“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
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Carsten
Cool, thanks.
And Mars starts orbiting the center of mass of the double star and not the center of one of the stars of course.
lgl says:
September 8, 2013 at 7:12 am
How clever. Why not use 1 mill. yrs of data, then you can smooth out the 1 yr peak too.
No, the 1 yr peak will not go away, no matter how long the data series is.
But the 292 days ‘noise’ is not gone and you can’t make it go away because Ea Ve and Sun line up every 292 days
And I did recover it, but with exceedingly small amplitude.
Anyway your method is flawed because the planets will interact regardless of what they are orbiting.
My method was just to show that the Earth does not orbit the center-of-mass of Sun+Mercury+Venus [planets inside the orbit of the Earth] as you claimed, because the modulation predicted by you is not there.
“Barycentric” influence of the planets on the sun is just statistically insignificant…”
We can rule out Barycentric influence, there are some very interesting planetary/solar timings taking place which I think are very useful.
Uranus appears to be behaving like a giant solar compass, its poles and its equator point directly at the sun during or near almost all of the solar minimums in the sunspot record from 1600-2012.
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/uranus-solar-2.gif
The timing looks like this, which if you have a trained eye it shows a 2way interaction between the sun and the planet Uranus.
http://thetempestspark.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/ssn-1600-2012-uranus.gif
Carla: thanks a lot. It’s refreshing to be offered papers with real observations in rather than Comoron and Bluster’s statistical scattergun nonsense:
Blam! Blam! What signals in the data? All gone now. Nothing to see here, move along.
Dullards.
From nose to tail cosmic ray propagation. And those misunderstood ACR .. produced by interactions with solar winds, currents sheets, magnetic fields..
we discuss the acceleration
arising from reconnection as a possible origin of the anomalous
cosmic rays measured by Voyagers as well as the origin
cosmic ray excess in the direction of Heliotail
Turbulence, Magnetic Reconnection in Turbulent Fluids and Energetic
Particle Acceleration
A. Lazarian · L. Vlahos · G. Kowal · H. Yan · A. Beresnyak · E. M. de Gouveia Dal
Pino
Abstract
Turbulence is ubiquitous in astrophysics. It radically
changes many astrophysical phenomena, in particular,
the propagation and acceleration of cosmic rays.We present
the modern understanding of compressible magnetohydrodynamic
(MHD) turbulence, in particular its decomposition
into Alfv´en, slow and fast modes, discuss the density structure
of turbulent subsonic and supersonic media, as well as
other relevant regimes of astrophysical turbulence. All this
information is essential for understanding the energetic par-
ticle acceleration that we discuss further in the review. For
instance, we show how fast and slow modes accelerate energetic
particles through the second order Fermi acceleration,
while density fluctuations generate magnetic fields in
pre-shock regions enabling the first order Fermi acceleration
of high energy cosmic rays. Very importantly, however,
the first order Fermi cosmic ray acceleration is also possible
in sites of magnetic reconnection. In the presence of turbulence
this reconnection gets fast and we present numerical
evidence supporting the predictions of the Lazarian & Vishniac
(1999) model of fast reconnection. The efficiency of
this process suggests that magnetic reconnection can release
substantial amounts of energy in short periods of time. As
the particle tracing numerical simulations show that the particles
can be efficiently accelerated during the reconnection,
we argue that the process of magnetic reconnection may be
much more important for particle acceleration than it is currently
accepted. In particular, we discuss the acceleration
arising from reconnection as a possible origin of the anomalous
cosmic rays measured by Voyagers as well as the origin
cosmic ray excess in the direction of Heliotail…
huh what did Sparks just say.
Leif
All you have shown is your lack of knowledge. You can’t compare the difference in distance between aphelion and perihelion to the four orders of magnitude smaller offset of the center of mass. Do your exercise with Neptune and you will see I’m right.
And isn’t the planetary theory just turbulence or a background noise?
Carla: Sparks just said
“Wowee, looka my latest graph. The assumption I’m making means we can rule everything else out!”
The reckless young blood that he is.
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 7, 2013 at 8:53 pm
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
Let me rephrase what I meant. Suppose there are no planets and the sun rotates on its axis and has a certain centre of rotation. In 6 years time, with no planets, it has a slightly different centre since it has moved a bit in the milky way. But if Jupiter is the only planet, then six years later the centre of rotation is about a sun’s diameter away from the case without Jupiter since it takes Jupiter about 12 years to orbit once.
And doesn’t a stronger heliocurrent sheet create more resistance (earth slows down) with a weaker heliocurrent sheet less resistance and Earth speeds up?
Carla says:
September 8, 2013 at 1:56 pm
And isn’t the planetary theory just turbulence or a background noise?
As Leno Tonti said to the journalist who said he thought Leno’s Moto Guzzi Le Mans was noisy:
“Eez notta noise, itsa Music”
If you look at variances rather than just magnitudes, you can hear the music above the din.
Carla says:
September 8, 2013 at 1:59 pm
And doesn’t a stronger heliocurrent sheet create more resistance (earth slows down) with a weaker heliocurrent sheet less resistance and Earth speeds up?
I’ll counter your question with another:
Why do changes in Earth’s length of day track the average motion of the gas giant planets above and below the equatorial plane (and the HCS)?
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ssb-z-lod-temp.jpg?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
September 8, 2013 at 12:52 pm
How fast would Jupiter have to orbit?
v^2 = (G*Ms)/r
= 2.383 days
Wow, that’s fast!
This formula is correct, but there has to be an error somewhere in your calculations. Note that the only variables are the mass of the sun and the distance to the sun. So the mass of the planet makes no difference. So at the orbit of Mercury, Jupiter would go just as fast as Mercury.
tallbloke says:
September 8, 2013 at 1:57 pm
Carla: Sparks just said
“Wowee, looka my latest graph. The assumption I’m making means we can rule everything else out!”
The reckless young blood that he is.
LoL I didn’t rule anything out, I’m just saying if the Bary centric interaction between the Sun and the solar systems planetary mass is not a major influence directly on the sun then we shouldn’t dismiss there being no interaction/s between the sun and the planets at all.
lgl says:
September 8, 2013 at 1:54 pm
You can’t compare the difference in distance between aphelion and perihelion to the four orders of magnitude smaller offset of the center of mass. Do your exercise with Neptune and you will see I’m right.
The whole issue was whether the Earth ‘orbited’ the solar system barycenter in the way Alexander thought: http://www.leif.org/research/DavidA10.png and it turns out that it does not. All bodies in the solar system are in free fall in their combined gravitational field and feel no forces from the orbital movement. Seen from the Sun [which is where the activity is] it is the barycenter that moves around. No gravitational ‘force’ issues from the barycenter, pulling anything this way or that.
Put a solar companion 200 AU from the Sun. This will place the barycenter at 100 AU from the Sun then try to make the argument that the planets have orbits around that barycenter instead of the Sun.
Leif
No the issue was your claim “The Earth+Moon orbits the center of the Sun as do all other planet+moon systems”. It’s wrong.
– – – – – – – –
It appears to be relatively weak conclusion.
I think that dueling papers on this subject will increase.
John
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 8, 2013 at 9:30 am
“And the digitized data from those two documents are in my spreadsheet here.
So please … no more babble about sunspots and wheat prices. It’s nonsense, and if you don’t think so, do what I did:
Go look at the actual data …”
Like the Menzel graph, the plot in your spreadsheet is in part upside-down relative to how it should be oriented. It is oriented as if more sunspots, warmer times, would be expected to more often correspond to higher wheat prices, but matters are the other way around.
Fewer sunspots, relative cooling, with shorter growing seasons before frost, are what tend to reduce yields and hence increase prices.
That is what Herschel observed and implied. Only in the CAGW-movement era are there commonly lying claims of the opposite, of claiming that more warmth would typically mean lower agricultural yields.
Aside from many other economic factors like technological change, the properly expected relationships are:
Fewer sunspots often higher wheat prices
More sunspots often lower wheat prices
What the plot in your spreadsheet shows:
* The Dalton Minimum dip of fewer sunspots corresponds as expected with the time of highest wheat prices.
* A major decrease in wheat prices in the late 19th century onwards does not correspond to solar trends meanwhile, but that is easy to explain by other factors (technological improvement meanwhile).
* The peaks of large spikes in sunspots often, as expected, corresponded in timing to substantial local low points in wheat prices (like in 1778-1779, 1787. and quite a number of other examples). Of course, there were exceptions as well, with meanwhile other influences like the Corn Laws, the Importation Act of 1846, indirect economic effects on non-potato food markets of the Irish Potato Famine (due to a massive outbreak of potato blight disease), etc.
For a partial relationship of solar activity to something as distant as a primarily economic matter, such is somewhat good in context, although naturally not displaying the former as the sole factor influencing the economy. Far stronger demonstrations of solar effect are those with climate more directly in http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif
Tiny edit to prior post:
Where “1778-1789, 1787” was written, there is one single-character typo:
That was to be:
“1778-1779, 1787”
[Fixed. -w.]
lgl says:
September 8, 2013 at 2:26 pm
No the issue was your claim “The Earth+Moon orbits the center of the Sun as do all other planet+moon systems”. It’s wrong.
As with your admission that your claim was only approximate, so was mine. The best way to see this is to introduce a solar companion at a large distance from the Sun, the planets will still orbit the Sun not the barycenter halfway to the solar companion.
tallbloke says:
September 8, 2013 at 2:07 pm
I’ll counter your question with another:
Why do changes in Earth’s length of day track the average motion of the gas giant planets above and below the equatorial plane (and the HCS)?
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ssb-z-lod-temp.jpg
—-
I don’t know.. because they are all in the same equatorial boat..between the current sheet.
Sparks says:
September 8, 2013 at 2:12 pm
LoL I didn’t rule anything out, I’m just saying if the Bary centric interaction between the Sun and the solar systems planetary mass is not a major influence directly on the sun then we shouldn’t dismiss there being no interaction/s between the sun and the planets at all.
One too many negatives in that sentence young man. 😉
The whole issue was whether the Earth ‘orbited’ the solar system barycenter in the way Alexander thought: http://www.leif.org/research/DavidA10.png and it turns out that it does not. All bodies in the solar system are in free fall in their combined gravitational field and feel no forces from the orbital movement. Seen from the Sun [which is where the activity is] it is the barycenter that moves around. No gravitational ‘force’ issues from the barycenter, pulling anything this way or that.
Put a solar companion 200 AU from the Sun. This will place the barycenter at 100 AU from the Sun then try to make the argument that the planets have orbits around that barycenter instead of the Sun.
All of the interesting possibilities arise not from “orbiting the barycenter” but from tides. Tides arise because all of the mass of any object in any orbit is not in free fall. This is, as you pointed out, because the center of gravity and center of mass are not the same thing (although I personally think it is easier to think in terms of pseudoforces in the accelerated frame or just by adding up the real forces required to keep e.g. the near side of the earth that is NOT in orbit moving consistently with the point in the earth that IS in orbit).
As both you and others have pointed out, computing the orbit itself in a many body solar system is non-trivial, and things like orbital resonances can stretch out and relax the eccentricity of orbits (with Jupiter being the dominant factor in Earth’s orbital resonances). As pointed out by Willis in-thread and you on other threads, the tidal influence of Jupiter on the surface of the sun is not resolvable on any length scale one might try to use to determine the “surface” of the sun (which has no precise surface, obviously, certainly not precise on a millimeter scale). It is therefore implausible that Jupiter and/or Saturn would have a discernible influence on things like Earth’s climate, at least on the basis of known physics, even before looking for raw correlations in one’s haste to commit post hoc ergo propter hoc.
All that the study above suggests is what is already apparent from the data — we shouldn’t take this seriously enough to try to imagine the new physics needed to support a hypothetical influence, such as the planets deflecting dark matter darkon clouds that only interact with normal matter at core temperatures and pressures, just enough to influence climate a hundred thousand or so years later. That is, perhaps the correlation isn’t immediate, but lagged and smeared over geological time. The data probably doesn’t definitively exclude that kind of stuff, but even if true, who cares? It is and will likely remain almost impossible to prove, and since we lack the detailed knowledge necessary to complete a computational chain, it is of no use to us. Aside from having had a hundred-plus thousand years of internal diffusion to smear out any modulation that might have occurred on a decadal scale.
Now all I have to do is cite this whole thread as yet another refutation of HenryP on another thread, where he is asserting that it is 99.99999% or the like certain to be Saturn (as he claims certain knowledge of what the climate is going to do over the next few years). All without a lick of physics!
Good trick, that.
rgb
Leif
That’s not a way at all. The planets only orbit the mass inside their orbit so placing an object at 200 AU is meaningless. The best way is to look at the planets from Saturn and out because they orbit most of the mass of the solar system. Saying they orbit the SSBC is a good approximation. Saying they orbit the center of the Sun is plain wrong.
Carla says:
September 8, 2013 at 2:47 pm
tallbloke says:
Why do changes in Earth’s length of day track the average motion of the gas giant planets above and below the equatorial plane (and the HCS)?
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ssb-z-lod-temp.jpg
—-
I don’t know.. because they are all in the same equatorial boat..between the current sheet.
Well, not quite. The Solar is tilted at 7 degrees to the plane the planets (on average) revolve around the Sun in. And those outer planets move around the Sun pretty slowly, spending many years above or below the Solar equatorial plane. Whereas the more rapidly orbiting inner planets complete the loop in a much shorter time.
It”s a good puzzle.