From the University of Wisconsin
From rocks in Colorado, evidence of a ‘chaotic solar system’
Plumbing a 90 million-year-old layer cake of sedimentary rock in Colorado, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Northwestern University has found evidence confirming a critical theory of how the planets in our solar system behave in their orbits around the sun.
The finding, published Feb. 23, 2017 in the journal Nature, is important because it provides the first hard proof for what scientists call the “chaotic solar system,” a theory proposed in 1989 to account for small variations in the present conditions of the solar system. The variations, playing out over many millions of years, produce big changes in our planet’s climate — changes that can be reflected in the rocks that record Earth’s history.
Geoscience Professor Stephen Meyers. © GIGI COHEN
The discovery promises not only a better understanding of the mechanics of the solar system, but also a more precise measuring stick for geologic time. Moreover, it offers a better understanding of the link between orbital variations and climate change over geologic time scales.
Using evidence from alternating layers of limestone and shale laid down over millions of years in a shallow North American seaway at the time dinosaurs held sway on Earth, the team led by UW–Madison Professor of Geoscience Stephen Meyers and Northwestern University Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Brad Sageman discovered the 87 million-year-old signature of a “resonance transition” between Mars and Earth. A resonance transition is the consequence of the “butterfly effect” in chaos theory. It plays on the idea that small changes in the initial conditions of a nonlinear system can have large effects over time.
In the context of the solar system, the phenomenon occurs when two orbiting bodies periodically tug at one another, as occurs when a planet in its track around the sun passes in relative proximity to another planet in its own orbit. These small but regular ticks in a planet’s orbit can exert big changes on the location and orientation of a planet on its axis relative to the sun and, accordingly, change the amount of solar radiation a planet receives over a given area. Where and how much solar radiation a planet gets is a key driver of climate.
This animation shows a chaotic solar system and changing planetary orbits playing out over billions of years, illustrating the slight chance in the distant future of planetary collisions. Geologic evidence was recently found to confirm the idea that the planets in our solar system do not orbit the sun like clockwork in a quasiperiodic manner, as has been believed since the 18th century. Credit: Jacques Laskar
“The impact of astronomical cycles on climate can be quite large,” explains Meyers, noting as an example the pacing of the Earth’s ice ages, which have been reliably matched to periodic changes in the shape of Earth’s orbit, and the tilt of our planet on its axis. “Astronomical theory permits a very detailed evaluation of past climate events that may provide an analog for future climate.”
To find the signature of a resonance transition, Meyers, Sageman and UW–Madison graduate student Chao Ma, whose dissertation work this comprises, looked to the geologic record in what is known as the Niobrara Formation in Colorado. The formation was laid down layer by layer over tens of millions of years as sediment was deposited on the bottom of a vast seaway known as the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway. The shallow ocean stretched from what is now the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, separating the eastern and western portions of North America.
“The Niobrara Formation exhibits pronounced rhythmic rock layering due to changes in the relative abundance of clay and calcium carbonate,” notes Meyers, an authority on astrochronology, which utilizes astronomical cycles to measure geologic time. “The source of the clay (laid down as shale) is from weathering of the land surface and the influx of clay to the seaway via rivers. The source of the calcium carbonate (limestone) is the shells of organisms, mostly microscopic, that lived in the water column.”
The finding is important because it provides the first hard proof for the “chaotic solar system,” a theory proposed in 1989 to account for small variations in the present conditions of the solar system.
Meyers explains that while the link between climate change and sedimentation can be complex, the basic idea is simple: “Climate change influences the relative delivery of clay versus calcium carbonate, recording the astronomical signal in the process. For example, imagine a very warm and wet climate state that pumps clay into the seaway via rivers, producing a clay-rich rock or shale, alternating with a drier and cooler climate state which pumps less clay into the seaway and produces a calcium carbonate-rich rock or limestone.”
The new study was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. It builds on a meticulous stratigraphic record and important astrochronologic studies of the Niobrara Formation, the latter conducted in the dissertation work of Robert Locklair, a former student of Sageman’s at Northwestern.
Dating of the Mars-Earth resonance transition found by Ma, Meyers and Sageman was confirmed by radioisotopic dating, a method for dating the absolute ages of rocks using known rates of radioactive decay of elements in the rocks. In recent years, major advances in the accuracy and precision of radioisotopic dating, devised by UW–Madison geoscience Professor Bradley Singer and others, have been introduced and contribute to the dating of the resonance transition.
“Other studies have suggested the presence of chaos based on geologic data. But this is the first unambiguous evidence …”
Stephen Meyers
The motions of the planets around the sun has been a subject of deep scientific interest since the advent of the heliocentric theory — the idea that the Earth and planets revolve around the sun — in the 16th century. From the 18th century, the dominant view of the solar system was that the planets orbited the sun like clockwork, having quasiperiodic and highly predictable orbits. In 1988, however, numerical calculations of the outer planets showed Pluto’s orbit to be “chaotic” and the idea of a chaotic solar system was proposed in 1989 by astronomer Jacques Laskar, now at the Paris Observatory.
Following Laskar’s proposal of a chaotic solar system, scientists have been looking in earnest for definitive evidence that would support the idea, says Meyers.
“Other studies have suggested the presence of chaos based on geologic data,” says Meyers. “But this is the first unambiguous evidence, made possible by the availability of high-quality, radioisotopic dates and the strong astronomical signal preserved in the rocks.”
– See more at: http://news.wisc.edu/from-rocks-in-colorado-evidence-of-a-chaotic-solar-system/#sthash.vtKvXCKY.dpuf
h/t to Joe D’Aleo
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I think this paper belongs in the Geofantasy waste basket. Just for openers, there are many possible causes of the alternating bedding that have nothing to do with climate or orbital events.
As a fellow geologist I totally agree.
Agreed
dean,I think that is an excellent suggestion. Then we just might find out why there are periodic )(in space if not in time) layers in a very young sedimentation environment.
Garbage. The continents were not in the same positions. Plsnts were not on the same evolution. (See chitin and then white fungus during the coal age Pernian).
No high probability for colliding planets in matured solar systems:
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=nwSxWLjQF6ir6ATAvpOYDA&q=colliding+planets+&oq=colliding+planets+&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.
https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-the-Solar-System-collapse-if-each-body-attracts-each-other-with-their-gravitational-force
https://www.google.at/search?client=ms-android-samsung&ei=BwexWMePCIXF6QSf45n4Dw&q=collapsed+solar+system+colliding+planets+&oq=collapsed+solar+system+colliding+planets+&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.
Geology rocks.
Games role.
Geology has clay feet.
This cannot be right because CO2 generated from fossil fuels by Mankind is the only cause of climate change.. This is the consensus of 97 percent of scientists that wrote abstracts that John Cook selected as determind by John Cook’s select group of global warming faithfull. Before mankind started using fossil fuels. the Earht’s climate never changed, extreme weather events never happened, there were no droughts or floods anywhere on Earth. Sea level never changed before mankind started using fossif fuels. Their proxy data must be Wrong.
Willhaas, are you trying to say that scientists don’t know that climate changed in the past? That’s … inventive.
When we are talking about believers in the AGW conjecture we are talking about those few scientists chosen by John Cook’s crew. A very part of the AGW conjectue is that the CO2 generated by Man’s burning of fossil fuel completely controls climate and nothing else matters.
That’s just not true Willhaas. ‘Believers’, as you say, have considered the effects of ozone, land-use changes, cloud changes, aerosols and changes of solar output. You’re suggesting scientist haven’t considered these, or that they aren’t aware that Milankovitch cycles (among other things) have drastically changed the Earth’s climate in the past. Suggestions like this make ‘sceptics’ look very silly.
i am not saying scientists in general just those very select few scientists selected by John Cook’s crew. A very important part of the AGW conjecture is that the CO2 added to the atmosphere by mankind burning fossil fuels is what controls climate. Nothing else matters. According to those that believe in CO2 induced climate change, all we have to do is stop burning fossil fuels and Mother Nature will see to it that everyione everywhere and for all time will experience optimum climate and extreme weather events including floods and drought will completely disappear for ever and the sea level everywhere will never change. I myself would like to use the AGW conjecture as another reason to conserve on the use of fossil fuels but scientifically the AGW conjecture is just too full of holes and I cannot defend it.
“According to those that believe in CO2 induced climate change, all we have to do is stop burning fossil fuels and Mother Nature will see to it that everyione everywhere and for all time will experience optimum climate and extreme weather events including floods and drought will completely disappear for ever and the sea level everywhere will never change.”
There you go again… like I said, it makes you look silly.
The title of the paper, “Theory of chaotic orbital variations confirmed by Cretaceous geological evidence”, overstates its case. Perhaps “confirmed” should be replaced by “supported”. The inescapable fact is that the system is highly non-linear. The magnitude of the gravitational influence of one body upon another does not follow Hooke’s Law. As a result the accumulated effect of a pair of bodies upon each other’s orbits may be either stabilizing or destabilizing.
This study only covers about 90 My of interactions, barely more than 2% of the life of the solar system. In that same period a large number of planetary orbit resonances and near-resonances have developed to stabilize rather than destabilize orbits. The near-resonances are often discounted (by calling them ‘coincidences’) as they are not ‘perfect’ resonances, yet over very long period these resonances themselves are periodic. For example, the earth-venus near resonance is off by 1.5° every 8 orbits of Venus, but that means that after about 120 cycles (972 years) it will return to its original configuration almost exactly. I would describe this as ‘quasi-periodic’ rather than as ‘chaotic’ behavior.
Earth-venus alignments occur in series, similar to the series in the Saros used for calculating solar and lunar eclipses. These orbital resonance resonance series can continue to repeat for thousands of years. The repeatability of the orbits, despite the ‘imperfect’ resonances, allows the calculation of transits over spans of over 250,000 years.
After over 4 billion years of accumulated interactions, the orbits have become stabilized rather than destabilized. ‘Stability’ does not require perfect periodicity. It merely requires orbits in which accumulated perturbations can be ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ in the sense that the perturbations cancel each other out before they can develop into an overwhelming disturbance.
Hardly ‘chaotic’.
Geologists do their own jobs quite well, but few have the mathematical expertise to understand multivariate non-linear systems or the comprehensive understanding of celestial mechanics to drive this idea home.
“Geologists do their own jobs quite well, but few have the mathematical expertise to understand multivariate non-linear systems or the comprehensive understanding of celestial mechanics to drive this idea home.”
Sailors can’t cook?
“Sailors can’t cook?”
Quite likely, or not many of them.
A geologist who has the mathematical expertise to understand multivariate non-linear systems or a comprehensive understanding of celestial mechanics is not a geologist but a geomathematician of some variety.
Someone who has spent long periods in the field, engaged in empirical science, will not have had the time or luxury to develop such expertise.
There’s only so much you can do in one lifetime.
That’s not to suggest that geologists can’t add, subtract, multiply or divide. Some do have advanced maths capabilities..
Nevertheless someone with a “comprehensive understanding of celestial mechanics” is usually called an astronomer or astrophysicist.
Need for claiming to do better than her
https://www.wired.com/2015/10/margaret-hamilton-nasa-apollo/
only hints to character deficiencies.
Classical theory holds that tidal forces between the planets are too small to affect the orbits and thereby climate. Near resonance argues otherwise.
DO NOT google ‘strange attractor’.
No not read Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
You might not be able to sleep at might. How much better to understand that just because things always worked out before, they always will..
Stability in systems that are non linear and complex, is restricted to a very very few cases. Quasi stability, in which things appear stable for long periods, before undergoing periods of marked change, is very much more common.
Taboos, censorship, prohibitions of thought sometimes need authority in real life.
In science they are ‘catastrophic’.
https://www.google.at/search?q=brownian+motion&oq=brownian&aqs=chrome.
People like Goodyear and A. Wegener first need civil courage.
Beauty surgeons and climatologists need advertising professionals.
“The Old Man February 24, 2017 at 6:33 pm
I recently put a practical observation made by some Inuit hunters from the NWT (Nunavut) on my site, simply because I’ve been out on the land with some of these guys in the past and know their practical understanding of their high arctic environment. Not sure why they came to that conclusion, other than they did. I just found it an interesting observation. Would that mean that the South pole gets the opposite effect?”
The 2004 Indonesian and 2010 Chilean Earthquakes and Earth’s Rotation
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PLATETEC/RotationQk2004.HTM
“Madison and Northwestern University has found evidence confirming a critical theory of how the planets in our solar system behave in their orbits around the sun.”
it confirms no such thing.
Michael Steinbacher was not your typical rock hound. I suggest looking at his stuff online.
Much of what he claims can be reproduced in experiments. Plus there is so much concerning our geology that geologists scratch their heads over. If you are intent on seeing it all through established dogma then you can’t be helped.
Does it not beg a question when all the crater impacts we see seem to be at exactly 90 degree angles to the surface, dead on hits. Where are all the scraping impacts because there should be more, far more, in fact there should be more scraping impacts than direct impacts statistically speaking.
Moon
http://oldsite.david-tyler.com/uploaded_images/moon%203-4-09%2016%20x%209%20%20Stoffler%20Maginus.jpg
Hyperion
http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/1/7/0/5/i/1/7/9/o/hyperion.jpg
They are not craters.
Much better images of Hyperion jere
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_749.html
Anyone who thinks this is geological, caused by water, or asteroids is smoking too much whacky tobaccy
Lovely shot of Valles Marineris.
Clearly something gouged out Valles Marineris. It’s patently obvious if you are not intent on looking at it through a dogmatic geological eye.
Clearly something expanded and split the crust and created Valles Marineris. Just like bread cooking It’s patently obvious if you are not intent on looking at it through a dogmatic geological eye.
To me it is obvious that it has been formed by sliding and slumping. Just look at all those colluvial fans on the bottom. Probably due to volcanic meltout of deep permafrost. You can see very similar landscapes (on a smaller scale) in the ‘edoma’ areas in Siberia.
It also had to be a large body, because look at how straight that is, wow.
We have no idea how much of earth was stripped away millions or billions of years ago. It is entirely possible that it was earth that was interacting with Mars to cause this.
We know bodies will reach to each other at proximity.
Planetary bodies interact, Saturn and its moons interact via perturbations in the magnetic field and flowing plasma.
That’s with just moons, put Mars and earth in close proximity and the event would be cataclysmic, they would strip chunks off each other.
Bodies will *react to each other
An esteemed colleague named John Elliston has a book in publication right now that introduces a complete new view of petrogenesis through colloidal processes. He lists a number of serious questions about granite textures, for example, asking why a molten state must be an assumed precursir when a colloidal state is more plausible a link to observed textures.
I mention this in the broader context of geology not being a settled science by any means. We used to hold corporate seminars with 20 to 50 good geologists debating basic questions, commonly finding more answers than there were geologists present.
Do keep an eye out for John’s book. It has endured the process of rejection by the Establishment and will strike a chord with sceptics whose ideas were challenged. Could have similar impact to Wegener with Plate Tectonics.
Geoff
Michael has since passed away RIP. He loved his rocks.
https://youtu.be/DWFtkxFWR_0
Michael’s channel, some very interesting videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9L8_UjybuMiVBYDtml5hg
Valles Marineris experiment.
https://youtu.be/xF2LznGvGuA
That was an EU video. I think the have some better explanations for stuff but they are short on a lot of science to back it up.
Here is the actual experiment video.
https://youtu.be/o_cys9hYKWQ
Impact crater are normally round regardless of angle of impact:
“At the moment an asteroid collides with a planet, there is an explosive release of the asteroid’s huge kinetic energy. The energy is very abruptly deposited at what amounts to a single point in the planet’s crust. This sudden, focused release resembles more than anything else the detonation of an extremely powerful bomb. As in the case of a bomb explosion, the shape of the resulting crater is round: ejecta is thrown equally in all directions regardless of the direction from which the bomb may have arrived.
“This behavior may seem at odds with our daily experience of throwing rocks into a sandbox or mud, because in those cases the shape and size of the ‘crater’ is dominated by the physical dimensions of the rigid impactor. In the case of astronomical impacts, though, the physical shape and direction of approach of the meteorite is insignificant compared with the tremendous kinetic energy that it carries.
“An exception to this rule occurs only if the impact occurs at an extremely shallow, grazing angle. If the angle of impact is quite close to horizontal, the bottom, middle and top parts of the impacting asteroid will strike the surface at separate points spread out along a line. In this case, instead of the energy being deposited at a point, it will be released in an elongated zone–as if our ‘bomb’ had the shape of a long rod.
“Hence, a crater will end up having an elongated or elliptical appearance only if the angle of impact is so shallow that different parts of the impactor strike the surface over a range of distances that is appreciable in comparison with the final size of the crater as a whole. Because the final crater may be as much as 100 times greater than the diameter of the impactor, this requires an impact at an angle of no more than a few degrees from horizontal.
For this reason, the vast majority of impacts produce round or nearly round craters, just as is observed.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-are-impact-craters-al/
It’s amazing that this gets ignored, not the video but the experiment. It’s creating geological features we see all over the world, so how do we know this process didn’t create those lime mountains, lime and clay is used in this experiment
Mark
What is creating the geological patterns is nonlinear pattern formation, not magnetism. Chaotic nonlinear emergent patterns are somewhat independent of physical context. The ghost in the machine. Totally different physical systems can show the same patterns due to the same chaotic pattern forming process.
Hperion look a lot like the effects of frost on snow. Different scale, but sure looks similar.
Mark, wrt crater shapes, I read an experimental research paper somewhere that when impacts are at velocities greater than the speed of sound in the medium (supersonic), the resulting shock front creates roughly circular craters, even for glancing impacts as little as 15 degrees!
Mark, you might appreciate this simple experiment that creates craters with raised peaks. (Jump to about minute 5.) It is quite in keeping with the EU concept of craters formed by electrical discharge.
What a surprise when way back half a century ago engineers and historians both independently pointed out cycles in climate that coincidentally or otherwise matched lunar and earth orbit and the occurrence of the supermoon. so other planetary cycles should have been a given.
Richard Nolle, an astrologer, coined the term “supermoon” merely thirty years ago. He was concerned with affects of the moon upon human personality.
SR
Exactly how can radioisotope dating methods determine the dates of deposition of the layers? At best, all that could be determined is the theoretical age of the clay bed from which the clay in the layers was sourced. Every layer, from top to bottom, would test at the same age.
SR
”
Stevan Reddish on February 24, 2017 at 11:29 pm
Exactly how can radioisotope dating methods determine the dates of deposition of the layers? At best, all that could be determined is the theoretical age of the clay bed from which the clay in the layers was sourced. Every layer, from top to bottom, would test at the same age.”
___________________________________________
Fantastique. What’s your scientific solution, the proposal no one can refuse.
GM,
Refer to the time of formation of the mineral. Use U/Pb method if you wish. The assumption is made that only U and none of its decay products are incorporated at genesis. Alternatively, that decay products there at the start are by comparison short lived and soon leave the equation. So a complete refresh or rest happens. This might be the source of unease expressed above. I have never been comfortable with these assumptions. Have actually been involved in a lot of isotope dating of rocks. But this comment might just express my incomplete understanding.
Geoff
Good point Stevan, that is one of the first doubts I had about this. Radio dating is often based on some very simplistic and dubious assumptions which are not even stated.
Greg,
Which assumptions do you find simplistic and dubious? The underlying assumption of radiometric dating is that radioactive decay has always occurred at the same rate. Do you have reason to doubt that?
Scientists are well aware of the procedures required to ensure reliable dating.
Stevan,
Radioactive dating is used to date rocks, carbon or other materials in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares the abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope within the material to the abundance of its decay products, which form at a known constant rate of decay (assumed to be unchanged for at least the past five billion years). It is now the principal source of information about the absolute age of rocks and other geological features, among other natural substances and man-made materials.
Together with stratigraphic principles, radiometric dating methods are used in geochronology to establish the geological time scale. Different isotopic decay series can determine ages on shorter or longer periods and different materials. Among the best-known techniques are radiocarbon, potassium-argon and uranium-lead dating. By establishing geological timescales, radiometric data provides a significant source of information about the ages of fossils and the deduced rates of evolutionary change. It is also used to date archaeological materials, including ancient artifacts.
Gloateus Maximus February 25, 2017 at 7:39 am
GM, your response does not address my question at all. I did not ask by what method and with what assumptions an estimate of the age of a mineral deposit is made. I asked if a mineral is subsequently transported by water runoff from the original location to another location, how can radioisotopes be used to determine the date of the relocation? Moving clay around does not change its age.
Also, on a related note, carbon dating does not work for calculating ages greater than even 100,000 years due too the short half life of C14. I do not think you understand the irrelevancy of of your answer.
SR
Maybe you should read the paper, linked above.
They’re just half-awake and have latched onto a lot of the current buzz-words – chaos, resonance, non-linear and haven’t any real idea what those words mean.
A chaotic system is not going to produce nice layers of rock – there’s a pattern there. Chaos don’t do that, that’s why its called chaos?
If a system enters resonance, it stays there, that what resonance is, Depending on the damping factor it will remain resonating or destroy itself. Tacoma Narrows?
Resonance and chaos are mutually exclusive and wtf is a ‘resonance transition’ if not another way of saying ‘tipping point’
If they cannot introduce their paper without using muddled junk like that, its just more noise and catfishing.
chaos does not mean random. Read up chaos theory.
“Greg February 25, 2017 at 1:29 am
Read up chaos theory.”
Yes, a THEORY!
Well Chaos theory is not actually a theory.
Its a name given to a bunch of effects that are emergent properties of the solutions to superposed non-linear differential equations.
Like sensitivity to initial conditions and computational precision, and the need to use massive amounts of computing power to arrive at a vet poor solution, due to there being no way to solve them other than an infinite series of equations. Calculus doesn’t work the way it does for linear equations or for single non linear ones.
Patrick,
The heliocentric theory, the theory of gravity, the oxygen theory of combustion, the atomic theory of matter, the theory of evolution, the germ theory of disease, relativity, quantum mechanics and the Big Bang are also theories, ie well-supported explanations for experiments on and observations of nature.
The word doesn’t mean the same thing in science as in common parlance.
Bye the way:
https://www.wired.com/2015/10/margaret-hamilton-nasa-apollo/
With respect this is seriously naively expressed and very misleading. Right from the start of Newtonian physics the ‘three body’ (or many body) problem of physics was known and understood. It is clear for anyone studying mechanics that the periodic nature of the planets’ orbits was only an approximation, and that the true situation was not amenable to the analytical tools of the time, and even today, it’s not an easy task, requiring many hours of computation, because the only tools we have for chaos are ‘brute force’ ones.
And that is in fact the case for any law that is expressed as a non liner series of partial time derivatives.
If someone ‘proposed’ a chaotic solar system it can only be because they were ignorant of the fact that if Newton is correct, we have always had a chaotic solar system. Like the ‘Gaia’ theory this actually says nothing new, merely looks at some of the implications of what was already known.
Years ago I wrote a computer model of random solar systems. The only ones that remain quasi stable are those where a large central mass is orbited by smaller masses in more or less circular orbits in more or less a single plane.
I.e. that have approximatively periodic orbits that are more or less circular. Anything that is not, gets thrown out of the solar system of choice,
WE ran the code with random input data. Most simulations ended with an empty screen as most of the participants violently ejected each other. Now and again a random combination would stabilise, but it always did so in an approximately solar system like configuration. Because that is the only approximately stable one there is.
What is my point? Firstly that this is not news, and nothing has been added to old theory. All that is news is that geologists have found some more evidence for something we always knew.
AS for catastrophic interactions between planets, I suggest a read of ‘planets in collision’ by Immanuel Velikovsky, a forerunner of the tinfoil hat movement, whose books nevertheless may actually contain a grain of truth.
What hasn’t been done is to wind a planetarium style clock back a few millennia to see whether or not Velikovsky’s ideas have any credence at all. When he wrote the books, we didn’t have the computing power. Perhaps today we do.
Modelling planetary orbits for a million years is a snap compared with forecasting next weeks weather.
I know they have to mention climate change to get funding for their study but the moment I see it in their results I disbelieve their science. I can’t help myself. It’s sad but what do you do?
Count me as extremely unconvinced. You can’t extract statistically significant proof of a “resonance shift” from four-and-a-half very noisy cycles. Furthermore it is known from biostratigraphy that there are multiple disconformities (periods of non-deposition) in the Niobrara formation.
However they claim that these must have been short, because otherwise the data wouldn’t fit their theory. This must be one of the most beautiful cases of circular reasoning I’ve ever seen in a scientific paper.
Watch for increasing mention of disconformities in ice core data.
Geoff
@nicolas Schroeder
never mind the ipcc
have you actually ascertained by any kind of measurement that AGW is real?
“…have you actually ascertained by any kind of measurement that AGW is real?”
No. Has anyone?
Yes
I did
there is no room for any AGW in my equation
never mind this study – I am not very impressed by it –
there have been several people, including myself, who have found that the alignment of Saturn and Uranus can be directly linked to the Gleissberg [solar] cycle of 87 years. If there is an anomaly on this, e.g. due to the influence of Jupiter, it could mean that we miss a connection [it works like an electrical switch, every 43 years]
hence there have been periods like the little ice age and the medeviel warm period.
There have been other people here on wuwt who have made links on the movement of the inner planets to the Schwabe solar cycle of 11 years.
In fact, seems to me everything in energy we get from the sun revolves around the position of the bary center of the solar system. [note that like a magnetic stirrer, earth’s inner core also moves in line with same movement of the solar’s system bary center]
hence true, enough, my finding also is that the weather on earth depends a lot on the positions of the planets.
And you have the hide to accuse others of pseudo-science. This is astrology.
“the weather…depends a lot on the position of the planets”.
tony,
I did my own investigations, into the positions of Saturn and Uranus,
http://oi64.tinypic.com/5yxjyu.jpg
to verify those very same observations of William Arnold, who, back in 1985, before they started with the CO2 nonsense, already determined a 100 year weather cycle, which we have now come to know as the Gleissberg cycle on the sun [with some delays either way on earth]
Anyway, even Moses knew about the weather moving back to median every “49” years, [Jubilee year]. It is like a sine wave, every 43 years moving back to zero.
Here you can see the half of a GB cycle [I clearly determined there is no CO2 warming as it should affect minima]
[graph established in early 2015]
Earth’s tides are chaotic and cannot be solved from first principles. Instead we use Astrology to calculate the tide very accurately for years in advance. Astrology gets a bad rep when used to predict human behavior. Astrology shows us that there is an alternative way to solve problems that are beyond the capabilities of current mathematics.
Cannot remember who it was now, but there was someone here who thought we should rather read the Koran than this mumbo jumbo ‘scientific’ investigations.
In that case I would rather recommend the Bible. Jesus says that you will never know which way the wind [weather] will blow and indeed I have already identified too many variables. He also predicts that precisely in the few years before the end of the world the days will become shorter. It is something that I must still think about, but it seems it implies a celestial body interfering with the rotation speed of earth. In another part of the bible this star [body] is referred to as ‘Alsem’ , meaning it will leave us all with a bitter taste.
Now before you call me a doom prophet: I don’t know when this will happen, but you honestly were not thinking that earth will exist forever and ever? We came by ‘chaos’ and we will die by chaos.
Makes you think, does it not?
Tectonics & tectonics
This is one of my longest comments, perhaps worth ignoring, but if you persevere you might get an insight of why Milankovic cycles sometimes work and others do not. Consider it as a rambling abstract to a paper I might never complete.
Tectonics & tectonics
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSr.gif
The grey area is the Greenland-Scotland ridge, average depth around 300m except for the Denmark Strait (~600m) and Faroes Bank Channel (~800m).
The ridge is rising due to the postglacial isostatic uplift, and in doing so it is more and more obstructing the cold dense sea floor currents outflow from the Arctic basin. Reduced outflow means reduced warm surface water inflow and steady cooling, as it has been the case during the last 7-8 ky.
Since the ocean level rising (due to the ice melting) is slowing down to a standstill, another thousand or two of years of the uplift, the Arctic will again start its refreezing sequence, result: a new Ice Age. Polar jet stream at this stage would be extremely strong and circular with very little or no meandering.
After 40 or more ky of the ice build up, when the weight of the ice in the north Canada, Greenland and Scandinavia has sufficiently deformed the Earth’s crust along the Middle Atlantic Ridge (boundary between N. American and Eurasian tectonic plates) the Iceland’s volcanoes will go off with a ‘bang’ (occasionally triggered by Milancovic cycles planetary tidal pull).
At the end of the last ice age magma flow was more than 100 times current rate, with the Iceland’s volcanoes ejecting into atmosphere huge volumes of ash/tephra, spreading across whole of the Arctic region by strong polar jet stream.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/IIAV.gif
btw. Iceland’s volcanoes are the world’s most productive, currently about 5% of world activity with 30% of total ejected mass.
Sudden reduction in the albedo, due to accumulation of the ash/tephra on the ice, initiates fast melting, the obstruction by the G-S ridge is suddenly reduced by the fast rising sea level (outpacing the G – S ridge’s postglacial uplift) allowing rapid increase in the cold currents outflow and consequently equally rapid move of the warm surface currents further north into the Arctic ocean, result: interglacial or the sudden end to the Ice Age.
However, slow but steady postglacial isostatic moving of the G-S ridge upwards will again cause the slow but steady cooling and increase the ice accumulation.
Are these (glacial/interglacial) cycles are going to go for ever? No.
Iceland is growing larger and the warm periods’ Greenland’s glaciers are silting Denmark Strait, currently the deposit is up to 1km deep and only 600m below surface. As it happens the most of the Arctic outflow is via DS, just below 50% of the total, see the illustration above. With another 300m of silt, the cold outflow will be reduced to the level where the volume of the replacing warm waters has no sufficient melting effect on the Arctic ice, blocking onset of some future interglacial.
Interesting! Thanks. I just realized again: the more you study a certain science, the more you realize how much there still is that you don’t know…
Along with Nikola Tesla, Milankovic is the greatest scientist of the Serbian origin, and however much I would like for his theory to be indisputable, that is not the case. I myself have some doubt that ~ 2% of change in the insolatoin is sufficient to get the earth in and out of an ice age. On the other hand if the planetary gravitational pull can tilt the earth’s axis of rotation, it just might be possible for Milankovic cycles to trigger onset of a major tectonic event if it happened to be at or near critical point. If so, the Milankovic cycles may be only responsible for synchronising the start, but have no effect whatsoever on ending of the interglacials.
I agree. It is not only insolation. It is also the position of earth’s inner core. As evident from my own results.
[no warming of the SH over the past 40 years compared to warming of ca. 0.02K / annum of the NH]
Must be the movement of the core more north [east] as evident from the change in the position of the magnetic north pole over the past 50-100 years.
Interesting theory. I also believe the oceans are somehow the mechanism for sudden warming and cooling phases. Isostatic compression/rebound is a logical trigger for ocean current changes. So what you are suggesting is AGW monies should be redirected to dredging the Denmark Straight 😉
Alternatively, a more efficient way would be to blow one of the two of the narrow strips in the Wyville Thomson Ridge (WTR dotted arrow ). About 100 hydrogen nukes, one blown every 10 years during the current millennium, might do the job.
“The ridge is rising due to the postglacial isostatic uplift”
Not the part around Iceland. Iceland is quite peculiar since the postglacial isostatic uplift there only took about two thousand years and then ended, probably due to the upper mantle having low viscosity. So Iceland is already isostatically compensated.
From NASA:
“Greenland’s uplift from postglacial rebound means the island is gaining mass from below and its bedrock is continuously rising. At the same time, it is losing mass from above as its ice melts. GRACE measures the net result of these opposing processes, not just the result of melting ice alone. A National Science Foundation- and NASA-funded program called the Greenland GPS Network is working to overcome this problem.”
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/glacial-rebound-the-not-so-solid-earth
60% of Denmark Strait is part of Greenland’s bedrock and follows its uplift, while the Wyville Thomson Ridge (closing narrow Faroes channel) is part of the Scotland’s shelf, which also has similar uplift.
At the bottom of Denmark Strait is the cold Arctic overflow current (DSOW) which is on the Greenland’s bedrock side (with the uplift) while on the shallow Iceland’s shelf is the inflowing warm Atlantic current (AW).
http://talleylab.ucsd.edu/ltalley/sio210/Deep_water_observations/denmark_straits.jpg
There is also East Greenland (cold) surface current generated by fresh river waters flowing into Arctic as well as the sea ice summer melt. However, during the ice ages this current might disappear (freeze) since it is on the surface and of much lower salinity.
I love this.
Ties in with my comment from way back about stadials and interstadials causing the alternating land then sea derived sediments in discussion.
Smacks of science. Glad to see that’s still being done.
On a related topic – this article refers to resonances between the precession of the Perihelion of the Earth’s and Mars’ orbit and the precession of the nodes of the orbit of the Earth and Mars. These type of resonances are not all that uncommon in the solar system.
For example – the heliocentric latitude of Venus (i.e. angle above or below the plane of the Ecliptic as seen from the Sun) is beautifully linked in resonance to the mean distance of Jupiter from the Sun – provided that they are observed at intervals of 11 year intervals set by the alignment cycles of Venus, the Earth and Jupiter.
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/recent-grand-minima-in-level-of-solar.html
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tG8JCC_Tnp0/TK3S7jw7YOI/AAAAAAAAAFg/LmwGOqBDdKU/s400/Solar_Grand_Minima.JPG
Good comment
Earth’s orbit is the lowest energy path around the sun. The other planets alter the energy off this path which alters Earth’s orbit. This change is maximum at resonance and minimum in near resonance. Thus we see small moons sheparding Saturn’s rings and we see Venus turn the same face to earth at closest approach. It should not surprise us that our climate cycles are locked to planetary orbits.