New theory suggests Earth’s 60‐Year climate cycle may be driven by planetary oscillations directing micrometeors toward Earth, creating more dust – which change cloud cover.
A paper published in Geophysical Research Letters claims there is increasing evidence that Earth’s 60-year climate cycle may be driven by planetary oscillations. They claim a 60-year climate cycle is found in the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, aurora sightings, rainfall, and ocean climatic records.
The paper says:
“…the orbital eccentricity of Jupiter presents prominent oscillations with a period of quasi 60 years due to its gravitational coupling with Saturn.” The authors propose that the planetary system modulates the interplanetary dust falling on Earth and modifying the cloud coverage.
The orbital eccentricity of Jupiter presents a strong 60‐year oscillation that is well correlated with several climatic records and with the 60‐year oscillation found in long meteorite fall records since the 7th century.
Since meteorite falls are the most macroscopic aspect of infalling space dust, we conclude that the interplanetary dust should modulate the formation of the clouds and, thus, drive climate changes.”
The paper and abstract:
A 60‐Year Cycle in the Meteorite Fall Frequency Suggests a Possible Interplanetary Dust Forcing of the Earth’s Climate Driven by Planetary Oscillations
Nicola Scafetta Franco Milani Antonio Bianchini First published: 14 September 2020 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL089954
Abstract
One of the most famous climate oscillations has a period of about 60 years. Although this oscillation might emerge from internal variability, increasing evidence points toward a solar or astronomical origin, as also argued herein. We highlight that the orbital eccentricity of Jupiter presents prominent oscillations with a period of quasi 60 years due to its gravitational coupling with Saturn. This oscillation is found to be well correlated with quite a number of climatic records and also with a 60‐year oscillation present in long meteorite fall records relative to the periods 619–1943 CE. Since meteorite falls are the most macroscopic aspect of incoming space dust and their motion is mostly regulated by Jupiter, we propose that the interplanetary dust influx also presents a 60‐year cycle and could be forcing the climate to oscillate in a similar manner by modulating the formation of the clouds and, therefore, the Earth’s albedo.
Data Availability Statement
All data are available from references and public domain repositories: Figure 1 uses the ephemerides data of the orbit of Jupiter available, for example, from the NASA HORIZONS web interface (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi); Figure 2 uses the temperature reconstruction of Ljungqvist (2010, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/study/9924); Figure 3 uses the HadCRUT4 record (Morice et al., 2012, https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/), the Indian summer monsoon record (Agnihotri & Dutta, 2003; Sontakke et al., 1993) (http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.Indices/.india/index.html); and the G. Bulloides abundance variations data by Black et al. (1999, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/study/2532); Figures 4 and 5 use the record of meteorite fall in China from AD 619 to 1943 published in Yu et al. (1983).
A caveat: In the past, I have dismissed much of Scafetta’s work as being little more than “cyclomania”, i.e. finding spurious cyclic correlations in data where there really isn’t any.
That said, there is a bit of plausibility in this idea that the gravitation of Jupiter might herd more micrometeors into Earths orbital path, and it is plausible that with more meteor dust in Earth’s atmosphere, that could form more cloud nuclei. Changes in cloud cover would modulate sunlight over time, and thus climatic records.
Or, it may be just another spurious correlation. Either way, I thought it was worth discussing. – Anthony
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Glacier experts say that principal cause of melting is the direct absorption of sunlight not warm air. Glacial ice is quite dark in color. The key variables are CLOUDINESS and snow cover. It would interesting to know the degree of cloud cover in the arctic from the start of polar satellites 1979 to present. This should relate to melt in Greenland and perhaps sea ice. You then have something to compare the 60 year cycle to and meteor dust
Glacier experts say …
rain.
Ken McCracken and others put the planetary cycles at “87, 350, 510, and 710 years”. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11207-014-0510-1
Nicola Scafetta – would you care to comment? Also, while they refer to the solar effect on GCRs, could the effect be on dust instead or on both?
This is interesting but there’s no info on exactly how the change in Jupiter’s eccentricity mediates the flux of micrometeors towards Earth. I clicked on the link but it’s just the same AGU abstract and the full paper is paywalled.
I suspect the abstract could’ve summarised the mechanism in a few short sentences but didn’t so we’re left hanging on the most important aspect of the paper: the jovicentric hyperbolic flyby characteristics of the the dust and how that changes when Jupiter’s eccentricity waxes and wanes.
Incidentally, I can’t see how it can change much although, a slower Jupiter (at a cyclicly higher aphelion) will perturb dust more than at any other time.
“…with a period of quasi 60 years due to its gravitational coupling with Saturn.” The first thing I thought of when I read this is the astrological concept of the 60 year cycle of ‘Saturn return’, not that I think astrology has anything to do with the micrometeors, just that the 60 year Saturn cycle is common.
By Jove!
It is quite interesting for me to see micrometeors, auroras, and 60 year cycles all mentioned in the same article. Exactly 60 years ago I was just entering high school in Northern Minnesota. I was interested in science, and had a close friend with the same interests. He had found articles discussing micrometeorites, and auroras and convinced me to join in observing both. We put dishes in our rooftops to collect the micrometeorites, and spent many evenings looking for, and occasionally recording and sending in postcards describing them. To whom, I don’t remember.
The story at the time was that, in our area, auroral displays happened every three days, or so. However, half the time it was daylight, and in another half it was cloudy. We also were asleep much of the dark hours. This would mean that we could only expect to see the auroras every couple of weeks, or so. And we did. When either of us noticed, we would get together, usually in my back yard in sleeping bags to keep warm and record what we saw. Each would send in a post card. I saw more aurora displays that fall than I have in total since then. I’m not sure where we were in the 60 year cycle, but if there was a peak then, we would be in another one now. I haven’t seen any here in Texas.
Our micrometeorite collections were less successful. My dish did get dirty, but it was dismissed by parents and teachers as dust from US highway 2, which passed several feet out from my front door. I think they were probably right.
The number of days with magnetic storms per year indicates the effect of the Sun’s magnetic activity on the Earth’s magnetosphere. You can see a huge decline since 1997 (beginning of the 23rd solar cycle).
Forgive me if others beat me to this question (to excited to read all the posts).
Does this “space dust-nucleation-clouds-albedo” “”forcing”” (yes, I used double quotation marks!) correlate with ice age interstitial periods? The post discusses only the 60 year pseudo cycle.
If all this dust is falling on earth – would the earths rotation speed be getting noticeably slower?
Can we try to persuade governments that the same kind of procedures, audits, certifications that apply to many areas of our lives, particularly products should apply to climate science?
I think the problem is few people will listen to alternative views on climate because in their view we’re in a climate emergency and must persuade the world to act because the apparent consensus of experts cannot possibly be wrong, sceptics are not qualified and are either stupid or deliberately trying to cast doubt and cause delay because they are being paid to or don’t want to change their lifestyles. Even if we could get through I imagine many will still not change, afraid of the consequences to them of questioning the apparent consensus and approved experts.
So I think we need to first show why all the above is wrong and dangerous:
My concern is that rather than being a win/win situation if we have the science wrong we are in a very dangerous position because we do not adequately understand longrange weather/climate and don’t know what real dangers lie ahead.
In many other high consequence areas of everyday life we have a system to avoid dangerous mistakes and give us confidence, like food hygiene certificates, kite marks for household goods, a wide system of procedures, independent audit, certification for aviation etc. From what I can make out little or none of this applies to climate science which to my mind is also producing a product of very high consequence if it fails. We would not accept lack of this in the examples above, so why climate science where the stakes are very high?
I think the relatively recent 737Max issue may be a good example, I may have it wrong, but think the problem was the FAA failed to remain independent of Boeing and failed to correct their inadequate use of procedures. The apparent consensus of experts seemed convinced the plane was safe. I think this example shows that despite our best efforts and intentions, however impossible it may seem the apparent consensus of experts can be wrong. If we do not have a suitable system, or in this case if it fails there are likely to be disastrous consequences for everyone. Shows the importance of learning the right lessons from failures (e.g. aircrash investigations), procedures, independent audit, certifications. In these kinds of engineering situations we also have many supplier/customer interactions where many of the customers will also be large engineering companies who need to be sceptical their suppliers product will do what it says on the tin which I think also greatly improves reliability.
I am not sure the current science system is the right kind of system to develop this kind of important product (understanding longrange weather/climate) with such massive implications for us all both if it is right or wrong; I think engineering works quite differently.
I presume much of the above mentioned procedures, audits, certification etc (e.g. food safety, household appliance, aviation etc) comes from governments; can we try to persuade governments that the same should apply to climate science? This is about getting the decisions right, avoiding dangerous mistakes.
Oops please delete the above, it was meant to go under the Lancing the Lancet’s…Sorry about that
Jupiter attacks!
We’re doomed!