Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [Graphs updated to include error bars]
Inspired by the paper by the charmingly-named Maya Tolstoy discussed here on WUWT, I decided to see if tidal forces affect the timing of earthquakes and volcanoes. Dr. Tolstoy’s hypothesis is that tidal forces affect the timing of the subterranean eruptions … but she has only nine “events” (either eruptions or lava flows) to test her theory. On that thread I said I thought her hypothesis was wrong, but I hadn’t looked at the data.
I figured that IF, and it’s a big if, tidal forces are affecting volcanoes, they’d also affect earthquakes. So I decided to start by seeing if there is a relationship between the tidal forces and earthquakes by looking at as many earthquakes as I could find.
For the calculation of the tidal forces, I started by going to the marvelous JPL Horizons ephemeris. I set the variables as follows for the Sun. For the Moon I just changed the “Target Body”.
Figure 1. Settings for the JPL Horizons ephemeris to obtain the instantaneous distances in the X, Y, and Z directions of the sun/moon as seen from the center of the earth.
With the X, Y, and Z variables, I calculated the individual tidal forces from the sun and moon (see “TIDAL MATH” below), and added them as vectors to give the total tidal force. I calculated the tidal force on a “per kilogram” basis. Here is a sample of the results showing recent tidal forces:
Figure 2. Daily combined sun-moon tidal forces, 2010-2014.
Some comments on Figure 2. First, on a per-kilogram basis the forces are small. One grain of sand exerts a force of about 40-50 micronewtons downwards under earth’s gravity. I weigh about 70 kg, so the tidal forces make my weight vary at the equator (the Earth’s equator, not mine) by about 3 grains of sand … however, the total tidal forces are large because the earth has a very large mass.
Next, note that as you’d expect, the peaks in Figure 2 are not aligned with the calendar year. Instead they shift slowly through the calendar year over about an eight-year cycle. This means that we should not expect to see any annual variation in earthquakes by month. And this is the case for this dataset, monthly earthquake counts only vary by ±4% (not shown). In addition, note the rapidity of the changes. These cycle every lunar month, which is about twenty-eight days.
Having calculated the tidal forces, I got a database of all large (>5) earthquakes since 1900 from the US Geological Service. To examine the distribution of the data, I took a histogram of the tidal forces on the actual dates of the earthquakes, and I compared it to the full database of daily tidal forces during the same period. Figure 3 shows the results.
Figure 3. Distribution of tidal forces during earthquakes 1900-2007 (gold) compared to distribution of all daily tidal forces during the same period (red diagonal hatched).
As you can see, the answer is clearly NO. The histogram of the tidal force at the times of the earthquakes (gold) shows the same double-peaked distribution shown by the full tidal dataset (red hatched). There is no overall relationship between earthquakes and tidal forces.
Next, I wanted to examine volcanic eruptions. So I went to the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program website and downloaded their eruption database. Using all confirmed eruptions with known dates back to 1800, I did the same thing with the eruptions that I did with the earthquakes. Figure 4 shows the results of that analysis:
Figure 4. Distribution of tidal forces during eruptions 1800-2013 (blue) compared to distribution of all daily tidal forces during the same period (red diagonal hatched). Errors adjusted to account for number of subsamples.
Once again, there is little difference between the two datasets. Yes, there is an exaggeration of the local peak of the tidal forces in the range 0.8 to 0.9 micronewtons (bottom scale), but given 95% confidence interval, that kind of variation is not unusual. Overall, volcanoes seem unaffected by tidal forces.
Now … why should this be the case, that the quakes and eruptions are NOT affected by the tidal forces? I mean, we know that the tidal forces cause tides in the ocean and in the atmosphere. And most importantly for this question, they also cause tides in the solid earth. These tides are on the order of about half a metre (a foot and a half) at the equator. So it seems logical that they would affect earthquakes and eruptions. My speculations about the reason they don’t seem to affect quakes and eruptions are as follows:
1. The tidal forces are always there, and are always rapidly changing. Vertical tidal forces go from local extreme to zero every six hours. As a result, any stable condition of the earth’s crust must be able to withstand the worst that the tides can do.
2. The forces basically affect all of any local area equally. The diameter of the earth is on the order of 13,000 kilometres (km) (8,000 miles). The earth tides are half a meter. Not half a kilometer. Half a metre. Figure 5 shows my drawing of how the tidal force operates on the earth. It is a stretching force that applies to land, sea, and air.
Figure 5. Tidal forces elongating a hypothetical planet and its ocean. The planet is free-falling into the sun, so there are no centripetal forces. Note that the planet is elongated as well, but this is not shown in the diagram because obviously, tides in the solid planet are much smaller than tides in the ocean. NOTE THAT THIS PLANET IS NOT THE EARTH.
Now, in Figure 5, the vertical motion due to tidal force is greatest along the line between the planet and sun. It goes to zero along the vertical plane that passes through the middle of the earth at a distance D from the sun. This is because the vertical tidal force is dependent on “r”, which varies from place to place and time to time on the actual earth (for the calculation see “TIDAL MATH” below).
As a result, any point on the earth goes from high vertical tidal displacement (for that point and time) to no vertical tidal displacement in six hours. Now, that six hours is a quarter of the circumference of the earth, which is about 10,000 km (6,200 mi). And over that distance of 10,000 km, we have a difference in elevation of half a metre. This is a vertical deflection of one part in twenty million … a very, very small amount
And that in turn means that per horizontal kilometre, the average difference in equatorial elevation due to tidal forces is five-hundredths of a millimetre, with a global maximum of about eight-hundredths of a millimetre. That small amount of deflection, one part vertical for each twenty million horizontal, means that the change in elevation is very, very gradual. And as a result, the entire local area is being affected pretty much equally.
Anyhow, that’s my explanation for the fact that although the earth is incessantly flexing from the tides, it doesn’t seem to affect the timing of earthquakes and eruptions as a whole. It’s because the flexing (by global standards) is both small and gradual.
2 AM … gotta go outside and see what the storm did. Raining all day here, and I’m happy about that …
Regards to everyone,
w.
THE USUAL REQUEST: If you disagree with someone, please quote the exact words that you disagree with. That way, we can all see exactly what you are objecting to.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Is there a tidal connection to the number of very small earthquakes (microseisms)? Do big earthquakes have a tidal connection? How about big eruptions? As with any investigation, each answer brings new questions … so please, don’t bust me for not answering all of them or assume I’m not aware of them.
TIDAL MATH: The tidal force operating on a one kg mass at a point at a perpendicular distance “r” as shown in Figure 5 is given by
T = 2 G * M * r / D^3
where T is tidal force (newtons), G is the gravitational constant, D and r are as in Figure 5 (metres), and M is the mass of the sun (kg).
MY PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT THE TIDAL FORCES
Time and the Tides Wait for Godot
I’ve been listening to lots of stuff lately about tidal cycles. These exist, to be sure. However, they are fairly complex, and they only repeat (and even then only approximately) every 54 years 34 days. They also repeat (even more approximately) every 1/3 of that 54+ year cycle, which is…
Short Post. You can skip this if you understand the tidal force. Some folks seem confused about the nature of tidal forces. Today I saw this gem: “The tide raising force acts in both directions (bulge on each side in the simplistic model)” … the author of that statement may…
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Could this concentration over the first 6 months of the year be a contributor to the CO2 variation seen in the Mauna Kea series?
“UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Is there a tidal connection to the number of very small earthquakes (microseisms)? ”
I thought that the observed data did indeed show such a connection.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhMoQrLEJe0 near the 10 minute mark.
You can, of course, refuse to look at this and call me names instead if that suits you better … as is customary on such blogs.
Worth watching. Limited utility though. Mostly a fund-raising endeavor in my opinion.
I don’t see that it supports the assertions Willis was checking. The bottom line is they are checking. It will be proven out or abandoned. So, good science, hopefully.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Interesting rebuttal to the previous post about the theory that tidal forces affect underwater earthquake eruptions.
Though tidal forces are tiny, they are repetitive and cumulative (maybe like metal fatigue?). I don’t think it prudent to totally disregard the possibility of any effect, yet… The absence of temporal correlation is not convincing.
Good point. There’s a reason for the old saying “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. Eventually, the accumulated load exceeds the strength of the material being stressed.
At earthquake fault zones stresses build up until the two sides of the fault “slip” and release the stress, often in catastrophic fashion. However, mid-ocean ridges are driven by a different set of forces since they are nearer the source of both oceanic crust and the force that ultimately pushes the continents apart.
Perhaps convection in the mantle (the driving force beneath the mid-oceanic ridges) responds to tidal forces differently than the asymmetrically applied forces at a continental fault?
Slywolfe February 7, 2015 at 7:41 am
As I pointed out, the earth’s crust is flexed twice a day. So cumulative stresses like metal fatigue don’t seem to be an issue.
OK … then what would you find convincing?
w.
To be more precise, at any given point on the globe, maximum flexing occurs twice per day but the increase/decrease in flexing is a constant process. Furthermore, for typical earthquakes, as around San Francisco, cumulative stresses are the critical issue (although regular tidal forces may simply net out). I have no idea if that changes for mid-oceanic ridge quakes or eruptions but it seems an interesting question.
opluso:
I believe you misread the geologist statements.
Cumulative movement causes the cumulative strain, the strain is not independent.
A slight back and both movement of water may assist erosion but it can not be a serious consideration for causing several hundred to thousands cubic miles of rock to move against an equally ponderous amount of material.
Can the flexing caused to Earth by the sun and moon be cumulative over eons or provide the ‘trigger’ causing faults to slip?
That question is interesting and deserves some thought and research. But I think the Earth Science researchers need to fully understand why India rammed north at high speed geologically leaving Australia and Antarctica peacefully little affected.
North/South trending tectonic movement is somewhat contrary to the East/West flexing. Still it is a very complex world
Willis, I am in awe over how you manage to publish so many unfailingly interesting papers.
I read this as “how you manage to publish so many failingly uninteresting papers”
Sh*t was about to get real lol.
aashfield February 7, 2015 at 7:56 am Edit
As to the number, stay up late, drink coffee, code fast, type at 70 wpm, neglect normal life …
As to them being interesting, unlike many scientists I have the great fortune to be perfectly free to study what actually interests me at the moment. Since I’m fascinated and amused and amazed by whatever I’m discovering and writing about at any given time, it tends to be interesting to others as well.
Thanks for the comment,
w.
Willis, the only thing I’m not certain I understand is your figure above in which you show things “moving the furthest” with the tidal bulge and the sun. On the face of it, this figure is labelled incorrectly. The tides are evaluated relative to the center of mass (CM), and occur because the entire extended body of the earth cannot be in the Newtonian orbit predicted by gravity and momentum, only the CM can.
. The actual velocity of the CM is 
where 
is the period of the orbit (1 year). Objects on the Earth closer to the sun by a distance 
are moving at a speed (neglecting rotation) of 
, but their orbital speed should be 
— they are moving too slowly to be in orbit. Their actual central acceleration is completely determined: 
and this determines what the net force has to be on the object. The tidal “force” is a pseudoforce that appears as the difference between normal force and earth gravitation. On the other side one is similarly moving too fast to be in orbit and (it turns out) the difference between gravitation and normal has the same sign, hence a bulge on BOTH sides as correctly drawn above.
around the sun (including the CM, which is “weightless” in the center of the Earth’s sphere as well) and “move” the most, almost symmetrically (although IIRC tides are very slightly larger on the side facing the attractor, but I don’t feel like deriving the result in full again at the moment although it isn’t that difficult and I did most of the work in the previous paragraph except for writing the expression for the pseudoforce and doing a Taylor series expansion of the result to get the leading 
term). To the extent that the Earth, its atmosphere and its ocean are not truly “solid”, a tidal bulge appears as a surface wave, and because the Earth rotates this bulge forms with a lag that exerts a small torque on the Earth that would gradually reduce its rotational speed at some rate if it weren’t for the fact that lunar tides are stronger and more important in that regard. Because the Earth is tipped relative to the solar ecliptic, this torque also has a component that (among other things) helps to cause the precession of the Earth’s axis so that in another century or so Polaris won’t, in fact, be the “pole star” any more and will undergo increasingly large circles as the polar axis sweeps out a very long period cone.
The velocity of the center of mass of an extended object in a “perfect” (circular) solar orbit is
But, this means that the CM doesn’t “move” at all — it remains in proper orbit. Objects at true zenith and its midnight, along the line facing towards and away from the sun, have less “weight” than objects on the intersection of the sphere of radius
It is this surface wave that sweeps across us 2x a day, mostly from the moon but augmented by the sun whenever the moon is full or new and sun, moon, earth line up in any order (spring tides). As you say, even the Earth’s surface is sufficiently plastic that buoyant forces associated with the deformation wave lift and drop parts of it 18 inches or so every day, just as tide lifts and drops parts of the ocean by order of a meter (or more) a day, and lifts and drops the atmosphere to drive really complex behavior in the atmosphere at all levels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_tide
Just in case one thought that the Navier-Stokes equations being solved at an absurdly coarse granularity capture all of the physics of either atmosphere or ocean…
rgb
rgbat
I don’t fault your math at all but I don’t see specific mention of the barycentre of the Earth-Moon system. The effect on any point along the equator of the Earth is much larger than it would be if there was no moon moving the barycentre so far from the centre of the Earth. I understand you formulas to work for a sun+planet. In our case the planet is a pair of bodies and we are discussing the surface effect on one of them. Please also see my note above.
rgbatduke February 7, 2015 at 8:24 am
Thanks as always, Robert. As I tried to emphasize out, although obviously not clearly enough, the planet in Figure 5 is not circling the sun. It is in freefall into the sun. So there is no “Newtonian orbit predicted by gravity and momentum”.
w.
Ah. You are just showing how the inhomogeneous field stretches objects out. Fine, got it.
Sorry, I have to explain this to undergrads all the time. I actually give them both problems if they are majors — the linear example explains how tides happen in the first place, but they don’t really explain solar or lunar tides very well because of the orbits.
rgb
Willis and RGBatduke, a light hearted but serious comment, which your above exchange illustrates. Aimed not at your exchange, but at the much larger issue of responding effectively to ‘settled CAGW science’ in a way that saps its popular momentum. The question on this thread is simple. Is Tolstoy’s new paper credible? Now at the RGB level of tidal force physics, probably not. And at the Willis level of lets check it out with data, also probably not. But one of the two is likely more informative to the general public, at the cost of less precisely correct.
Same generic issue in Nic Lewis’ new evisceration of Marotzke’s purported defense of GCM’s against the model/observation divergence falsification. None other than Ross McKitrick had to translate Nic into simpler stuff. None other than Steven Mosher of BEST thanked him for doing so, commenting, “much clearer”. But the core popular message was in Nic’s simple observation, “To a physicist, the result that variations in model a and k have almost no effect on 62-year trends is so surprising that the immediate response should be: “what has Marotzke done wrong?”. Which almost nobody got until it was pounded home separately
There is a tension between precision and popular comprehension. Facing the onslaught of warmunist stuff (papers, PR, MSM spin on both) it is perhaps better to go for simple, approximately right messages that maximize comprehension over precision. In the extreme, just verifiable simplified ‘sound bites’.
Rud Istvan
I think it all needs to be presented. The highly technical as well as a summary or simplification if you will. There is a wide range of viewers here. There are many of us who are trying to bridge our knowledge between the two explanations involved in a particular issue.
Oh, and Willis,
If you renormalize your figures (divide the solid by the crosshatched?) to plot the temporal rate of earthquakes or volcanoes per unit of tidal bulge (number per tidal value normalized by the time spent with that tidal value — the temporal opportunity, as it were, for events to occur) I suspect that your curves, that are currently a bit misleading as they initially suggest some sort of broad peak as a function of tidal force, will flatten right out to be almost uniform.
It also lets you do a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test on the resulting distribution against uniform and compute an actual p-value on the null hypothesis “there is no effect”, which eliminates handwaving over the possible significance of the small excursions from this nearly flat line. I’m guessing that p will end up around 0.8, so very far from 0 that rejecting the null hypothesis is absurd. Don’t wanna screen-scrape your numbers and I’m about to make beer which is a time consuming task for the day, or I’d do it myself.
A better way to argue, I’m just sayin’…
rgb
how about doing the same using the annual cycle, to test if there is some statistical significance to the Jan-June effect?
That’s even easier, since one can compare to the binomial distribution with p = 0.5 for heads and tails both. Or if one wants to get fancier, one can start with p = 0.5 and use the data to compute an improved posterior probability given the evidence, correcting the prior and ending up with a plausible estimate of the probability in Jan-June vs July-Dec. I think R can do that in something like four or five commands (according to my book on doing Bayesian analysis with R:-).
rgb
Making beer is very important, it makes it easier to sip and consider all problems in depth over long periods of time.
Thank you for the insights Dr. Brown.
Thanks for a terrific thread Willis.
Old miners claim rock falls in the underground are most prevalent around 1:00 am local time and try to be out of the workings if they can. I don’t have personal experience with that. The only time I experience a rock fall was in the early afternoon. pg
Willis this applies to you.
The problem with so many in climate science is that the scientist in this field try to prove their points as to what may or may not effect the climate with specific items, as if they are in ISOLATION, rather then in the context of the entire climatic picture.
Again a given force and magnitude changes of that force which may impact the climate has to be taken into consideration with the entire spectrum of items that are exerting an influence on the climate at that given time ,along with the state of the climate at that given time in order to get a sense of what impact that specific force may or may not exert on the climate.
This is why it is so hard to prove and show a simple cause and effect relationship between the climate and items exerting a force upon the climate even though it does exist.
http://spaceandscience.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ssrcresearchreport1-2010geophysicalevents.pdf
What Anna Maya Tolstoy has to say does not impress me either.
What impresses me is the data I have sent which shows a VERY strong correlation between major volcanic/earthquake activity and prolonged solar minimum periods. It is as black and white as it could possibly be.
I feel that earth tremors are more likely to occur when heavy rain seeps down through porous rock until it meets a fault line where it can make movement of a fault easier.The water can act to lubricate movement of faults and release pressure that is building up.It could be that more tremors ocurring after winter is not coincidence.
don, on much of the earth, such faults are already below the water table and don’t need to wait for rain and if you are thinking about frost as an inhibitor, its also frost free below a few feet from the surface. Indeed, faults that aren’t healed would be a conduit for ground water.
Might work for shallow earthquakes.
It’s well recognised that open pit mines can generate earthquakes locally…
http://www.bhpbilliton.com/home/society/regulatory/Documents/Olympic%20Dam%20Supplementary%20EIS/Documents/Chapter%208%20Mining-Induced%20Seismicity.pdf
However rain is not going to lubricate the deep seated faults that cause major earthquakes where tectonic plates slide past each other. Examples are the Aceh earthquake/tsunami, the various major earthquakes of California and the recent Japanese earthquake/tsunami.
It appears to me you made a serious mistake in your analysis from a climate science perspective. If you had split things into 20 bins instead of 16, I think you could have gotten results with a p-value less than 0.05…
In the previous thread I linked to her CERN presentation, it is about deep sea earthquakes,where the crust is much thinner. I think it is good idea to listen before rejecting all of her conclusions on the basis of the global data.
Beside, I rather look at Dr. Tolstoy’s talk in preference to Dr. Mann any day.
So here it is again:
Equally as engaging as her name…
I don’t know about US schools, but in UK girls are reluctant to take up science. Whether we agree or not with her findings, she could be great role model and inspiration for young girls who might not otherwise choose science.
vuk; in he US, science is being eliminated by “Common Core”
Videos of a NASA control room during launch missions reveal the presence of many women. Several astronauts have been women, including three female astronauts and an accompanying female science teacher who lost their lives during the unfortunate Challenger and Discovery space shuttle accidents.
Pardon, above should read: “… Challenger and <strikeDiscovery Columbia…”
[?? .mod]
still messed it up… The Challenger and Columbia were fatal shuttle missions.
Mods: pimf – please help if you can…
Being myself a dedicated scientist, I make my judgments of scientific validity solely on the basis of the physical attractiveness of the scientist. Therefore, I conclude in this instance that M. Tolstoy is far more correct than is W. Eschenbach.
I wonder if the tidal force has some effect on building up stresses in the crust – which in turn lead to earthquakes? Because there does seem – at least on the last century or two – to be a periodicity for waves of really large quakes.
This is, of course, a backwards argument: that earthquakes are releasing pent up stress, that this stress is built up by tidal forces (as opposed to say, plate tectonics), and that there is some level at which said stress yields big earthquakes.
Willis, I apologise for posting this off topic question here but the CMIP5 Model Temperature Results in Excel blog is now closed.
I have downloaded the one member per model data for RCP 4.5 from KNMI Climate Explorer and the resulting numbers do not appear to match those
in the one run per model spreadsheet to which you posted the link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96723180/CMIP5%20Models%20Air%20Temp%20One%20Member.xlsx
The numbers seem to be lower in the KNMI file than they are in yours.
For example the first figure in the first model is 285.0179 k compared to 289.7803 k in your file.
The figure of 285.0179 k is identical in the KNMI multi run per model file, as it should be, because the first model has only one run, and it also ties in with the equivalent data in your multi multi run spreadsheet.
Could you suggest a reason why the numers on KNMI don’t appear to match the ones in your spreadsheet?
Thanks, QV. I don’t know the answer. Hang on … OK, good catch. It seems I used the southern hemisphere data rather than global data. I’ve replaced the errant spreadsheet with the correct one, the link is unchanged.
Best regards, and I definitely appreciate your checking my work.
w.
Thanks for the reply.
I hope you don’t really think I am “checking your work”.
I just wanted to confirm I was using KNMI correctly!
QV February 7, 2015 at 11:15 am Edit
By “checking my work” I meant identifying errors. That’s how science in general and my work in particular advances, through identification and correction of errors.
As a result, I encourage people to check not only my work, but everyone’s work.
Best to you,
w.
I know nothing. However, I recall that when the Christchurch quakes occurred, I would look at a website that showed the daily quakes in that area. For a short period, there was a chart that depicted the quake energy expended, compared to the tidal forces. It was available as a link from the main page. While it was there I seem to recall seeing what I thought was a correlation between tidal forces and quakes; but not at peak, rather around the center of the slope during ramp up/down from peak to trough.
I thought at the time that made sense, if one side of a fault, acting as a relatively rigid monoblock, was pulled away from the other side, allowing the sides to move relatively to each other. This would, I guess cause a earthquake weaker than might have occurred if the forces were allowed to build up until they moved without help.
I think one of the earlier comments on this post mentioned side pulling on north/south faults?
Two cents worth.
For those of us not as knowledgeable on this subject I suggest The Feynman Lecture on Physics, Vol I, page 7-4 that reads in part “[the earth] goes in a circle around a point which is inside the earth but not at its center. …The water on the far side is “unbalanced” because the moon’s attraction there is weaker than it is at the center of the earth, where it just balances the “centrifugal force.” Effectively a spinning barbell with the bar being the gravitational attraction between the moon and the earth. Since the earth has significantly more mass than the moon the center of spin is inside the earth but offset from its center. There are 2 paragraphs on this subject that are worth reading. I have a hard-bond copy but understand the Feynman Lecture on Physics is available on internet. I couldn’t get “dictation” to work so I hope I this transcription is accurate.
Thanks, PMHinSC. I avoid any explanation of tidal bulges which involves orbits and circles and “centrifugal force”. Why?
Because as Figure 5 shows, you get a tidal bulge in a free-falling object without any orbits or circles of any kind. This is because tidal forces are stretching forces, so they stretch a circle into an oval.
So while there are a lot of valid ways to explain why there are tidal bulges on both sides of the earth, I shave with Occams Razor and pick the simplest, the one shown in Figure 5.
w.
Her direction is the wrong path and it is not tides but probably galactic cosmic rays/charged particles which are governed by solar activity combined with the earth’s magnetic field that governs geological activity.
I would like her see to refute the data I sent from the Space and Science Center which shows a clear correlation between prolonged solar minimum conditions and major geological activity. How does she reconcile that data with what she is trying to convey?
I say make some predictions about future major geological activity to show us how good your theory is.
Like climate science they choose to look at the data that fits their study rather then make their study fit the data.
@Salvatore Del Prete,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not what she said in her TED/CERN talk above. She was looking at the hourly data from instruments she designed.
I meant I would like to she her refute the data I sent form the Space and Science Center.
Toshikazu Ebisuzaki say : “…. Nine of the 11 events occurred during the solar inactive phase (sunspot numbers < 40), despite the fact that exactly half of the 306 years during the period of interest fell in the solar inactive phase …."
I agree.
http://michelecasati.altervista.org/significant-statistically-relationship-between-the-great-volcanic-eruptions-and-the-count-of-sunspots-from-1610-to-the-p.html
"….Of the historical 31 large volcanic eruptions with index VEI5+, recorded between 1610 and 1955, 29 of these were recorded when the SSN<46…."
Address this Miss Tolstoy.
Bridges fail for the same reason. They eventually break from flexing and other deterioration. The earth gravity at the center of the earth is zero, it linearly increases to the surface. I imagine the center warping motion eventually affects the crust, like traffic on a bridge.
highflight:
“The earth gravity at the center of the earth is zero”
Well, not really. The Earth is not alone you see. The moon and Earth are a pair and because the moon is always there its influence cannot be dismissed/ignored.
At the physical centre of the Earth you would be pulled toward the moon, wherever it happened to be at the time. The ‘neutral spot’ is only 1700 km below the surface and is moving as fast as the Earth rotates, directly under the moon.
The ‘fling’ of the mass at the far side away from that neutral spot is not only the difference in radius and orbital speed, but the fact that the Earth is spinning quite quickly which makes it 43 km larger in diameter at the equator than it is through the poles.
The combination of spin and orbit is the total ‘flinging force’. Water, which freely sloshes around, is 1700 km ‘towards the moon’ relative to the barycentre once a day and 10,800 km on the ‘away from the moon’ side of neutral 12 hours later. Pretty cool.
Nice. I was in a weak way trying to point out that most of the earth is liquid, like the ocean, thus a lot of movement and pressure from the moon, sun, and other large forces in the solar system.
…and the crust of the earth is comparatively thin, where by more than just the ocean is affecting its motion.
On a wider scale there was a flurry created in 1974 by the publication of a book by John Gribbin titled, “The Jupiter Effect”. For want of a better source, Wikipedia provides a summary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jupiter_Effect
The claim was that the alignment of nine planets in one segment of the sky, would exert increased gravitational pull on the earth’s crust and trigger the San Francisco earthquake. (This event is also dubbed The Age of Aquarius). The earthquake did not occur.
As I recall, it raised a question from scientists about the liability of predictions. If they predicted and it didn’t happen would they be liable, or if they had information and didn’t provide a warning, were they liable? What about cost of the recent failed storm prediction for New York?
From a climate perspective, the other interesting thing about this variation in gravitational pull is that Jupiter is the main cause of the orbital eccentricity of the Earth in the Milankovitch Effect.
Hi Dr. Ball
I came across set of the climate related data with a strong 400 days periodicity, but already being thought of as a bit of a crank, I left it alone. If there is Jupiter effect it could be magnetic. NASA claims that there is magnetic ‘Flux Transfer Event’ between sun and the Earth.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30oct_ftes/
Same physical principle can be applied for existence of a sun-Jupiter FTE, transversed by the Earth’s magnetosphere every 399 days.
Regarding question of scientists’ predictions liability, some Italian seismologist got to ‘know’ about it hard way.
The discussion goes in circles without a basic understanding of what is and is not causing the observations. The correct solution must explain all of the observations/paradoxes.
Why the heck do undersea volcanoes erupt ‘almost exclusively during the first six months of each year’? Come on man, that is really weird, there must be a physical reason to cause that.
Obviously tidal forces and orbital forces are not the explanation for 37,000 miles of undersea volcanoes that erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of the year.
I appear to be the only one on the planet that knows how to solve holistic constrained problems, who actively investigates multi field anomalies/paradoxes at a specialist level ignoring field boundaries following the implications of the observations, (there is one correct solution to all physical problems – this is physics not magic -, it is impossible to solve physical problems if one works with theories/mechanisms that are fundamental incorrect). The fact that there are piles and piles of anomalies/paradoxes in multiple fields indicates are fundamental errors in the base theories which has astonishing practical and theoretical implications.
I gather the piles and piles of anomalies and paradoxes (with no regard for field boundaries as the solution to this particular problem is the sun is different than assumed which is supported by almost a hundred cosmological observational anomalies/paradoxes, there are piles and piles of observations in peer reviewed astrophysics papers that support the assertion that massive collapsed objects change with time) and then look for a mechanism(s) that make the anomalies and paradoxes go away. I do not guess, the logic of the observations/paradoxes points to the correct solution, explains what is fundamentally incorrect with the base theory. An assertion that is supported by 30 or 40 logical pillars is not a theory, it is a fact. I do not understand some/many of the details concerning the correct mechanisms, I most certainly do however understand what is or is not causing the observations, what the fundamental errors are to the base theories.
As noted before there are more than 50 different geological observations that support the assertion that as the earth’s core solidifies it expels CH4. The super high pressure expelled liquid CH4 breaks and creates pathways in the mantel. The super high pressure CH4 is the force that causes the ocean floor to separate and move. (Any other explanation as to why the ocean floor would move?) The oldest ocean floor crust is roughly 200 million years old. The ocean floor crust moves under the continents pushed by the expelled CH4 leaving CH4 under the continents as the old ocean floor is pushed down into the mantel. Some of the CH4 rises to the surface at the continental/ocean boundary which explains why there are chains of mountains at the continental/ocean floor boundary and why there are off shore oil/gas deposits near the edge of continents and at crust boundaries such as the massive middle east deposits.
The explanation as to why the 37,000 miles of undersea volcanoes erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of the year is directly connect to the sun. The earth is closest to the sun in January which causes there to be an increase in CH4 flow.
P.S. There needs to be an explanation (a physical change, something to cause what is observed, and the cause must be on the surface of the planet) as to why the geomagnetic field intensity is now dropping at 5%/decade now (The geomagnetic field intensity drop started in the 1990s and is 10 times faster than theoretically possible if the source of the geomagnetic field changes is liquid core changes) as compared to its intensity drop of 5%/century prior to the 1990s.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150205142921.htm
Figure 5 could be improved. It shows one big Tidal Force arrow. Willis knows that the reason for the tidal bulges is that the gravity force on one side is bigger than the gravity force on the other side. Gravity is an inverse-square law. And since the tides result from differences in forces, the formula for Tidal Force, for those who know calculus, becomes an inverse-cube expression, as Willis shows in the Tidal Math section. This is also why the moon is more important than the sun in generating tides.
Therefore, to improve Figure 5, it should either have several tidal force arrows, or the one arrow should be shown with an arrow on both ends to show that it is a stretching force.
The basic thesis of the paper is that tidal forces and changes in sea level produce forces large enough to substantially affect volcanic eruptions, which in turn puts more CO2 into the atmosphere to cause global warming. Let’s look first at the validity of the data used to come to these conclusions:
1. Serious questions can be raised about the extension of a very small amount of data to global scales. For example:
a. The study includes seismic data from only 10 submarine eruption sites. The total area of the seafloors of the world is 140 million square miles. Ten data sites means that the sampling density is only approximately one per every 14 million square miles. The area of the United States is about 3.8 million square miles. So imagine characterizing the geology of an area more than three times the size of the U.S. based on one sample.
2. Submarine eruptions (which we cannot see and know very little about quantitatively) are postulated to be triggered by sea level changes due to pressure release during low glacial sea levels. According to the paper, “as icecaps build on land, pressure on underlying volcanoes also builds, and eruptions are suppressed. But when warming somehow starts and the ice begins melting, pressure lets up, and eruptions surge. They belch CO2 that produces more warming, which melts more ice, which creates a self-feeding effect that tips the planet suddenly into a warm period.” “The corollary would be that undersea volcanoes do the opposite: as earth cools, sea levels may drop 100 meters, because so much water gets locked into ice. This relieves pressure on submarine volcanoes, and they erupt more. At some point, could the increased CO2 from undersea eruptions start the warming that melts the ice covering volcanoes on land?” What’s wrong with this? Well, (1) Sea level lowered about 400 feet during each Ice Age. Water weighs 62 pounds per cubic foot, so the total difference between high and low sea level is a stress of about 24,800 lbs (~12.4 tons). Basalt (the composition of sea floor lava) weighs about 188 lbs/cuft, so that’s equivalent to adding or subtracting a thickness of about 130 ft of basalt to the sea floor (that’s about the thickness of one eruption). This tiny amount is going to set off or suppress submarine eruptions? You gotta be kidding! (2) The author contends that release of CO2 from submarine eruptions will cause the global climate to warm and melt continental glaciers. But measurements of ice core CO2 show that CO2 always FOLLOWS warming so it can’t be causing the global climate to warm!
3. The author uses seismic data as a proxy for volcanic eruptions. But most of the seismic activity along sea floor plates is related to crustal movement, not volcanic eruptions. Seismic activity is NOT equivalent to volcanic eruptions!
4. The study covers only 25 years, yet he author states: “The long-term eruption data, spread over more than 700,000 years, showed that during the coldest times, when sea levels are low, undersea volcanism surges, producing visible bands of hills. When things warm up and sea levels rise to levels similar to the present, lava erupts more slowly, creating bands of lower topography.” So the author is extrapolating events for 700,000 years on the basis of 25 years of data for sea floor eruptions where we don’t even know today what the volcanic activity level is!
5. “The idea that remote gravitational forces influence volcanism is mirrored by the short-term data, says Tolstoy. She says the seismic data suggest that today, undersea volcanoes pulse to life mainly during periods that come every two weeks. That is the schedule upon which combined gravity from the moon and sun cause ocean tides to reach their lowest points, thus subtly relieving pressure on volcanoes below. Seismic signals interpreted as eruptions followed fortnightly low tides at eight out of nine study sites. Furthermore, Tolstoy found that all known modern eruptions occur from January through June. January is the month when Earth is closest to the sun, July when it is farthest.” You gotta be kidding! Sea floor volcanoes erupt every two weeks and only “from January through June. January” based on the invalid assumption that seismic activity= volcanic eruptions from one data site every 14 million square miles of virtually unknown sea floor volcanic activity!
THESE CONCLUSIONS ARE BASED ON SUCH FLIMSY AND INVALID DATA THAT CAN ONLY CATEGORIZED AS GEOFANTASY, NOT SUPPORTED BY ANY CREDIBLE DATA.
Don:
I’m not disagreeing, just commenting.
Though I didn’t see this addressed, I assume Maya Tolstoy dropped topography measurement claims into her sea floor rift solar influence analysis.
I know there are sea floor ‘ridges’ abutting rifts, but attributing their existence and size directly to ice ages in the midst of a solar influence paper is confusing, to me at least.