Guest post by David Archibald
Long suspected, it seems that this has now been confirmed by a paper in Astronomy and Astrophysics with the title “Is there a planetary influence on solar activity?” by Abreu et al that was published on 22nd October, 2012.
From the Discussion and Conclusions section:
The excellent spectral agreement between the planetary tidal effects acting on the tachocline and the solar magnetic activity is
surprising, because until now the tidal coupling has been considered to be negligible. In Appendix A we show that the possibility of an accidental coincidence can be ruled out. We therefore suggest that a planetary modulation of the solar activity does take place on multidecadal to centennial time scales.
The authors note that current solar dynamo models are unable to explain the periodicities in solar activity such as the 88 year (Gleissberg), 104 year, 150 year, 208 year (de Vries), 506 year, 1000 year (Eddy) and 2200 year (Halstatt) cycles. They adopted a different view by regarding the planets and the solar dynamo as two weakly coupled non-linear systems.
The idea that planetary motions may influence solar activity seems to have been initiated by Rudolf Wolf in the 1850s. While energy considerations clearly show that the planets cannot be the direct cause of solar activity, they may perturb the solar dynamo.
Specifically, the authors calculated planetary torque at the tachocline. The tachocline of the sun is a shear layer which represents a sharp transition between two distinct rotational regimes: the differentially rotating convection zone and the almost rigidly rotating radiative interior. The tachocline plays a fundamental role in the generation and storage of the toroidal magnetic flux that eventually gives rise to solar active regions. A net tidal torque is exerted in a small region close to the tachocline due to the buoyancy frequency originating from the convection zone matching the tidal period. The tachocline is thought to be non-spherical – either prolate (watermelon-shaped) or oblate (pumpkin-shaped). The authors’ model describes planetary torques acting on a non-spherical solar tachocline.
Figure 5 from the paper shows the 10Be record, shown as modulation potential, and planetary torque in the frequency domain:
Panel a is the Fourier spectrum of the solar activity quantified by the solar modulation potential. Panel b is the Fourier spectrum of the annually averaged torque modulus. The spectra display significant peaks with very similar periodicities: The 88 year Gleissberg and the 208 year de Vries cycles are the most prominent, but periodicities around 104 years, 150 years, and 506 years are also seen.
The match between theory and the physical evidence is very, very good. As the authors put it,”there is highly statistically significant evidence for a causal relationship between the power spectra of the planetary torque on the Sun and the observed magnetic activity at the solar surface as derived from cosmogenic radionuclides.”
They also advance a plausible mechanism which is that the tachocline, playing a key role in the solar dynamo process, is a layer of strong shear which coincides more or less with the layer of overshooting convection at the bottom of the convection zone. The overshoot layer is thought to be crucial for the storage and amplification of the magnetic flux tubes that eventually erupt at the solar photosphere to form active regions. Small variations in the stratification of the overshoot zone “of about -10-4 may decide whether a flux tube becomes unstable at 2·10-4 G or at 10-5 G. This makes a great difference, because flux tubes that do not reach a strength close to 10-5 G before entering the convection zone cannot reach the solar surface as a coherent structure and therefore cannot form sunspots.” This sounds like an explanation for the Livingstone and Penn effect of fading sunspots.
Figure A.1 from the paper also shows the very good correlation between cosmogenic radionuclides from the period 300-9400 years BP and the model output:
Upper middle panel: 14C production rate derived from the INTCAL09 record
Lower middle panel: solar modulation record based on 10Be records from GRIP
(Greenland) and Dronning Maud Land (Antarctica) and the 14C production rate
Bottom panel: Calculated torque based on planetary positions
If planetary torque modulates solar activity, does solar activity in turn modulate the earth’s climate? Let’s have a look at what the 10Be record is telling us. This is the Dye 3 record from Greenland:
All the cold periods of the last six hundred years are associated with spikes in 10Be and thus low solar activity. What is also telling is that the break-over to the Modern Warm Period is associated with much lower radionuclide levels. There is a solar mechanism that explains the warming of the 20th Century. It is also seen in the Central England Temperature record as shown in the following figure:
Conclusion
This paper is a major advance in our understanding of how solar activity is modulated and in turn its effect on the earth’s climate. It can be expected that planetary torque will progress to being useful as a tool for climate prediction – for several hundred years ahead.
Reference
J.A. Abreu, J. Beer, A. Ferriz-Mas, K.G. McCracken, and F. Steinhilber, Is there a planetary influence on solar activity?” Astronomy and Astrophysics, October 22, 2012
Thanks to Geoff Sharp, the full paper can be downloaded from here.
(Note: This post was edited for title, form, and some content by Anthony Watts prior to publishing)
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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
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.
Bart says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:13 am
I will also go out on the limb a little and make a perhaps novel suggestion that causation could be the reverse – that solar activity, resulting in increased solar radiation pressure, might perturb planetary orbits.
That limb is very thin. Solar radiation pressure does have an effect on minute dust particles [basically cleans them out], but is MUCH to week 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.
Kev-in-Uk says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:21 am
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
Such changes do occur and do affect the temperature of the order or 0.1 degree. TSI does not vary 1%, but only about 0.1%, ten times less. All the other solar variations involve a lot less energy than TSI, so have a harder time in being effective.
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.
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:14 am
dynamo models may be moving to a shallow dynamo rather than the deep one needed for the torque mechanism to work.
Breaking news: Leif Svalgaard throws fifty years of mainstream solar physics under the bus in order to keep the solar-planetary theory at bay.
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
TSI does not vary 1%, but only about 0.1%, ten times less. All the other solar variations involve a lot less energy than TSI, so have a harder time in being effective.
Earth’s average surface temperature has only increased around 0.5% since the end of the little ice age. The increase in solar activity and TSI over the same period could easily account for global warming, because the ocean builds up, retains and dissipates heat on centennial timescales as Leif himself pointed out recently.
The other solar variations affect upper atmospheric chemistry in poorly understood ways, and may have an effect well beyond the variation of their energies in raw W/m^2 terms.
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…..
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:42 am
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.
The Sun is not in perfect freefall because of the quadrupolar moments which arise due to it’s irregular shape. However, The hybrid Tidal-Torque theory of Ian Wilson and Abreu et al seems to be ascendant at the moment. Mechanism is ultimately important, but we shouldn’t let consideration of it over-ride the quality of the correlations on display in this paper.
Plenty of scientific theories are well developed and of practical use long before mechanism is finally satisfactorily explained.
Friends:
I agree the excellent review – with all its doubts and caveats – of rgbatduke at November 10, 2012 at 10:13 am, and I commend everyone to read all of it.
However, I am concerned by the observation of Leif Svalgaard at November 10, 2012 at 9:42 am which says
And the addendum to it from DAV at November 10, 2012 at 10:40 am which says
These observations imply there may have been an ‘agenda’ for rushing publication. And history indicates that such ‘rushed’ publications often contain significant – but not immediately obvious – flaws.
Richard
tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:01 am
Breaking news: Leif Svalgaard throws fifty years of mainstream solar physics under the bus in order to keep the solar-planetary theory at bay.
One might have hoped that the discussion could be on a scientific and civil level, but apparently that is not going to happen.
The ‘conveyor belt’ goes under the bus because of recent observations of the Meridional Circulation, so theories depending on a deep circulation go under the bus as well. And theories that depend on a torque on the tachocline as well.
tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:14 am
Earth’s average surface temperature has only increased around 0.5% since the end of the little ice age. The increase in solar activity and TSI over the same period could easily account for global warming
A 0.5% increase in temperature requires a four times as large increase in TSI, 2%, and that has not happened.
Kev-in-Uk says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:14 am
However, we still have a large number of Earth events to ‘explain’ – e.g. Ice Ages, etc
Ice Ages are not caused by solar activity, but by changes in the Earth’s orbit, mainly caused by Jupiter, so in a sense planets do control the climate.
tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:19 am
The Sun is not in perfect freefall because of the quadrupolar moments which arise due to it’s irregular shape.
The quadrupole moment is exceedingly small and does not make the sun deviate from free fall. An astronaut in orbit has a very irregular shape and is still in free fall.
but we shouldn’t let consideration of it over-ride the quality of the correlations on display in this paper.
Correlations are just that
Leif Svalgaard says:
November 10, 2012 at 9:42 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”.
Different journals work in different ways. It might have been accepted in May 2011 on submission, but it wasn’t published until October 2012. Plenty of time for peer review and suggested alterations and various to-ing and fro-ing. 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.
richardscourtney says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:35 am
And the addendum to it from DAV at November 10, 2012 at 10:40 am which says
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
These observations imply there may have been an ‘agenda’ for rushing publication.
On the contrary it indicates there has been a year and a half long process of re-iteration culminating in successful publication in October 2012.
17 months between submission and publication hardly looks like an
“‘agenda’ for rushing publication”
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.
tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:46 am
Different journals work in different ways. It might have been accepted in May 2011 on submission, but it wasn’t published until October 2012.
No papers are ‘accepted on submission’.
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
Dear Moderators:
Title error: Is there is a…
Freudian slippage, thinking about a statement instead of a question?
[Thanks, fixed. — mod.]
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 11:45 am
The ‘conveyor belt’ goes under the bus because of recent observations of the Meridional Circulation, so theories depending on a deep circulation go under the bus as well.
Fine with me. It’s bout tie we hd a fundamental paradigm shift in solar physics.
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?
tallbloke says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:14 am
Earth’s average surface temperature has only increased around 0.5% since the end of the little ice age. The increase in solar activity and TSI over the same period could easily account for global warming
Leif responds:
A 0.5% increase in temperature requires a four times as large increase in TSI, 2%, and that has not happened.
The answer to this apparent conundrum was already published in JGR several years ago.
http://sciencebits.com/calorimeter
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.
Hoser says:
November 10, 2012 at 11:55 am
Ed_B says:
November 10, 2012 at 10:19 am
I backed up my position by asking for a prediction.
And because the authors didn’t comply with your demands within 15 minutes:
My opinion is the proposed mechanism is rubbish, and the results are simply coincidence.
Your opinion is noted, even though I think it’s rubbish. 😉
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.
Seems likely? Is this a scientific approach? Maybe if you want to rebut what these scientists have successfully published, you need to do this test yourself and present the results. At the moment, they are the ones with a published result, and you are standing around waving your arms while you badmouth them.
With Dr RGB and Dr. LS both around, perhaps it might be wise to stay on the sidelines….er, for time being, unless I hear …. or could be this a polite prompt for rgbatduke .
No extended body is in “free fall” under general relativity (even a human is a space suit), however this paper is only using Newtonian tidal quadrature effects. Has anyone figured out what this projects for the Sun’s immediate future, a Dalton or Maunder type minimum?
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
From tallbloke on November 10, 2012 at 12:35 pm:
Ah, if I had a nickel for every time a minion of the (C)AGW-pushers said that to climate skeptics, whether it was a published paper by Hansen, Menne, Mann… “If you have any proof then write up a paper and submit it for peer-review! Until you do and it gets published, you got nothing! You’re just harassing honest scientists who did great work and got published!”
I await the claims of Leif and his cronies being paid shills of Big Solar…