Aurora Borealis and surface temperature cycles linked

“Watts Up With That?” has an article discussing a new paper “A shared frequency set between the historical mid-latitude aurora records and the global surface temperature” from Nicola Scafetta (requires purchase).

Abstract

Herein we show that the historical records of mid-latitude auroras from 1700 to 1966 present oscillations with periods of about 9, 10–11, 20–21, 30 and 60 years. The same frequencies are found in proxy and instrumental global surface temperature records since 1650 and 1850, respectively, and in several planetary and solar records. We argue that the aurora records reveal a physical link between climate change and astronomical oscillations. Likely in addition to a Soli-Lunar tidal effect, there exists a planetary modulation of the heliosphere, of the cosmic ray flux reaching the Earth and/or of the electric properties of the ionosphere. The latter, in turn, has the potentiality of modulating the global cloud cover that ultimately drives the climate oscillations through albedo oscillations. In particular, a quasi-60-year large cycle is quite evident since 1650 in all climate and astronomical records herein studied, which also include a historical record of meteorite fall in China from 619 to 1943. These findings support the thesis that climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. We show that a harmonic constituent model based on the major astronomical frequencies revealed in the aurora records and deduced from the natural gravitational oscillations of the solar system is able to forecast with a reasonable accuracy the decadal and multidecadal temperature oscillations from 1950 to 2010 using the temperature data before 1950, and vice versa. The existence of a natural 60-year cyclical modulation of the global surface temperature induced by astronomical mechanisms, by alone, would imply that at least 60–70% of the warming observed since 1970 has been naturally induced. Moreover, the climate may stay approximately stable during the next decades because the 60-year cycle has entered in its cooling phase.

Of course the time period is not long enough to study the 208 year Seuss or de Vries cycle, but that cycle will account for a considerable additional proportion of global temperature fluctuations, and peaked around 2000.

The article in Watts up With That? includes the following graph:

Shifting Sun-Earth-Moon Harmonies, Beats, & Biases

A recent post to”Watt’s Up With That?” concerns Shifting Sun-Earth-Moon Harmonies, Beats, & Biases, in particular as regards affects on Earth dynamics and climate. That link is just a brief overview of the graphics. The PDF paper is more detailed, but still lacking sufficient detail on many aspects. But the author, Paul L. Vaughan, covers a lot of ground, and it appears that he is offering more fundamental explanations for the periods of such cycles as the Chandler Wobble and others.

I made a comment in “Watt’s Up With That?” along the lines of:

As noted above by many, not everything is explained well enough to form a proper judgement. However there are some intriguing things shown that create further interest.

Specifically, a bit more detail of what Morlet 7*pi means and what the original data looked like would be useful. Morlet is defined in wikipedia as a wavelet filter. It would be nice to have a list of all the acronyms used with their meanings, such as AAM, LOD, CR and so on. You do appear to be preaching to a wider audience, so please recognize that each may be familiar with only some of the terms used.

I am an interdisciplinary cycles researcher, and well aware that cycles may be used to study cause and effect in complex systems, as well as the existence of astronomical connections between planets, sun, moon and climate/weather and other things on earth. These things are properly demonstrated only with long times series (many cycles) and reasonably consistent phase throughout. Some of your graphs certainly seem to satisfy this test.

It is worth mentioning that some often quoted papers in the past do NOT satisfy this test, such as Jose’s relationship between solar cycle and motion of Sun relative to COM (centre of mass) of the solar system. Jose introduces an arbitrary sign reversal in the middle of the data because he is trying to force am 11.86 year cycle to match an 11.1 year cycle. That paper is a giant fiddle. I see no obvious similar cases in this paper, but I have only skimmed it really.

 

Cycles Research Institute is 7 Years Old

The Foundation for the Study of Cycles was set up around 1941 by Edward R Dewey and others. It resulted from his study of economic cycles and then he found out about the 1931 Matamek Conference on Biological Cycles and contacted the organizers and FSC was born. Over the years the Foundation played a very active role in Cycles Research, publishing “Cycles” magazine and books, holding conferences, and much more.

After the death of Dewey in 1978, there were a number of other prominent directors of FSC. They contributed such things as publishing of books, creating an internet presence, holding conferences and doing research in various cycles related areas.

Then in the mid 1990s financial problems and the eventual arrest of Chairman Martin Armstrong led to the collapse of FSC. The name of “Foundation for the Study of Cycles” became tainted and there was no central cycles location for people to connect any more. Some members believed that this failure was due to over concentration on markets at the expense of the wider picture which must include scientific study of cycles also.

Without a list of members it was difficult to re-establish a cycles organization. With the rise of the internet, a cycles discussion group was begun in 1997 and continued on various platforms from that time, with some 500 members in recent years.

Then in 2004, on a trip to USA and UK, I met with a number of prominent past members in person, and through email discussed with others the idea of starting a new cycles organization. Because we considered that FSC was defunct and the name was now tainted we decided to start up with the name “Cycles Research Institute” but with the same objectives as the original FSC. We began to put some of the important papers by Dewey and others on the CRI web site so that they would not be lost to future generations. The approach was a gradual one, not dependent on funds. We had no office and no paid staff. Just a web site and some dedicated volunteers. But the big plan was there also as well as the intention to cover all aspects of cycles, not just markets.

Several years later the old FSC web site suddenly reappeared. Approaches to the people concerned received no response. Then this new FSC run by David Perales told CRI that we had no right to use FSC copyrighted material. We always disputed with them that they were the original FSC, and disagreed that they held copyright. They were younger than us in our opinion. Eventually we reached an amicable agreement to work together. However the methods of selling material through sending out what many considered to be spam, and the failure of Perales to honour his financial commitments to many people led CRI to part company from the new FSC. We also had a statement from Ned Dewey, the son of Edward Dewey, who says that the old FSC voted to wind itself up and intended to release the copyrights to the world. We continue to operate with that understanding.

So we are now 7 years old. We still hold to the same intentions that Edward Dewey and others had when FSC was first born. We do this from a belief that cycles research is too valuable to be marketed in dribs and drabs. All of our material is available free on the web. At some future time we will likely introduce paid membership for those who want to assist in bringing more of our plans to realization. Recently, on our second attempt, we created a cycles discussion forum  to eventually replace the old style email discussion groups. All people interested in cycles are welcome there.

When minor planets Ceres and Vesta rock the Earth into chaos

Jacques Laskar and colleagues have been leaders in the field of long term solar system planetary motion calculations. Their earlier efforts have produced calculations of the solar system motions for more than 20 million years. These motions are important because they established that the 405,000 year earth ellipticity cycle can be used for more accurate dating of geological deposits.

Now they have extended their calculations to 60 million years and show that this is a limit. “Strong chaos induced by close encounters with Ceres and Vesta” by J. Laskar  et al., Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2011, vol. 532, L4.

A summary of this is presented in “When minor planets Ceres and Vesta rock the Earth into chaos“:

Although small, Ceres and Vesta gravitationally interact together and with the other planets of the Solar System. Because of these interactions, they are continuously pulled or pushed slightly out of their initial orbit. Calculations show that, after some time, these effects do not average out. Consequently, the bodies leave their initial orbits and, more importantly, their orbits are chaotic, meaning that we cannot predict their positions. The two bodies also have a significant probability of impacting each other, estimated at 0.2% per billion year. Last but not least, Ceres and Vesta gravitationally interact with the Earth, whose orbit also becomes unpredictable after only 60 million years. This means that the Earth’s eccentricity, which affects the large climatic variations on its surface, cannot be traced back more than 60 million years ago. This is indeed bad news for Paleoclimate studies. This unexpected discovery comes at a time when both objects are the targets of the NASA/Dawn mission. The Dawn probe will encounter Ceres in February 2015. At present, Dawn is approaching Vesta, and the flyby will occur on this coming Saturday, July 16, 2011.

For more, see the Wikipedia article on stability of the Solar System.

If astrophysics has been able to assist geology in dating deposits over a period of 20 million years, perhaps geology can return the favour by showing what were the actual Earth orbital motions beyond that time.

 

Analysis of BE10 records as a Solar Irradiance Proxy

Recently on CRI an article on Which Causes which out of Atmospheric Temperature and CO2 content? was posted, and this was circulated to other blogs and much interesting discussion ensued, particularly on TallBloke’s Talkshop. This discussion raised the Cycles in Sunspot Number Reconstruction for 11,000 Years article about C14 isotope ratio being used as a Solar Cycle Proxy and the question of the similarity of Be10 use as a proxy was asked. So here is an analysis of the Be10 data obtained from this source:

Solar Irradiance reconstruction from 10Be, World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, Boulder and NOAA Paleoclimatology Program
NAME OF DATA SET: Holocene Total Solar Irradiance Reconstruction
LAST UPDATE: 11/2009 (Original Receipt by WDC Paleo)
CONTRIBUTORS: Steinhilber, F., J. Beer, and C. Fröhlich.
IGBP PAGES/WDCA CONTRIBUTION SERIES NUMBER: 2009-133
link: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/climate_forcing/solar_variability/steinhilber2009tsi.txt

At 9,370 years long, this time series compares to the 11,000 year C14 record. If both are reliable indicators of Solar Activity cycles, then we would expect some similarity in the cycles found. Firstly, the actual time series:

The data was at intervals of 5 years, so is suitable for analysis of longer cycles. The spectrum found is:

Some of the strong cycles periods found are very similar to those found in the C14 reconstruction, 351 years (352), 207 years (208), 104.7 years (104.3), 86.1 years (87.6 and 84.7). Some cycles are similar but no longer significant (around 500 years). The very long cycles are not confirmed, but remember that the time interval used here is a bit shorter.

Because the 207 year cycle is very strong, it is once again examined by use of a 3 cycle filter.

Just as in the case of the 208 year cycle in the C14 solar proxy, we have peaks occurring at around 1800 and 2000 and troughs at around 1700 and 1900. This clearly shows that the Sun was a contributing factor to temperature rises in the 20th century, and that its contribution for the next century will be towards cooling.

Graphs and analysis prepared using CATS.

Comparison of correlation analysis techniques for irregularly sampled time series

When dealing with time series we do not always have the luxury of evenly spaced points in time. Particularly for data from geology and related areas the data sampling may be based on depth of core or some such measurement and is later converted to time as a result of the analysis. There are several problems in processing such data. Firstly techniques are needed for processing irregular data. Secondly, the normal statistics are developed for regular data and so it is difficult to tell whether hypothesis are to be found significant or not.

In CATS (Cycles Analysis Timeseries Software), developed for and available free from CRI (Cycles Research Institute), the first issue can be dealt with by using a suitably short time step resolution and specifying the date of each measurement, and getting CATS to do interpolation. The data will then look like a series with many more values. All the normal manipulations may then be done, even including calculations mixing with other data with similar irregularities and producing graphs etc.

However the statistics of multivariate analysis are generally based on regular independent data, and that is not the case here, so the statistics do not apply. This means that the researcher may be reduced to a “seat of the pants” approach when it comes to statistical tests.

The paper “Comparison of correlation analysis techniques for irregularly sampled time series” by K. Rehfeld, N. Marwan, J. Heitzig, and J. Kurths is aimed at addressing and quantifying this second problem. The paper does address cycles analysis of the data.

Abstract. Geoscientific measurements often provide time series with irregular time sampling, requiring either data reconstruction (interpolation) or sophisticated methods to handle irregular sampling. We compare the linear interpolation technique and different approaches for analyzing the correlation functions and persistence of irregularly sampled time series, as Lomb-Scargle Fourier transformation and kernel-based methods. In a thorough benchmark test we investigate the performance of these techniques.

All methods have comparable root mean square errors (RMSEs) for low skewness of the inter-observation time distribution. For high skewness, very irregular data, interpolation bias and RMSE increase strongly. We find a 40 % lower RMSE for the lag-1 autocorrelation function (ACF) for the Gaussian kernel method vs. the linear interpolation scheme,in the analysis of highly irregular time series. For the cross correlation function (CCF) the RMSE is then lower by 60 %. The application of the Lomb-Scargle technique gave results comparable to the kernel methods for the univariate, but poorer results in the bivariate case. Especially the high-frequency components of the signal, where classical methods show a strong bias in ACF and CCF magnitude, are preserved when using the kernel methods.

We illustrate the performances of interpolation vs. Gaussian kernel method by applying both to paleo-data from four locations, reflecting late Holocene Asian monsoon variability as derived from speleothem δ¹⁸O measurements. Cross correlation results are similar for both methods, which we attribute to the long time scales of the common variability. The persistence time (memory) is strongly overestimated when using the standard, interpolation-based, approach. Hence, the Gaussian kernel is a reliable and more robust estimator with significant advantages compared to other techniques and suitable for large scale application to paleo-data.

The full paper in PDF form is available.

Harmonically Related Solar Cycles in UV

There are many reported cycles in the Sun ranging from long to short periods, and often periods found are harmonically related to each other. Sometimes the reasons for this rather obvious, but at other times the related cycles have appeared inexplicable to those finding them.

The 11 and 22 year solar cycles are an obvious case once it is understood that the Sun’s North and South poles reverse every 11 years, leading to the 22 year Hale cycle.

In the space era, the structure of the solar wind and the nature of the Sun’s neutral current sheet has led to an understanding of why many geomagnetic measurements show cycles of 28, 14, 7 and 3.5 days. The simple reason is that the Solar rotation as seen from the moving Earth is about 28 days, and the current sheet shape means that we cross through the most active part of the solar wind usually 4 times per 28 days (2 N-S and 2 S-N) although sometimes 2, 6 or 8 times.

Less easy to understand are the set of harmonically related cycles including 154 and 77 days reported by Rieger, Bai and others, because they are sub-harmonics of the solar rotation and include ratio 3 harmonics as well as ratio 2. This type of pattern of cycles periods in ratios 2 and 3 was extensively studied by Edward R Dewey and included in his landmark paper “The Case for Cycles” first published in 1967.

This study of Solar Mg II core-to-wing ratio measurements, which are considered as an indicator of solar UV flux temporal variation uses 28 years of daily data obtained from NOAA covering the period late 1978 to late 2006.

References: Viereck and Puga, The NOAA Mg II core-to-wing solar index:
Construction of a 20-year time series of chromospheric variability from
multiple satellites., JGR, 104, pp9995-10005, May 1999.
Viereck et al., The Mg II Index: A proxy for Solar EUV., GRL, 28,
pp1343-1346, April 2001.

Solar MgII Index

The spectrum was analyzed using CRI’s CATS Software.

There are a series of strong peaks in the spectrum, generally surrounded by a series of lesser peaks on each side. The strongest peaks include both harmonics and sub-harmonics of the solar rotation period. The strongest harmonics are 1, 2, 4 and 8 as expected from the neutral current sheet typical behaviour, and less string peaks at 3, 5 and 7 harmonics.

The strongest sub-harmonics are at 1, 2, 4, 6, 12 and 24 times the solar rotation period. This includes a period near to the commonly reported cycle around 155 days as well as 2 and 4 times that period. Altogether, this single analysis of one time series shows a very extensive set of harmonically related cycles. Normally a number of different series need to be examined to find such an extensive set of related cycles.

Observed cycles periods are 642, 321, 158.8, 114.7, 51.8, 26.74, 13.55, 8.92, 6.84, 5.35, 4.60 days. If the harmonic relationships were perfect with ratios 24, 12, 6, 4, 2, 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6 then the periods would be 642, 321, 160.5, 107.0, 53.5, 26.75, 13.38, 8.92, 6.69, 5.35, 4.46 days.

I know of no accepted physical reason why these particular sub-harmonics of the solar rotation should appear in this time series. However, if these cycles are all part of a cosmic pattern of cycles as I have suggested in the Harmonics theory, then all of these cycles are linked into the pattern reported by Dewey back in the 1960s.

Harmonics in Solar MgII Index (click to enlarge)

 

Which Causes which out of Atmospheric Temperature and CO2 content?

Over very long periods of time as ice ages come and go, it has been found that temperature leads atmospheric CO2 content by about 800 years. This seems to contradict the IPCC and other views that CO2 causes change in temperature. But we are looking at very different time scales with present changes, so perhaps things happen differently. I decided to examine this question.

The temperature data used is monthly global land-ocean temperature or GHCN, which is available from NOAA. The atmospheric CO2 data used is from Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the longest continuous record of CO2 also available monthly.

When wanting to find the causation when two series are both increasing over time, it is best to look at the rate of change of the variables as this will show clearly which one precedes the other. This first graph shows the rate of change of these two variables monthly over the period 1958 to 2009.

Rate of change of atmospheric CO2 content and land-ocean temperature

Both monthly series were processed in the same way. The change over a 12 month was calculated, and a 12 month simple moving average of these values was used to avoid all seasonal effects. That data was plotted at the centre of the 23 months values used in the calculation. Because the treatment was the same for both variables, they are directly comparable.

It can be seen that there is generally a good correlation, with nearly all peaks in one variable  having similar peaks in the other. When one has a smaller peak such as around 1975, then so does the other. When one has a larger peak around 1973 or 1998, then so does the other. there are one or two minor variations from this.

It is also evident that the red temperature graph generally precedes the black CO2 graph on turning points.  This suggests that temperature drives CO2 and not the other way around. A comparison of the two series at different lags gives this second graph.

Correlation between rate of change of global temperature and rate of change of atmospheric CO2 content

When the two series are coincident the correlation is quite small, r=0.13, whereas when temperature change 6 months earlier is compared to to CO2 change there is a maximum correlation of r=0.42 which is a high correlation for short period changes which have a high noise content. There is no high correlation for any lag when CO2 precedes temperature, the best being r=0.15 at 42 months.

It seems that, contrary to popular wisdom, temperature changes are driving atmospheric CO2 content changes, with a lag time of 6 months.

Astronomers Discover That Galaxies Are Either Asleep or Awake

A new survey looks at galaxies to see whether they are actively forming stars (awake) or not forming stars (asleep). Under commonly accepted cosmology, the galaxies at 12 billion light years distance are seen quite shortly after the big bang 13.7 billion years ago. If galaxies evolve then we expect them to produce stars early on and not so much later.

This is reported in Science Daily.

But what is found is that some galaxies are turned on and some off at all distances. So it seems that galaxies are turning on and off repeatedly. Such a possible cycle would be interesting to cycles researchers.

My personal expectation is that if there is a cycle it is quite likely to fit one of the geological cycles periods such as 586, 293, 146 or 73 million years. Regular walls of galaxies are found in space at close to 586 million light years apart. That combined with the geological cycles fits with the existence of light speed standing waves filling the Universe.

It should be possible to establish for nearby galaxies whether the pattern of asleep and awake galaxies fits with such standing waves.

Solar Studies Predict Sun Headed Into Hibernation

Firstly, it should be stated that predicting solar cycles has not been a thing that has had great success in the past. But when three groups come to the same conclusion, it is worth looking at what they say.

National Geographic News reports:

Enjoy our stormy sun while it lasts. When our star drops out of its latest sunspot activity cycle, the sun is most likely going into hibernation, scientists announced today.

Three independent studies of the sun’s insides, surface, and upper atmosphere all predict that the next solar cycle will be significantly delayed—if it happens at all. Normally, the next cycle would be expected to start roughly around 2020.

The combined data indicate that we may soon be headed into what’s known as a grand minimum, a period of unusually low solar activity.

The predicted solar “sleep” is being compared to the last grand minimum on record, which occurred between 1645 and 1715.

Quiet Sun appearance.

It is worth mentioning that the current cycle 24 has been quite substantially slower and quieter than any cycle for many decades.

The association between solar activity and climate is well established, but because of the political aspects of climate change, the waters can expect to get muddy with this announcement. Expect predictions ranging from a new ice age to everyone getting fried. The truth? All energy on Earth comes from the Sun so if activity is less then it will cause some cooling compared to if the Sun was more active.