year…

Leif,
It may be that D-O cycles and/or Bond events could be reset internally as proposed but I suggest that in fact they are set and reset by cloudiness/albedo changes induced by solar variability.
I think that the authors in proposing ‘internal’ system resetting would have been unaware of the extent to which solar changes can affect global cloudiness and thus surface insolation.
For me, the decreasing cloudiness (and more zonal jets) of the late 20th century when the sun was active and the increasing cloudiness (and more meridional jets) since the sun became less active after the peak of cycle 23 has been an eye opener.
That should have been an eye opener for AGW proponents too because their theory proposes more humidity leading to more clouds and a greater insulating effect.
In fact. cloudiness decreased during the warming spell which is the opposite of their proposition. Now, cloudiness has increased and warming has ceased with maybe cooling to come despite still increasing CO2.
Either I will be proved right or wrong in due course but at present a lot of new papers are fitting that scenario.
I am pretty confident that all the climate changes we have observed are the result of changing solar effects on global cloudiness caused not by the Svensmark effect but by changes in jetstream behaviour and the length of the lines of air mass mixing.
Zonal jets give less global cloudiness and more energy into the oceans. Meridional jets give more global cloudiness and less energy into the oceans.
And, as tallbloke says, your revised solar data only affects amplitude and not the basic shape of the pattern of solar variability. I told you that a couple of years ago.
As long as the pattern remains the amplitude is of little significance so much of your recent effort in reducing the amplitude of solar variability may well be in vain as far as climate consequences are concerned.

Stephen Wilde says:
November 11, 2012 at 9:09 am
And, as tallbloke says, your revised solar data only affects amplitude and not the basic shape of the pattern of solar variability.
Wrong. You should not spread such misinformation.The amplitude is irrelevant [for curve fitting]. The basic shape [the background] is the all important issue and that is very different.

@Stephen Wilde

I am pretty confident that all the climate changes we have observed are the result of changing solar effects on global cloudiness caused not by the Svensmark effect but by changes in jetstream behaviour and the length of the lines of air mass mixing.

More a mix of both

Leif said:
“The basic shape [the background] is the all important issue and that is very different.”
I seem to have missed that. Please could you elaborate.

Actually Leif it shows:
i) The late 20th century warming.
ii) The mid century cooling.
iii) The early 20th century warming.
iv) the cold spell during Victorian times.
v) A mid 19th century warmer spell
vi) The cold spell around 1812 which defeated the Napoleonic armies.
etc. etc.
In fact the shape of your latest iteration is better than ever from my point of view. The amplitude being pretty much irrelevant.
If you carry on as you are you might well produce an even more accurate mirror of past warming and cooling periods.

Steven Mosher says:
“There isnt any data anyone could trot out that would prove you right or wrong. In fact, all data agrees with your position because your position is vacuous and un quantifed. And no data agree with your position for the same reason.”
Funny, you could say exactly the same thing about AGW. If I’m wrong, then ‘trot out’ your empirical evidence showing conclusively that AGW exists.

“Taking into account the relative masses involved I presume it is the SSBC which moves about the sun, although all (?) the published diagrams seem to show the sun moving in relation to the solar system barycenter. ”
The barycentre calculation _includes_ the sun. It’s all of the solar system, not just the planets.
Having said that I don’t see why anything in a system more complex than a two body system would rotate about the barycentre (centre of mass). Planetary movements are determined by gravity , not mass. Centre of mass is determined by distance and gravity by the square of separation.
The centre of mass is not the centre of gravitational attraction.
As Steve Goddard pointed out recently the Earth-Moon system rotates around the Sun not the SS barycentre.
In fact it would be more accurate to work out where the centre of gravitational attraction of all other bodies on the Earth_Moon is, as that will be the point about which we rotate. What he showed is that this is much nearer to the centre of the sun than it is to the barycentre.
The centre of gravitational attraction is different for every object, not just because its own mass has to be taken out of the calculation but because it depends on its relative position to all the other bodies.
I’m not sure what the barycentre is useful for, but working out orbits is not it.

Albert Jacobs says: “The interesting and challenging coincidence of the 178.7 year cycle of both should warrant some attention and research.”
It is interesting to note that if one looks at the difference between hadSST3 and ICOADS from which it is derived, the main component of what is removed is a cycle of 184 years.
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/hadsst3-cosine-fit1.png
Just one of those odd coincidences, I suppose.
That is also somewhat shorter than the circa 220y “principal component” that Thomson , Denis et al found in the Gomez ice core at the base of the Antarctic peninsula.
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/gomez_d18o2.png

It would be great as an experiment to find two similar stars, one with planets and one without planets and have the ability to observe the difference of activity on those stars.
We can detect whether a star has planets, how would we detect a sun spot cycle on a nearby star without observing the spots? Radio?

Sparks says:
November 11, 2012 at 1:12 pm
It would be great as an experiment to find two similar stars, one with planets and one without planets and have the ability to observe the difference of activity on those stars.
There a lots of stars with planets in all kinds of distances. So far, no star has been found with activity with periods matching planets outside of the sonic point: http://www.leif.org/research/AGU%20Fall%202011%20SH34B-08.pdf slide 19
rgbatduke says:
November 11, 2012 at 12:59 pm
No extended object in the gravitational field of another is in “perfect freefall”. Hence the tides.
The word ‘perfect’ has no place in science. It is always a matter of degree. What counts is the deviation from free fall [and that is exceedingly small]. Tides have nothing to do with this.

tallbloke says:
November 11, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Their plot is dated 2012 so it’s unlikely they didn’t get the memo yet. Maybe *SHOCK HORROR* they just don’t agree with your ironing flat of the solar data.
They just splice the recent TIM to the obsolete Lean 2000 reconstruction. This is wrong no matter how you cut it.
Thanks for the Not-plot, very interesting. Can the L&P effect be ruled out as a contributing factor to the reduction in group sunspot numbers?
The L&P effect has nothing to do with why the Group sunspot number is too low before 1882. The reason for that is that Hoyt and Schatten got the k-factors wrong. Even Schatten now agrees with that. Here is an analysis of what is wrong the GSN [and how to fix it]: http://www.leif.org/research/What-is-Wrong-with-GSN.pdf
It is the opinion of the SSN-workshop that GSN is wrong and should not be used anymore. It will take some time before that filters out to our user community, because the conclusion invalidates many correlations and presumed causations, to wit: your own silly resistance.

Mosher.
I have previously listed for the benefit of Leif a large number of real world events that could falsify my hypothesis.
None of them has happened thus far.
Some examples:
Decreasing global cloudiness whilst the sun remains relatively quiet.
More zonal / poleward jets whilst the sun remains relatively quiet.
A resumption of stratospheric cooling without a return to a more active sun.
A resumption of tropospheric warming without a decrease in global cloudiness.
A warming mesosphere with a cooling stratosphere.
etc. etc.
There are lots of combinations of real world events that could render my hypothesis unlikely to be true and I await any one of them.
In contrast your AGW theory is completely unfalsifiable due to the twists and turns of the proponents.
What would discredit AGW theory for you ?
Put up or shut up.

Lief, (someone) where is the GSN data that you plotted against the TSI ?
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-Guess.xls

As I pointed out above, even if we accept all of Leif’s attempts to iron solar variability flat (a nice image) the latest version of the results of his efforts still shows a solar pattern coinciding with climate variations.
His latest revision still shows cool spells correlating with low solar activity. If anything the match is even better than before.
Can’t we move on now in light of that ?

tallbloke says:
November 11, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Well, that’s interesting, because you’d think that with the smaller spots disappearing, that would reduce the number of groups.
It will and does, but that works for both the Group and Zurich sunspot numbers. The disappearance of small groups has been going on for some time [but is now becoming more obvious]. Groups are classified by letters: ‘A’ consisting of spots with no penumbra, ‘B’ as ‘A’ but with a clear bipolar nature, ‘C’ smaller spots with penumbra, ‘D’ and up with larger and larger spots. Here is a plot of the fraction [percentage] of small groups [A and B] of all groups: http://www.leif.org/research/Frequency-Small-Groups.png
What data analysis are you relying on to make your assertion that the L&P effect hasn’t affected group sunspot number?
You have not read my links. Here is a more extensive analysis: http://www.leif.org/research/Reconstruction%20of%20Sunspot%20Number.pdf
The basic argument is that the difference between the Group and Zurich SSNs stems from a discontinuity around 1885. That jump is totally understood now to be due to wrong k-factors used by Hoyt and Schatten [how they got them wrong is not yet clear. One factor is that H&S did not realize that Wolf changed from his larger telescope to a much smaller one in the 1860s]. Adjusting for that singular jump makes the two series equal [to within their noise], so we don’t need to invoke any other explanations.

Stephen Wilde says:
November 11, 2012 at 2:16 pm
I have previously listed for the benefit of Leif a large number of real world events that could falsify my hypothesis.
As long as you have not quantified those, they are useless for testing
His latest revision still shows cool spells correlating with low solar activity. If anything the match is even better than before.
Solar activity now is very low [as in 1900], but there is no cool spell now.

rgbatduke says:
November 11, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Excuse me? The “tidal” pseudoforce is the deviation from free fall, the consequence of an accelerated frame
Tidal forces are always present, but the deviations from free fall are extremely small. The argument is not about tides, but about exchange of angular momentum [other than through tides]. The barycenter has no tidal effect as it has no mass. The tidal effects come from distant planets.
vukcevic says:
November 11, 2012 at 2:50 pm
If solid earth’s crust does that
As we have discussed so many times, it does not. If there is a correlation with the Group sunspot number, then that shows that the correlation is spurious, as the GSN is just wrong. You comments show extreme confirmation bias.

Sparks says:
November 11, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Why are the other moons not calculated
Because their masses are so small.
tallbloke says:
November 11, 2012 at 3:26 pm
Thanks. Looks to me like the SIDC number has been inflated by speck and pore miscounting by as much as the GSN has fallen.
The SIDC miscounting is not due to specks, quite the contrary: to the overcount af large spots being counted more than once. That makes a jump in 1945, which we take care of already.
But you have not grasped the whole analysis: Wolf discovered that the diurnal variation of the ‘magnetic needle’ is a sensitive proxy for the sunspot number [actually for Far UltraViolet]. Our modern understanding of that relationship is firm and can be used to validate the SIDC [Wolf] numbers as far back as the 1780s. This shows that the GSN is the one at fault. Again, this is not really necessary because the Group numbers themselves show that H&S’s calibration went wrong in the 1880s. There is really no wiggle room left.

You (Anthony) mentioned Landscheidt’s work on March 21. This seems similar…

Thanks Vuc’ , I have that data but it only runs to 1995
What I meant was what was the source of the data shown in Leif’s graph:
http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-Background-Not.png