“Barycentric” influence of the planets on the sun is just statistically insignificant, and a previous paper that claims to find a signal in isotopic records is proven to be nothing more than a statistical artifact.
In 2012, Astronomy & Astrophysics published a statistical study of the isotopic records of solar activity, in which Abreu et al. claimed that there is evidence of planetary influence on solar activity. A&A is publishing a new analysis of these isotopic data by Cameron and Schüssler. It corrects technical errors in the statistical tests performed by Abreu et al.
They find no evidence of any planetary effect on solar activity.
In a new paper published in A&A, R. Cameron and M. Schüssler, however, identify subtle technical errors in the statistical tests performed by Abreu et al. Correcting these errors reduces the statistical significance by many orders of magnitude to values consistent with a pure chance coincidence. The quasi-periods in the isotope data therefore provide no evidence that there is any planetary effect on solar activity.
Source: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-evidence-planetary-solar.html#nwlt
The paper (h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard)
No evidence for planetary influence on solar activity
R. H. Cameron and M. Schüssler
Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Max-Planck-Str. 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany e-mail: [cameron;schuessler]@mps.mpg.de
Received 16 April 2013 / Accepted 24 July 2013
ABSTRACT
Context. Recently, Abreu et al. (2012, A&A. 548, A88) proposed a long-term modulation of solar activity through tidal effects exerted by the planets. This claim is based upon a comparison of (pseudo-)periodicities derived from records of cosmogenic isotopes with those arising from planetary torques on an ellipsoidally deformed Sun.
Aims. We examined the statistical significance of the reported similarity of the periods.
Methods. The tests carried out by Abreu et al. were repeated with artificial records of solar activity in the form of white or red noise. The tests were corrected for errors in the noise definition as well as in the apodisation and filtering of the random series.
Results. The corrected tests provide probabilities for chance coincidence that are higher than those claimed by Abreu et al. by about 3 and 8 orders of magnitude for white and red noise, respectively. For an unbiased choice of the width of the frequency bins used for the test (a constant multiple of the frequency resolution) the probabilities increase by another two orders of magnitude to 7.5% for red noise and 22% for white noise.
Conclusions. The apparent agreement between the periodicities in records of cosmogenic isotopes as proxies for solar activity and planetary torques is statistically insignificant. There is no evidence for a planetary influence on solar activity.
…
Concluding remarks
The statistical test proposed by Abreu et al. (2012), a comparison of the coincidences of spectral peaks from time series of planetary torques and cosmogenic isotopes (taken as a proxy for solar activity in the past) with red and white noise, is logically unable to substantiate a causal relation between solar activity and planetary orbits. Furthermore, the execution of the test contains severe technical errors in the generation and in the treatment of the random series. Correction of these errors and removal of the bias introduced by the tayloring of the spectral windows a posteriori leads to probabilities for period coincidences by chance of 22% for red noise and 7.5% for white noise. The coincidences reported in Abreu et al. (2012) are therefore consistent with both white and red noise.
Owing to our lack of understanding of the solar dynamo mechanism, red or white noise are only one of many possible representations of its variability in the period range between 40 and 600 years in the absence of external effects. This is why the test of A2012 is logically incapable of providing statistical evidence in favour of a planetary influence. Alternatively one could consider the probability that a planetary system selected randomly from the set of all possible solar systems would have periods matching those in the cosmogenic records. In the absence of a quantitative understanding of the statistical properties of the set of possible solar systems to draw from, the comparison could again, at best, rule out a particular model of the probability distribution of planetary systems. Here we have shown that the test in A2012 does not exclude that the peaks in the range from 40 to 600 years in the planetary forcing are drawn from a distribution of red or white noise.
We conclude that the data considered by A2012 do not pro- vide statistically significant evidence for an effect of the planets on solar activity.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/aa21713-13-No-Planetary-Solar-Act.pdf
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The energy we receive today from the sun supposedly left the core of the sun some 150,000 years and 8.5 minutes or so ago [± a few millenia or so for margin of error].
If barycentrism has any validity, it seems to me that its purveyors should base their assertions on the positions of the planets at that point in time?
Just wondering.
Geoff Sharp has a new paper published. Has anyone looked at it?
Are Uranus & Neptune Responsible for Solar Grand Minima and Solar Cycle Modulation?
International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics September 3rd 2013 volume 3 number 3.
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=36513&#reference
The barycenter is not “solar”. The Barycenter is the center of mass of the solar system. It is not physical in any other way. It cannot “act” on the core of the Sun, being it solid or not. In fact the barycenter cannot act on anything, much like the barycenter of the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy cannot act on anything
After reading the article and all the comments, I am more convinced than ever that the 8-9 planets do orbit around the sun and that it does bombard them with energy. And I am fine with the idea that the effect of the other planets on the earth are much less than the effect of the sun.
Sun 2 x 1030kg
Jupiter 2 x 1027kg
Given that Jupiter is 1/1000 the mass of the sun, how much effect does anyone seriously think it has on the sun? It’s trivially obvious that there will be some effect but why would anyone think it would even be measurable?
So, we proceed.
Understanding that which has been determined to be understood.
Does it get any better ?
Carsten Arnholm says:
September 7, 2013 at 4:53 pm
The barycenter is not “solar”. The Barycenter is the center of mass of the solar system. It is not physical in any other way. It cannot “act” on the core of the Sun, being it solid or not. In fact the barycenter cannot act on anything…
If the center of the solar system is not at the center of the Sun, then why would you not think the Sun would be gravitationally moved? The Sun has no choice, except to be pulled toward the center of the solar system’s gravity. The Sun orbits the center of the solar system the same as the planets do.
Look at the Earth – Moon system. The center of gravity of these two bodies is neither in the Earth nor the Moon, yet both orbit the barycenter. The Sun does the same thing.
The Sun is not in a simple binary system as are the Earth and Moon. The Sun’s orbit around the solar barycenter is wildly variable on the scale of hundreds of years. The variability is what shakes up the Sun’s core and modulates its magnetohydrodynamic systems.
commieBob says:
September 7, 2013 at 5:45 pm
Sun 2 x 1030kg Jupiter 2 x 1027kg
Given that Jupiter is 1/1000 the mass of the sun, how much effect does anyone seriously think it has on the sun? It’s trivially obvious that there will be some effect but why would anyone think it would even be measurable?
Interesting, the average solar irradiance varies only slightly during the 11 year solar cycle. Is it a coincidence?
The evidence does not show that the effect is measurable on a one year time scale, however, the effect does seem to be both measurable and significant in time scales of thousands of years.
Why is proposing that the solar sytem works as a ‘sytem’ with the planets infuencing the solar cycles, such a challenging idea?
just asking
Yet the sun is currently slowing down during this solar cycle as was expected.
A coincidence? No I don’t think so.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w57236105034h657/
Prolonged minima and the 179-yr cycle of the solar inertial motion, Rhodes W. Fairbridge and James H. Shirley, January 1987
We employ the JPL long ephemeris DE-102 to study the inertial motion of the Sun for the period A.D. 760–2100. Defining solar orbits with reference to the Sun’s successive close approaches to the solar system barycenter, occurring at mean intervals of 19.86 yr, we find simple relationships linking the inertial orientation of the solar orbit and the amplitude of the precessional rotation of the orbit with the occurrence of the principal prolonged solar activity minima of the current millenium (the Wolf, Spörer, and Maunder minima). The progression of the inertial orientation parameter is controlled by the 900-yr great inequality of the motion of Jupiter and Saturn, while the precessional rotation parameter is linked with the 179-yr cycle of the solar inertial motion previously identified by Jose (1965). A new prolonged minimum of solar activity may be imminent
Planetary temperature changes cyclically on the earth. An example of the cyclic climate change is the phenomena that is confusingly called the polar sea saw which is the label used for the fact when the Greenland Land ice sheet cyclically warms the Antarctic ice sheet cools and visa verse. Note it is only the two ice sheets that sea saw not the entire high latitude regions.
The solar sun connection requires a summary of the anomalous Dansgaard-Oeschger planetary observations which require an explanation how the solar magnetic cycle changes cause the observed planetary changes, The polar see saw occurs when then is a D-O cycle. The point is if the sun cyclically changes the earth climate then there needs to be a physical reason why the solar magnetic cycle is changing cyclically. i.e. The solar magnetic cycle changes are not random.
Changes to the solar magnetic cycle cause the cyclically planetary temperature changes on the earth.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml
Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock by Stefan Rahmstorf
Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612145v1
The Antarctic climate anomaly and galactic cosmic ray
Contradictory trends in temperature in Antarctica and the rest of the world, which are evident on timescales from millennia to decades, provide a strong clue to what drives climate change. The southern continent is distinguished by its isolation and by its unusual response to changes in cloud cover.
Borehole temperatures in the ice sheets spanning the past 6000 years show Antarctica repeatedly warming when Greenland cooled, and vice versa (Fig. 1) [13, 14]. North-south oscillations of greater amplitude associated with Dansgaard-Oeschger events are evident in oxygenisotope data from the Wurm-Wisconsin glaciation[15]. The phenomenon has been called the polar see-saw[15, 16], but that implies a north-south symmetry that is absent. Greenland is better coupled to global temperatures than Antarctica is, and the fulcrum of the temperature swings is near the Antarctic Circle. A more apt term for the effect is the Antarctic climate anomaly.
Attempts to account for it have included the hypothesis of a south-flowing warm ocean current crossing the Equator[17] with a built-in time lag supposedly intended to match paleoclimatic data. That there is no significant delay in the Antarctic climate anomaly is already apparent at the high-frequency end of Fig. (1). While mechanisms involving ocean currents might help to intensify or reverse the effects of climate changes, they are too slow to explain the almost instantaneous operation of the Antarctic climate anomaly.
Figure (2a) also shows that the polar warming effect of clouds is not symmetrical, being most pronounced beyond 75◦S. In the Arctic it does no more than offset the cooling effect, despite the fact that the Arctic is much cloudier than the Antarctic (Fig. (2b)). The main reason for the difference seems to be the exceptionally high albedo of Antarctica in the absence of clouds.
The following is a link to Bond’s paper “Persistent Solar influence on the North Atlantic Climate during the Holocene”
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
Excerpt from the above linked paper:
“A solar influence on climate of the magnitude and consistency implied by our evidence could not have been confined to the North Atlantic. Indeed, previous studies have tied increases in the C14 in tree rings, and hence reduced solar irradiance, to Holocene glacial advances in Scandinavia, expansions of the Holocene Polar Atmosphere circulation in Greenland; and abrupt cooling in the Netherlands about 2700 years ago…Well dated, high resolution measurements of O18 in stalagmite from Oman document five periods of reduced rainfall centered at times of strong solar minima at 6300, 7400, 8300, 9000, and 9500 years ago….”
The mechanism as to how the orbital position of the planets cyclically affects the sun is not gravitational. To validate or invalidate how planetary orbital position cyclically affects the sun it is necessary to understand the mechanisms. The fundamental model that is assumed for what creates the solar magnetic field and field variance is not correct.
Leif have you noticed that the solar large scale magnetic field intensity has dropped by 50%? What is your explanation, random noise?
http://www.solen.info/solar/polarfields/polar.html
A Doubling of the Sun’s Coronal Magnetic Field during the Last 100 Years
http://www.wdc.rl.ac.uk/wdcc1/papers/nature.htm
Evolution of the Sun’s large-scale magnetic field since the Maunder minimum
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v408/n6811/abs/408445a0.html
@ur momisugly Michele
“Statistics are like loose women, once you get them you can do anything you want with them.”
Walt Michaels
But you often have to pay a price of one sort or another.
Yes, the route and the effect of the wandering barycenter, I know, it can’t, we’ll say the wobbling of the sun around the barycenter, though tidally only millimeters(as in a butterfly wingflap), might modulate magnetodynamic effects, which might modify the earth’s atmos & biospheres, by some as yet unknown mechanism(s). Polished words, Leif examines and finds the worm, a ghost mechanism.
====================
commieBob says:
September 7, 2013 at 5:45 pm
Sun 2 x 1030kg
Jupiter 2 x 1027kg
Given that Jupiter is 1/1000 the mass of the sun, how much effect does anyone seriously think it has on the sun? It’s trivially obvious that there will be some effect but why would anyone think it would even be measurable?
If there were no planets around the sun, the sun would rotate around its centre, but even if Jupiter were the only planet, the centre of mass would be at the surface of the sun that both would revolve around. What affect this has is another matter.
Uh, the Earth-Moon system orbits a point within the Earth, it is displaced from the center a bit, but it is definitely inside the planet.
Pluto-Charon orbit a point outside either body, and periodically the Sun-Jupiter system is orbiting a point above the surface of the Sun, with the other planets tagging along for the ride.
Now, there are magnetic field lines threaded through the insides of that big ball of fusing hydrogen and plasma, applying torque to magnetic field lines embedded in a ball of magnetic fluid is going to do something… I don’t think that something will be obvious, but I posted the quote about Solar Magnetohydrodynamics for a reason, fluid mechanics is pretty freakin’ complex, never mind when said fluid is made of magnets AND on fire.
“”””””……Leif Svalgaard says:
September 7, 2013 at 1:16 pm
SCheesman says:
September 7, 2013 at 1:14 pm
Quick typo: the opening should say “is proven to be nothing more…”
Perhaps ‘is shown to be nothing more’ would be better. Proof and disproof are big words…….””””””
How ’bout “maybe” ? “Is shown” is big words too, and further more it depends on what your definition of “is” is !
“”””””…….Max™ says:
September 7, 2013 at 7:20 pm
Look at the Earth – Moon system. The center of gravity of these two bodies is neither in the Earth nor the Moon, yet both orbit the barycenter. The Sun does the same thing. ~David Thompson
Uh, the Earth-Moon system orbits a point within the Earth, it is displaced from the center a bit, but it is definitely inside the planet……..””””””
So what does the track of the rest of the universe look like relative to the barycenter ?
Max™ says:
September 7, 2013 at 7:20 pm
I understood what you meant. It is not unreasonable to think that magnetic field concentrations would produce some sort of effect. We know that the suns magnetic field affects the solar surface. I do respect Dr. Svalgaards perspective, but the jury is still out. Solar winds and magnetic field interactions not only with the atmosphere, but also the earth itself are outside of the scope of TSI.
I think this is the Abreu 2012 paper being referred to
http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2012/12/aa19997-12/aa19997-12.html
This should clear that up for you: http://calgary.rasc.ca/barycenter.htm
Bonus awesomeness here: http://calgary.rasc.ca/howfast.htm
The howfast one will show you which direction relative to various objects we are traveling (the rotation of the planet carries us to the east, if the sun is above you, you’re moving roughly to the west, at midnight we’re moving roughly to your east, and the solar system is currently heading roughly towards vega as it orbits through the milky way, not sure which way the milky way is heading relative to the CMBR though) which is just fun to know for me at least.
David Thomson says:
September 7, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Oliver Manuel (omatumr.com) has shown physical evidence that the Sun has a solid core, rather than being a gas ball of hydrogen and helium.
Manuel is a crank and has shown no such thing. The tidal forces do not care what material the Sun is made of.
neillusion says:
September 7, 2013 at 4:10 pm
Isn’t this tantamount to a spoof article
No spoof, but [granted] just a bit difficult.
Ian W says:
September 7, 2013 at 4:38 pm
The noted astronomer William Herschel first put this forward.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/grl50846-Herschel.pdf
“measured correlations between sunspot number and wheat price and wheat yield data would be very likely realizations of random data; these correlations are “insignificant.” Therefore, Herschel’s hypothesis must be regarded with skepticism.”
I presume someone has thought to follow Landscheidt and track what the barycenter path was in Dalton and Maunder and compare its motion then to its motion now?
It doesn’t matter what it was or is. The barycenter has no influence on anything.
Dan Griswold says:
September 7, 2013 at 4:51 pm
Geoff Sharp has a new paper published. Has anyone looked at it?
Yes, it does not pass muster
David Thomson says:
September 7, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Look at the Earth – Moon system. The center of gravity of these two bodies is neither in the Earth nor the Moon, yet both orbit the barycenter. The Sun does the same thing.
The Sun is not in a simple binary system as are the Earth and Moon. The Sun’s orbit around the solar barycenter is wildly variable on the scale of hundreds of years. The variability is what shakes up the Sun’s core and modulates its magnetohydrodynamic systems.
William Astley says:
September 7, 2013 at 7:00 pm
The fundamental model that is assumed for what creates the solar magnetic field and field variance is not correct.
Well, contrary to what you claim, it is reasonably well understood.
Leif have you noticed that the solar large scale magnetic field intensity has dropped by 50%? What is your explanation, random noise?
It falls to zero every 11 years…
A Doubling of the Sun’s Coronal Magnetic Field during the Last 100 Years
Did not happen: http://www.leif.org/research/Reply%20to%20Lockwood%20IDV%20Comment.pdf
Werner Brozek says:
September 7, 2013 at 7:17 pm
If there were no planets around the sun, the sun would rotate around its centre, but even if Jupiter were the only planet, the centre of mass would be at the surface of the sun that both would revolve around.
Orbital revolution and axial rotation are two different things and cannot be mixed: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Shirley-MNRAS.pdf
Max™ says:
September 7, 2013 at 7:20 pm
Uh, the Earth-Moon system orbits a point within the Earth, it is displaced from the center a bit, but it is definitely inside the planet.
Oops! My bad. Thanks for correcting me.
David Thomson says:
September 7, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Look at the Earth – Moon system. The center of gravity of these two bodies is neither in the Earth nor the Moon, yet both orbit the barycenter. The Sun does the same thing.
Great confusion here. The Earth+Moon orbits the center of the Sun as do all other planet+moon systems. You do not need to understand the theory [although it is simple enough]. We have very precise measurements of the Earth’s orbit and they show that the E+M orbit the center of the Sun. A simple consequence hereof is the measured value of TSI which varies with the square of the distance to the center.
Alexander, Hydrologist For South Africa, was planning four dams on the Nile for 500 year flood level. He found a flood gage that was 1500 years old and tied sun cycles driven by planetary gravity influences in the attached link.. http://anhonestclimatedebate.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/2982-journal-of-civ-eng-vol-49-no-2.pdf
Walter J Horsting says:
September 7, 2013 at 9:19 pm
Alexander, Hydrologist For South Africa, was planning four dams on the Nile for 500 year flood level. He found a flood gauge that was 1500 years old and tied sun cycles driven by planetary gravity influences in the attached link..
Figure 10 in the link illustrates the flaw in his logic. Here is the Figure http://www.leif.org/research/DavidA10.png it shows what TSI should be at various points of the Earth’s orbit. On this Figure http://www.leif.org/research/DavidA11.png those points are plotted [red points] versus what is actually observed [black curve].
There is so much confusion about what orbits what. The barycenter of the Earth and the Moon is somewhere within the Earth moving around just under the Moon. Now, think of the International Space Station. Does it orbit the center of the Earth or does it orbit the [moving] barycenter of the Earth and the Moon? After answering consider this: the ISS orbits at an altitude of 415 km above the surface of the Earth. Consider a [hardy] spacecraft sent to orbit at an altitude above the surface of the Sun of 10,000 km. Does it orbit the center of the Sun or the distant barycenter? Slowly move the spacecraft out a bit to 20,000 km and ask if it still orbits the Sun [now at 20,000 km altitude]. Now, move it out to 100,000, 1000,000, 100,000,000 km. At all times it still orbits the center of the Sun, regardless of where the barycenter is. Or do you think the spacecraft at some point decides not to orbit the sun anymore, but switches to orbit the barycenter instead?