Global Weather Oscillations

[Chris Knight]

0ops, what happened?

Edited July 16, 2008 by Chris Knight

[osmposm]

Reading and reviewing it on your own actually adds more weight. Some papers are reviewed for journals by individuals that know little about the new subject matter.

I cannot for the life of me see how my reading and personally reviewing it would add any weight: all I could assess is whether it was effectively and persuasively written from a non-expert point-of-view - i.e sound literature rather than sound science. Unfortunately most of us here know little about the subject matter either - in depth and detail at least - which is why many of us rely in the first instance on reactions and reviews by those we deem to be more expert.

Years ago, when I was very young, I read and was bowled over by "Chariot of the Gods": it was a great story, interestingly and persuasively written. Unfortunately it turned out to rather less convincing once those who had some relevant knowledge had pointed out a host of flaws and indeed distortions within it. It was a good read, but bad science.

I'm not remotely suggesting anything similar here. I'm just saying that I would prefer to know who the four people are who have such a high regard for your work; otherwise how can I judge whether their scientific knowledge in this or related fields is sufficient for their opinion to be impressive? This is not an unusual expectation: even in the purely literary world most people buy a book or go to a play because they've read a good review in a paper they like by a critic they respect.

Forgive me, David, but I will have to wait until those names surface one way or another - and once they do I shall be doing some energetic googling!

[Chris Knight]

Chris,

As it is already available on the web, I thought that a link to this image may be more what NWTV members might want to see:

There is an lengthy blog with David on the spanish wunder blog which may help answer some questions, and save David going over well traveled ground.

A very old blog. This particular graph was an overlay of preliminary data onto the Mann et al. It did not have actual plotted data.

The new snip of my graph is actual data plotted with actual reconstruction data...much more precise than is outdated work copy.

Therefore it is best to refer to the snip graph posted earlier today, it has the real data. There is no sense blogging on a very old graph that is not in the e-book.

I thank you for your cooperation

This is the snip graph with actual plotted data for both the reconstruction and the PFM

Only last year, David, not as old as Mann, Bradley and Hughes, which appears to be the same old temperature reconstruction you still use, which you have merely referred to as Mann et al, when asked for a reference.

Lunar gravitational influence is least on the atmosphere, greater on the Oceans, and much greater on the land and the mantle beneath, since gravity acts on mass, and the proportion of mass of the earth is in the order given above. The effect of the lunar gravitational influence on volcanoes is significant, with perigee associated with an increased proportion of eruptions compared with eruptions at other times during the lunar cycle. In other words, not random events.

Volcanic eruptions are also an accepted climate forcing, cooling without a great lag period for several years depending on the volume of tephra and aerosols released during the duration of the eruption.

Have you associated any phases of the PFM periods with periods of intense volcanicity leading to climate changes?

[Cycles]

A very old blog. This particular graph was an overlay of preliminary data onto the Mann et al. It did not have actual plotted data.

The new snip of my graph is actual data plotted with actual reconstruction data...much more precise than is outdated work copy.

Therefore it is best to refer to the snip graph posted earlier today, it has the real data. There is no sense blogging on a very old graph that is not in the e-book.

I thank you for your cooperation

This is the snip graph with actual plotted data for both the reconstruction and the PFM

Only last year, David, not as old as Mann, Bradley and Hughes, which appears to be the same old temperature reconstruction you still use, which you have merely referred to as Mann et al, when asked for a reference.

Lunar gravitational influence is least on the atmosphere, greater on the Oceans, and much greater on the land and the mantle beneath, since gravity acts on mass, and the proportion of mass of the earth is in the order given above. The effect of the lunar gravitational influence on volcanoes is significant, with perigee associated with an increased proportion of eruptions compared with eruptions at other times during the lunar cycle. In other words, not random events.

Volcanic eruptions are also an accepted climate forcing, cooling without a great lag period for several years depending on the volume of tephra and aerosols released during the duration of the eruption.

Have you associated any phases of the PFM periods with periods of intense volcanicity leading to climate changes?

I have not tried to link volcanicity to climate change. Altough it is very interesting that volcanic activity seems to increase as global warming cycles end. For instance the 1813 or 14 eruptions, and eruptions timed fairly well with the ending of global warming cycles during the past 1000 years.

It would seem logical that certain fluctuations in the gravitiational field could have significant influence on the earth's mantle.

And yes gravitational cycles have a great influence on the oceans, they do cause the oceanic warmings that lead to El Nino events. And it is the El Nino events that disrupt the world's weather patterns...thus a clear link between graviational cycles-El Nino and weather fluctuations.

I have a great graph in the book showing 20 years of the ocean's temperatures and the PFM cycles.

I cannot for the life of me see how my reading and personally reviewing it would add any weight: all I could assess is whether it was effectively and persuasively written from a non-expert point-of-view - i.e sound literature rather than sound science. Unfortunately most of us here know little about the subject matter either - in depth and detail at least - which is why many of us rely in the first instance on reactions and reviews by those we deem to be more expert.

Years ago, when I was very young, I read and was bowled over by "Chariot of the Gods": it was a great story, interestingly and persuasively written. Unfortunately it turned out to rather less convincing once those who had some relevant knowledge had pointed out a host of flaws and indeed distortions within it. It was a good read, but bad science.

I'm not remotely suggesting anything similar here. I'm just saying that I would prefer to know who the four people are who have such a high regard for your work; otherwise how can I judge whether their scientific knowledge in this or related fields is sufficient for their opinion to be impressive? This is not an unusual expectation: even in the purely literary world most people buy a book or go to a play because they've read a good review in a paper they like by a critic they respect.

Forgive me, David, but I will have to wait until those names surface one way or another - and once they do I shall be doing some energetic googling!

You may do what you feel is right. But it would be better if you actually focused on this forum and asked about the research, put forth questions related to research and the findings. It really does not matter who the reviewers are, they did not write the book or formulate the research.

[Cycles]

I cannot for the life of me see how my reading and personally reviewing it would add any weight: all I could assess is whether it was effectively and persuasively written from a non-expert point-of-view - i.e sound literature rather than sound science. Unfortunately most of us here know little about the subject matter either - in depth and detail at least - which is why many of us rely in the first instance on reactions and reviews by those we deem to be more expert.

Years ago, when I was very young, I read and was bowled over by "Chariot of the Gods": it was a great story, interestingly and persuasively written. Unfortunately it turned out to rather less convincing once those who had some relevant knowledge had pointed out a host of flaws and indeed distortions within it. It was a good read, but bad science.

I'm not remotely suggesting anything similar here. I'm just saying that I would prefer to know who the four people are who have such a high regard for your work; otherwise how can I judge whether their scientific knowledge in this or related fields is sufficient for their opinion to be impressive? This is not an unusual expectation: even in the purely literary world most people buy a book or go to a play because they've read a good review in a paper they like by a critic they respect.

Forgive me, David, but I will have to wait until those names surface one way or another - and once they do I shall be doing some energetic googling!

Over the past few years AGW researchers have published hundreds if not thousands of paper trying to link the burning of fossil fuels to rises in global temperatures.

The AGW theory has recently come under fire by NGW people, but we the NGW people have not demanded to know who reviewed the thousands of papers issued by the AGW society.

If the AGW theory is proven wrong, are we all going to demand a list of all the reviewers of the AGW papers. I doubt it.

[I can't believe it's not better]

Why is it that the huge quantity of carbon dioxide that has been released into the atmosphere by humans is not yet having any effect on global temperatures?

[Roger J Smith]

Not sure what a "syzygy declination" cycle involves, I understand each word separately, but what does it mean as you combine them?

I can mention to readers in general that in my own research, the 18.6-year cycle shows up as an irregular signature in all long-term temperature records, but it depends on geographic location as to when it peaks and troughs.

First of all, just a simple explanation, there is an 18.6-year declination cycle because the Moon's orbit rapidly precesses, in other words, the point at which it rises above its average orbital plane quickly moves forward around the circle over a span of 18.6 years. And the Moon ranges 5.1 degrees above and below the earth's equatorial plane, so this takes it that far above and below each month but in different parts of the orbit relative to the Sun and the background stars. This has the consequence of placing the Moon as high as 29 degrees declination when it is 5 degrees north of the ecliptic plane at the winter full moon and the summer new moon. It is then 29 degrees below that plane about two weeks later. And for the rest of that year it continues to ride up and down like that although with the longer period between full moons, the declination max (what I've been calling northern max on here for three years) is seen a few days before full moon in February, then a week before in March, etc. The last time we had such a max was very recently, 2006.0 being the epoch for it. Then 9.3 years later, the opposite occurs, the range of the Moon decreases to +18 to -18 degrees. That will next happen around 2015.

For the climate of the Great Lakes region, the average temperature peak comes 3-5 years after declination maximum (when the Moon achieves its greatest declination range of almost +29 to -29 degrees), and the temperature trough comes around two years after the declination minimum. A more detailed analysis gave me the concepts that at or around declination maximum, there is a higher tendency to blocking and meridional flow (this follows Bryson's original findings in 1948). A few years later, as the Moon's range is decreasing and solar/lunar eclipses are most likely to fall in winter and summer, the overall effect seems to be to enhance zonality, which gives a positive temperature signal in a climate responsive to air mass change more than wind direction. At the lunar declination minimum, presumably the lower range of the Moon's north-south gravitational pull on the atmosphere reduces the frequency of milder air masses especially in winter, so with an appropriate lag of 2-4 years one finds a minimum in average temperature. The next phase is rising declination and a period more prone to extremes. These are all statistical variations of rather modest amplitude, and seemed to explain 15-20 per cent of the variance.

For the CET and the British climate, the findings were a bit different. The warmest period came immediately after the declination maximum. The mild period for the Great Lakes climate seemed to create a slight cooling relative to average, then the coldest period was split into two sharp decline periods on either side of the declination minimum. Once again, these amplitudes were not very great (0.6 C degrees for the annual averages over 350 years involving 18 full cycles and fragments of two others). The sharp minimum in year 7 of this analysis (adjusted to declination range) includes data from 1740, 1795 and 1963, so if one avoided those three very cold winters, this trough would not exist in the data. The possibility of random chance therefore raises its ugly head.

On the west coast of North America, yet another signature was derived, a peak of warmth at the lowest lunar declination ranges, indicating perhaps a forcing of the Pacific segment of the jet stream in these years when arctic outflow might be greater on a hemispheric basis. With plenty of easier places to make a southward push, I speculated that the west coast climate zone went into a balmy fast westerly flow held down by the stronger Alaska-Yukon source highs which were able to make easier escapes southeastward and avoid the more difficult evolution through cascading valley-mountain transfers which would be the case in our rare colder winters here, most of which have historically occurred near lunar declination maximum (1950 and 1969 are the two coldest winters on record here, lunar dec max at 1950.2 and 1968. .

Now as to the shorter 8.86-year lunar perigee cycle, this is derived from the fact that the lunar perigee moves forward around the orbit even faster than the nodes (that give us the 18.6 year cycle) and in fact the perigee makes a full circuit every 8.86 years. About now the lunar perigee is coming just before northern max, as the Moon rushes past the Pleiades and through Taurus. Next winter it will be at northern max. Four and a half years later in the summer of 2013 it will be at southern max.

This cycle shows up in the Toronto (Great Lakes) data as a four-wave no-lag response to four apparent peaks of gravitational reinforcement, at northern and southern max, and when perigee is near the equatorial transit points between these. The northern max perigee is slightly warmer than southern, and both are warmer than the equatorial peaks. The amplitude is a fairly impressive 0.7 C degrees. For the CET series, the signature is similar, but less dramatic, on the order of 0.4 C degrees. Fred might want to comment on this too, but my finding was that arctic high pressure at times when perigee was not near one of these four peaks tended to be very strong, when at one of the peaks, strong but conflicting with stronger low pressure.

The distribution of very cold winters seems to be fairly random with respect the to lunar perigee cycle. There may be a statistical tendency in the UK for these to cluster around northern max at perigee perhaps with a double peak on either side of the actual year. In this west coast North America climate the tendency is opposite, colder winters often come around southern max perigee. This makes sense to me if lunar perigee correlates with latitude of high pressure (the sort of pattern that would give you a cold winter would give us a near-average winter due to downsloping, and if high pressure gets stuck over areas to our southeast it can become very cold here).

I'll conclude by showing an interesting correspondence between colder UK winters and the 18.6 year cycle. Tell me what you see here. These are all of the winters with either a December, January or February below zero C. To simplify, I have listed them by winter of the January but if it's a December case I use brackets. Thus (1891) means December 1890.

The years are arranged from the year of dec max (year zero) to either year 17 or year 18 to give cycles that are on average 18.6 years long. The year zero is defined from the following list of years that contained a dec max ... 1652, 1671, 1689, 1708, 1727, 1745, 1764, 1782, 1801, 1820, 1838, 1857, 1875, 1894, 1913, 1931, 1950, 1968, 1987, 2006.

Winter 1684 = year 13

Winter 1709 = year 1

Winter 1740 = year 13

Winter 1784 = year 2

Winter 1795 = year 13

Winter 1814 = year 13

Winter 1830 = year 10

Winter (1880) = year 5

Winter (1892) = year 17

Winter 1895 = year 1

Winter 1917 = year 4

Winter 1940 = year 9

Winter 1945 = year 14

Winter 1947 = year 16

Winter 1963 = year 13

Winter 1979 = year 11

Winter 1982 = year 14

Winter 1987 = year 0

I could add a few more but you'll see that many of these fall between the dec min (year 9) and the dec max (year 18 then zero) and not so much the other half of the possible time. And there is a clustering around year 13. It probably represents a general rather than dynamic response to lunar forcing of the atmopshere, but it suggests other factors at play because not every lunar dec cycle produces a notable cold winter (the last one didn't) and sometimes there are outliers.

[Cycles]

Not sure what a "syzygy declination" cycle involves, I understand each word separately, but what does it mean as you combine them?

I can mention to readers in general that in my own research, the 18.6-year cycle shows up as an irregular signature in all long-term temperature records, but it depends on geographic location as to when it peaks and troughs.

First of all, just a simple explanation, there is an 18.6-year declination cycle because the Moon's orbit rapidly precesses, in other words, the point at which it rises above its average orbital plane quickly moves forward around the circle over a span of 18.6 years. And the Moon ranges 5.1 degrees above and below the earth's equatorial plane, so this takes it that far above and below each month but in different parts of the orbit relative to the Sun and the background stars. This has the consequence of placing the Moon as high as 29 degrees declination when it is 5 degrees north of the ecliptic plane at the winter full moon and the summer new moon. It is then 29 degrees below that plane about two weeks later. And for the rest of that year it continues to ride up and down like that although with the longer period between full moons, the declination max (what I've been calling northern max on here for three years) is seen a few days before full moon in February, then a week before in March, etc. The last time we had such a max was very recently, 2006.0 being the epoch for it. Then 9.3 years later, the opposite occurs, the range of the Moon decreases to +18 to -18 degrees. That will next happen around 2015.

For the climate of the Great Lakes region, the average temperature peak comes 3-5 years after declination maximum (when the Moon achieves its greatest declination range of almost +29 to -29 degrees), and the temperature trough comes around two years after the declination minimum. A more detailed analysis gave me the concepts that at or around declination maximum, there is a higher tendency to blocking and meridional flow (this follows Bryson's original findings in 1948). A few years later, as the Moon's range is decreasing and solar/lunar eclipses are most likely to fall in winter and summer, the overall effect seems to be to enhance zonality, which gives a positive temperature signal in a climate responsive to air mass change more than wind direction. At the lunar declination minimum, presumably the lower range of the Moon's north-south gravitational pull on the atmosphere reduces the frequency of milder air masses especially in winter, so with an appropriate lag of 2-4 years one finds a minimum in average temperature. The next phase is rising declination and a period more prone to extremes. These are all statistical variations of rather modest amplitude, and seemed to explain 15-20 per cent of the variance.

For the CET and the British climate, the findings were a bit different. The warmest period came immediately after the declination maximum. The mild period for the Great Lakes climate seemed to create a slight cooling relative to average, then the coldest period was split into two sharp decline periods on either side of the declination minimum. Once again, these amplitudes were not very great (0.6 C degrees for the annual averages over 350 years involving 18 full cycles and fragments of two others). The sharp minimum in year 7 of this analysis (adjusted to declination range) includes data from 1740, 1795 and 1963, so if one avoided those three very cold winters, this trough would not exist in the data. The possibility of random chance therefore raises its ugly head.

On the west coast of North America, yet another signature was derived, a peak of warmth at the lowest lunar declination ranges, indicating perhaps a forcing of the Pacific segment of the jet stream in these years when arctic outflow might be greater on a hemispheric basis. With plenty of easier places to make a southward push, I speculated that the west coast climate zone went into a balmy fast westerly flow held down by the stronger Alaska-Yukon source highs which were able to make easier escapes southeastward and avoid the more difficult evolution through cascading valley-mountain transfers which would be the case in our rare colder winters here, most of which have historically occurred near lunar declination maximum (1950 and 1969 are the two coldest winters on record here, lunar dec max at 1950.2 and 1968. .

Now as to the shorter 8.86-year lunar perigee cycle, this is derived from the fact that the lunar perigee moves forward around the orbit even faster than the nodes (that give us the 18.6 year cycle) and in fact the perigee makes a full circuit every 8.86 years. About now the lunar perigee is coming just before northern max, as the Moon rushes past the Pleiades and through Taurus. Next winter it will be at northern max. Four and a half years later in the summer of 2013 it will be at southern max.

This cycle shows up in the Toronto (Great Lakes) data as a four-wave no-lag response to four apparent peaks of gravitational reinforcement, at northern and southern max, and when perigee is near the equatorial transit points between these. The northern max perigee is slightly warmer than southern, and both are warmer than the equatorial peaks. The amplitude is a fairly impressive 0.7 C degrees. For the CET series, the signature is similar, but less dramatic, on the order of 0.4 C degrees. Fred might want to comment on this too, but my finding was that arctic high pressure at times when perigee was not near one of these four peaks tended to be very strong, when at one of the peaks, strong but conflicting with stronger low pressure.

The distribution of very cold winters seems to be fairly random with respect the to lunar perigee cycle. There may be a statistical tendency in the UK for these to cluster around northern max at perigee perhaps with a double peak on either side of the actual year. In this west coast North America climate the tendency is opposite, colder winters often come around southern max perigee. This makes sense to me if lunar perigee correlates with latitude of high pressure (the sort of pattern that would give you a cold winter would give us a near-average winter due to downsloping, and if high pressure gets stuck over areas to our southeast it can become very cold here).

I'll conclude by showing an interesting correspondence between colder UK winters and the 18.6 year cycle. Tell me what you see here. These are all of the winters with either a December, January or February below zero C. To simplify, I have listed them by winter of the January but if it's a December case I use brackets. Thus (1891) means December 1890.

The years are arranged from the year of dec max (year zero) to either year 17 or year 18 to give cycles that are on average 18.6 years long. The year zero is defined from the following list of years that contained a dec max ... 1652, 1671, 1689, 1708, 1727, 1745, 1764, 1782, 1801, 1820, 1838, 1857, 1875, 1894, 1913, 1931, 1950, 1968, 1987, 2006.

Winter 1684 = year 13

Winter 1709 = year 1

Winter 1740 = year 13

Winter 1784 = year 2

Winter 1795 = year 13

Winter 1814 = year 13

Winter 1830 = year 10

Winter (1880) = year 5

Winter (1892) = year 17

Winter 1895 = year 1

Winter 1917 = year 4

Winter 1940 = year 9

Winter 1945 = year 14

Winter 1947 = year 16

Winter 1963 = year 13

Winter 1979 = year 11

Winter 1982 = year 14

Winter 1987 = year 0

I could add a few more but you'll see that many of these fall between the dec min (year 9) and the dec max (year 18 then zero) and not so much the other half of the possible time. And there is a clustering around year 13. It probably represents a general rather than dynamic response to lunar forcing of the atmopshere, but it suggests other factors at play because not every lunar dec cycle produces a notable cold winter (the last one didn't) and sometimes there are outliers.

Nice Summary Roger,

I have looked at the perigee cycles and the declination cycles, neither of which had the proper harmonics to coincide with oceanic temperature increases, or the long term global warming or cooling cycles which occur about every 230 years.

By using a declination cycle in respect to the earth's equator and with the combination of syzygy events (alignment of the earth moon and sun) maximum graviational cycles are acheived. Syzygy events, especially the strongest events have graviational tidal pull of about 45 percent greater than a mean lunar event.

By plotting the strongest declination cycles a new sinusoidal harmonic was found with a recurring cycle near 231 years, 925 years, near 18.5 and near 4.6. By plotting lunar gravitational data it was found that the approximate 4.6 year and 18.5 year cycles had the same harmonics as the 231 and 925 year cycles, and thus the 116,000 and 460k cycles. All of which coincide with the mega 460k warming and carbon dioxide cycles, the 116k mega warming and carbon dioxide cycles, the 925 year mega warming and carbon dioxide cycles, and the 231 year global warming- cooling cycles.

Why is it that the huge quantity of carbon dioxide that has been released into the atmosphere by humans is not yet having any effect on global temperatures?

One reason is that Co2 is a minor greenhouse gas. It is at least 100 times less effeciant as a greenhouse gas than CO2, and it really has not been proven that CO2 raises global temperatures. It is proven however that temperatures rise first during mega global warming cycles followed by natural increases in CO2 through a complex natural CO2 feedback systgem.

[bluecon]

This is a world wide web site, a discussion forum. I do not think it is my place to post their names.

We are supposed to be discussing research here, not other people.

Unfortunately the so called science is to discredit those that disagree with the AGW theory. Facts are just an 'Inconvenient Truth".

[I can't believe it's not better]

Did you mean to say methane or water vapour?

[bluecon]

Did you mean to say methane or water vapour?

No

[I can't believe it's not better]

"One reason is that Co2 is a minor greenhouse gas. It is at least 100 times less effeciant as a greenhouse gas than CO2...",

[Iceberg]

GWO/David, It probably got lost with all the excitment on this thread but could you answer my CO2 question ?

I've also looked at your graph, again thanks for posting, it gives us something more scientific to discuss,

I've very roughly re-plotted your PFM cycles against a random (taken from WIKI) temperature reconstruction. However try as I might apart from a very very rough corrolation between yours and Mann's(even then the background noise is such that it's obvious there is a great many other drivers with just as much if not more weighting), there is no match.

I am not trying to disprove your theory more matching up to see where it sits with things. IF this is the main climate driver. I would expect a fit.

Your views on the PDO this century will be interesting as well, becausing looking at an NCEP PDO graph I see again no correlation.

Your views would be very appeciated.

[Iceberg]

One reason is that Co2 is a minor greenhouse gas. It is at least 100 times less effeciant as a greenhouse gas than CO2, and it really has not been proven that CO2 raises global temperatures. It is proven however that temperatures rise first during mega global warming cycles followed by natural increases in CO2 through a complex natural CO2 feedback systgem.

Just to add a bit of context to this, I know David's a long-time vocal AGW skeptic, so maybe a bit of balance.

Nitrous oxide is 200 times more powerful than CO2 this must be what we meant. Methane is around the 20-30 times mark. Water vapour less power than CO2.

The picture below shows very nicely why CO2 is an important greenhouse gas in that it blocks a percentage of a particular wavelength of energy from leaving the earth bouncing it back, the more CO2 there is the more it blocks. The fact that CO2 raises temperature is accepted by nearly ever scientist I know it's the amount it raises temperatures which is really under debate.

I don't want to take this of topic but thought a bit of balance was required.

[beng]

The picture below shows very nicely why CO2 is an important greenhouse gas in that it blocks a percentage of a particular wavelength of energy from leaving the earth bouncing it back, the more CO2 there is the more it blocks.

Hi Iceberg,

The one thing I'd add to that is that because only so much energy is released at these key wavelengths, there's a limit to how much can be blocked before the wavelength is essentially saturated and all outgoing radiation at that wavelength is blocked (don't ask me what that is though). To further complicate things there are probably other chemicals in the atmosphere also blocking at the same wavelengths. Another complication is the global spread of CO2 gases - a high percentage of outgoing radiation from the planet is obviously away from the equator and towards the poles, however if CO2 is not spread evenly across the planet, then that's going to complicate further the amount of radiation that it can absorb (either upwards or downwards).

I think this is where we probably mostly agree ie C02 is a greenhouse gas, but we differ on how significant it is.

Still haven't had a chance to get through all of David's book- although I have read some of it. I want to re-read the chapters relating to the lunar cycles and follow through on the references as it's not something I know too much about and it's obviously key to the whole theory.

It does seem plausible though that large tidal swings could shift pressure builts slightly (eg by shifting warm water/cold water masses). A movement of the subtropical high in the South Pacific northwards would be consistent with an increased pressure gradient in the key cold enso forming areas and upwelling off the coast of Peru - I guess a question for David (or other qualified meteorologist/climate scientist) would be this - how big a movement of the subtropical high pressure northwards in the south pacific is required to create la nina conditions and how big a la nina (if at all) could we expect from a 1 degree latitudinal shift towards the equator?

I think it's pretty obvious from the drop in global temps in the last year (and numerous other enso events) that enso can influence global climate - so a sustained run of more negative enso should have a cumulative effect on global climate due to the latent heat properties of the oceans.

[Iceberg]

I agree Beng, the question is more how much of an effect CO2 has rather than whether or not it does raise temperatures. Hoever this is rather at odds to "it really has not been proven that CO2 raises global temperatures.".

If Anybody has them I would be interested in a thread that shows the various papers concerning this topic. I don't want to take this thread off topic.

[osmposm]

No

Thank you, bluecon: I suppose David must have asked you to answer our questions on his behalf. Would you like us to address our queries to you in future instead?

(And in case you still haven't got there, nobody was attacking him: David made a minor typo error in one of his posts, and ICBINB was politely asking him to clarify what he'd meant to write)

[Cycles]

GWO/David, It probably got lost with all the excitment on this thread but could you answer my CO2 question ?

I've also looked at your graph, again thanks for posting, it gives us something more scientific to discuss,

I've very roughly re-plotted your PFM cycles against a random (taken from WIKI) temperature reconstruction. However try as I might apart from a very very rough corrolation between yours and Mann's(even then the background noise is such that it's obvious there is a great many other drivers with just as much if not more weighting), there is no match.

I am not trying to disprove your theory more matching up to see where it sits with things. IF this is the main climate driver. I would expect a fit.

Your views on the PDO this century will be interesting as well, becausing looking at an NCEP PDO graph I see again no correlation.

Your views would be very appeciated.

Yes there is a lot of background noise so you cannot see what is going on. The PFM would have to be plotted separately with each reconstruction to see how they fall on the PFM harmonic. Some may fall at a different point on the sinusoidal curve, but once plotted over time you could see how it correlates to the curve. An overlay such as your does not show the true correlation. It is likie putting apples with oranges. And you can see on your graph a lot of noise and none of the rconstructions lining up totally with each other.

Need single plots

I agree Beng, the question is more how much of an effect CO2 has rather than whether or not it does raise temperatures. Hoever this is rather at odds to "it really has not been proven that CO2 raises global temperatures.".

If Anybody has them I would be interested in a thread that shows the various papers concerning this topic. I don't want to take this thread off topic.

CO2 appears to raise temps in computer models....but that is computer models. Graphs over time show temps rise first, then CO2. Most AGW people have put the cart in front of the horse.

Hi Iceberg,

The one thing I'd add to that is that because only so much energy is released at these key wavelengths, there's a limit to how much can be blocked before the wavelength is essentially saturated and all outgoing radiation at that wavelength is blocked (don't ask me what that is though). To further complicate things there are probably other chemicals in the atmosphere also blocking at the same wavelengths. Another complication is the global spread of CO2 gases - a high percentage of outgoing radiation from the planet is obviously away from the equator and towards the poles, however if CO2 is not spread evenly across the planet, then that's going to complicate further the amount of radiation that it can absorb (either upwards or downwards).

I think this is where we probably mostly agree ie C02 is a greenhouse gas, but we differ on how significant it is.

Still haven't had a chance to get through all of David's book- although I have read some of it. I want to re-read the chapters relating to the lunar cycles and follow through on the references as it's not something I know too much about and it's obviously key to the whole theory.

It does seem plausible though that large tidal swings could shift pressure builts slightly (eg by shifting warm water/cold water masses). A movement of the subtropical high in the South Pacific northwards would be consistent with an increased pressure gradient in the key cold enso forming areas and upwelling off the coast of Peru - I guess a question for David (or other qualified meteorologist/climate scientist) would be this - how big a movement of the subtropical high pressure northwards in the south pacific is required to create la nina conditions and how big a la nina (if at all) could we expect from a 1 degree latitudinal shift towards the equator?

I think it's pretty obvious from the drop in global temps in the last year (and numerous other enso events) that enso can influence global climate - so a sustained run of more negative enso should have a cumulative effect on global climate due to the latent heat properties of the oceans.

:lol:

Some literature suggests that upwelling in the mid South Pacific helps to keep the waters cooler and then all of a sudden there is a wind shift in this area. This wind shift cuts off the upwelling and allows waters to warm dramatically and rapidly. Once this happens a slosh begins as the El Nino begins to mature.

The wind shift is likely due to the gravitationally induced shift of the tropical high. I have plotted all the PFM data and El Nino events since 1915 and all the El Nino events lined up with the PFM cycles.

It is likely a 3 or 4 degree shift in the high...mid latitudes this would be 240 miles. The shift could be a couple degree more though.

[beng]

Some literature suggests that upwelling in the mid South Pacific helps to keep the waters cooler and then all of a sudden there is a wind shift in this area. This wind shift cuts off the upwelling and allows waters to warm dramatically and rapidly. Once this happens a slosh begins as the El Nino begins to mature.

The wind shift is likely due to the gravitationally induced shift of the tropical high. I have plotted all the PFM data and El Nino events since 1915 and all the El Nino events lined up with the PFM cycles.

It is likely a 3 or 4 degree shift in the high...mid latitudes this would be 240 miles. The shift could be a couple degree more though.

Thanks David. I'll have a look through the el nino PFM data in the book tonight when I get home from work. Is it possible to print out the pages from the e-book? - I've not seen a print icon - it would make it a bit easier to read then (it's hard on the eyes staring at the e-book after a slog in the office).

Edited July 17, 2008 by beng

[Cycles]

Thanks David. I'll have a look through the el nino PFM data in the book tonight when I get home from work. Is it possible to print out the pages from the e-book? - I've not seen a print icon - it would make it a bit easier to read then (it's hard on the eyes staring at the e-book after a slog in the office).

The e-book is only available on that 1 computer and cannot be printed or sent to another computer.

I did not get into the computer in depth in the book, can answer questions though. At one time I was going to have an El Nino manuscript published in a journal but was having a tough time getting past the editor.....out of the box thinking, did not fit his thinking.

[Roo]

I did not get into the computer in depth in the book, can answer questions though. At one time I was going to have an El Nino manuscript published in a journal but was having a tough time getting past the editor.....out of the box thinking, did not fit his thinking.

Mr Dilley, I think, to keep making these accusations, you really need to give names: it is unfair to blacklist an editor (and by association, all journals) without giving them a chance to defend themselves. After all, if they have done this, then they will have to justify why and I am sure they wouldn't mind explaining.

Maybe I am being suspicious, but we only have your word about the 4 meteorologists, the rejections from journals, the various others involved in your work, etc, etc. You are very light on actual names.

For one, being turned down by a journal is not uncommon. It can happen because the journal has enough papers, because the paper does not fit the journal requirements...or because it fails peer review. If you had submitted your paper and it had been turned down for that reason, it would have been clearly stated to you. Would you mind telling us whether that is the case, and which journal you refer to?

Years ago, when I was very young, I read and was bowled over by "Chariot of the Gods

Hurrah for Von Daniken! :lol: Bet you read Graham Hancock too, didn't you?!

Edited July 17, 2008 by Roo

[osmposm]

Hurrah for Von Daniken! Bet you read Graham Hancock too, didn't you?!

Oh Lordy, no, Roo - his 'ground-breaking' books were much too recent to draw me in - 90s, I think.

I was young and impressionable almost a generation earlier: we're talking early 70s or even late 60s here, I am veeeeery old (that's me in my avatar playing in '63 snow aged 12). I was also big on ley lines for a while.

Edited July 17, 2008 by osmposm

[BUSHY]

Well here is an interesting turnaround

There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO₂ emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.

here

[Cycles]

Mr Dilley, I think, to keep making these accusations, you really need to give names: it is unfair to blacklist an editor (and by association, all journals) without giving them a chance to defend themselves. After all, if they have done this, then they will have to justify why and I am sure they wouldn't mind explaining.

Maybe I am being suspicious, but we only have your word about the 4 meteorologists, the rejections from journals, the various others involved in your work, etc, etc. You are very light on actual names.

For one, being turned down by a journal is not uncommon. It can happen because the journal has enough papers, because the paper does not fit the journal requirements...or because it fails peer review. If you had submitted your paper and it had been turned down for that reason, it would have been clearly stated to you. Would you mind telling us whether that is the case, and which journal you refer to?

Hurrah for Von Daniken! Bet you read Graham Hancock too, didn't you?!

Roo

The names are printed at the end of the e-Book. I am not hiding their names, but I will not be the one to splash their names all over the web.

Question....if I place their names on this site, will you place the names of all the reviewers of the thousand or more AGW related papers.

This forum is supposed to be a disucussion on the PFM research, not about reviewers.

Well here is an interesting turnaround here

And I presented my e-book CO2 tables and other findings concerning the PFM at a science meeting today.... was not a single person attending that refutted what I showed. Or in other words, they became very excited about my findings.

[Roger J Smith]

Naturally I have been interested in comparing this approach to my own research, and as of now, with the chance to get some clarification on a few points, my position would be as follows:

* The PFM as presented is problematic. There is no particular reason for a large amplitude index value based on lunar orbital positions with any periods other than 18.6 years and 8.86 years. Although these combine to give a 186-year cycle, that only modestly reinforces what amount to 10-20% variance peaks of significance in temperature.

* The postulated 231-year cycle, even if accepted as a statistical harmonic of a longer 925-year cycle, cannot be exclusively driven by lunar orbital variations. It may be the case that such a cycle exists in nature, but its cause must lie in some other area. In my own research I had identified more of a 240 to 250 year periodicity in long-term temperatures, and I had ascribed this to harmonics from about four sources, none of them lunar.

* The postulated longer-term cycles are misidentified consequences of the Milankovitch cycles of incoming solar radiation during which the Moon presumably provides the same second order forcing on the same 18.6 and 8.86 year cycles but is not an independent source of variability.

* El Nino and lunar orbital positions reveal a wide variety of cases and I cannot accept the postulated correlation on face value at all. For example, in the 1997-98 El Nino, the Moon was near declination minimum and about midway from southern to northern perigee. In the 1982-83 El Nino, the Moon was at average declination range and close to northern max perigee. In the 1925-26 El Nino event, it was fairly similar to 1982-83 as to declination, but near southern max perigee.

In my research I found that there were large solar system magnetic field sectors driving 80% of the variance leaving only about 20% for other sources including the Moon. I found that the El Nino was better predicted by disturbances in the J-field systems (Jupiter field sectors). Also, although the 7-year El Nino periodicity is quite approximate, there are no large harmonics in the lunar orbit at this interval. There is a 7.4 year periodicity of the asteroid Ceres interacting with the J-field system that correlates strongly with the El Nino. The next peak of that cycle comes around 2011-12. These are not the only interactions I found with significance, so it's a case of many slightly-differently timed harmonics of the J-field, which may explain why you tend to see strong El Ninos for a while, then weaker ones, as the harmonics separate.

Also in my research, the only significant signals I can associate with the Moon besides those of 18.6 and 8.86 years would be on the 27.32 day cycle and the slightly longer perigeean cycle of 27.55 days. These are fairly significant especially for the Toronto data but I have determined after three years of looking at UK weather in detail, that the signals are similar if perhaps of less amplitude, over western Europe. However, the research shows that the lunar signals are spatially incorporated into the atmosphere on an interference pattern grid so that some places show direct response and others indicate lagged response.

I remain open to a better explanation of the significance of the 231-year PFM primary cycle as postulated in this research but so far I have not been convinced by references to "syzygy declination" which I can only interpret as being the declination at full and new moon. This does not have any significantly different cycle from declination in general. Declination only changes marginally from case to case within the 18.6-year cycle due to second-order variations. These would not drive any longer term cycle.

I also find a major flaw in the theory would be its failure to incorporate larger demonstrated cycles that are clearly connected to planetary field sectors. For example, there is a large-amplitude (1.5 C deg) cycle equal to the synodic period of Mars in the Toronto temperature data (780 days). One-quarter of the 8.86-year lunar cycle, 2.215 years, would amount to 814 days and this would quickly decouple from the true signal here, however, there can be fairly long periods of overlap especially when Mars has two consecutive perihelion oppositions. In my own research, I also started out believing that the Moon exclusively drove weather variations, then found many signals that were clearly planetary and not lunar, so that my research focus shifted to a multi-factor model that is dominated by planetary factors.

The chance of my publishing this research in journals is slight due to complexity, and professional bias against external forcing mechanisms. I have estimated that my research approach might be accepted somewhere between 2700 AD and the end of time, with most estimates closer to the latter figure. As precise a summary as I can generate is available in the "advanced study" area of the learning forum here on Net-weather. I recommend anyone with ten years to spare might wish to go over there and get into it. This research did allow for two verifiable forecasts as you can find on the forum by checking back on the history of my posts particularly in December 2005 and March to June 2007. These include a reasonably accurate 30-day weather map for Dec 31, 2005, and a severe weather forecast for June 15, 2007.

Sorry to be so intrusive, but if the paradigm here is "look at this new theory about external forcing of the atmosphere" then compare and contrast, and draw your own conclusions. On the subject of the impartiality of the professional review process, this is a subject that brings me nothing but grief. In glacial geomorphology and continental drift, Agassiz and Wegener managed after most of a lifetime to break through their community's many taboos and barriers. Milankovitch had a long period of struggle before getting his ideas accepted, then rejected, then re-accepted. I don't expect to be anywhere near that fortunate, this is an even more stubborn and taboo-driven profession. As you all know, there is no shortage of individuals even outside the professional ranks here, who gladly cast the word "astrology" into the debate at the first opportunity then refuse any further thought process to develop.

I know that this research is significant. You would not find such a large temperature signal for planetary field sectors as I have found, and displayed right here on this forum, if there was not a real process at work over such a long period (160 years of data in the Toronto series, 350 years in the CET). These signals are real, and not particularly tiny either, if you combine ten or fifteen of them in a complex equation, you get a large chunk of variance explained. The theory I have developed is a lot more intellectually complex than this one, it does not all depend on accepting one driving cycle. That's why I use the 2700 to end of time range for acceptance.

As to the research that is being discussed in this thread, if some of you see significance in this 231-year cycle despite these objections, then I would suggest that you explore the viability of the theory in making predictions on any shorter time scales because if you accept the validity of a 231-year cycle it could be a thousand years before there is much indication of whether or not the theory is valid or invalid. Once again, I stress it is not the correlation with temperature reconstruction in the past that causes me any problems with this, it is the physical validity of the postulated PFM driving mechanism. But I suggest that a more careful examination may show a more complex and less spectacular correlation with a complex cycle of some length closer to 250 than 231 years. The current data may be adding on anomalous warmth from AGW so in global terms the peaks might be something like 980, 1230, 1480, 1730, 1980. But I would expect that each of those would be followed by a secondary peak at about 80 years later, so this postulated cooling trend could be a long time materializing, especially if AGW or sooty deposition are signal-degrading external factors.