Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation Rate Externally Driven and Do
They Affect Climate?
Ian R. G. Wilson
ABSTRACT
Evidence is presented to show that the phases of two of the Earth’s major climate systems, the North
Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), are related to changes in the
Earth’s rotation rate. We find that the winter NAO index depends upon the time rate of change of the
Earth’s length of day (LOD). In addition, we find that there is a remarkable correlation between the years
where the phase of the PDO is most positive and the years where the deviation of the Earth’s LOD from its
long-term trend is greatest.
In order to prove that the variations in the NAO and PDO indices are caused by changes in the Earth’s
rotation rate, and not the other way around, we show that there is a strong correlation between the times of
maximum deviation of the Earth’s LOD from its long-term trend and the times where there are abrupt
asymmetries in the motion of the Sun about the CM of the Solar System.
At first glance, there does not appear to be an obvious physical phenomenon that would link the Sun’s
motion about the Solar System’s CM to the Earth’s rotation rate. However, such a link could occur if the
rate of precession of the line-of-nodes of the Moon’s orbit were synchronized with orbital periods of
Terrestrial planets and Jupiter, which in turn would have to be synchronized with the orbital periods of the
three remaining Jovian planets. In this case, the orbital periods of the Jovian planets, which cause the
asymmetries in the Sun’s motion about the CM, would be synchronized with a phenomenon that is known to
cause variations in the Earth’s rotation rate, namely the long term lunar tides.
The periodicities seen in the asymmetry of the solar motion about the CM are all submultiples of the 179
year Jose cycle, with the dominant periods being 1/5 (= 35.87 yrs), 1/9 (= 19.86 yrs) and 1/14 (12.78 yrs).
In addition, the realignment time for the orbits of Venus, Earth and Jupiter is a ¼ of the 179 year Jose
cycle (= 44.77 yrs).
Through what appears to be a “Grand Cosmic Conspiracy” we find that:
6.393 yrs = (the 179 year repetition cycle of the Solar motion about the CM) / 28
6.396 yrs = (the 44.77 year realignment time for Venus, Earth, and Jupiter) / 7
which just happens to be realignment time for orbits of the planets Venus, Earth and Mars (= 6.40 yrs).
The significance of the 6.40 year repetition period is given added weight by the fact that if you use it to
modulate the sidereal year of the Earth/Moon system, the side-lobe period that is produced, almost
perfectly matches the 2nd harmonic time interval over which there are the greatest changes in the meridional and zonal tidal stresses acting upon the Earth (1 ¼ TD = 433.2751 days = 1.18622 years, where TD is the draconitic year).
We know that the strongest planetary tidal forces acting on the lunar orbit come from the planets Venus,
Mars and Jupiter. In addition, we known that, over the last 4.6 billion years, the Moon has slowly receded
from the Earth. During the course of this lunar recession, there have been times when the orbital periods of
Venus, Mars and Jupiter have been in resonance(s) with the precession rate for the line-of-nodes the lunar
orbit. When these resonances have occurred, they would have greatly amplified the effects of the planetary
tidal forces upon the lunar orbit. Hence, the observed synchronization between the precession rate of the
line-of-nodes of the lunar orbit and the orbital periods of Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter, could simply be
a cumulative fossil record left behind by these historical resonances.
———–
Ian has very generously made the whole paper available here. I am very grateful to him for sharing the fruits his hard work and dedication to the study of celestial mechanics and Earth science.
We originally corresponded about this paper two years ago, at which time Ian acknowledged the independence of my own work on LOD and solar inertial motion. Our two studies, using different LOD datasets and different solar motion indices (Ian’s in the x-y plane, mine in the z-axis) both reach the conclusion that planetary motion affects both solar motion and Earth rotation in similar ways. This mutual confirmation more importantly implies a spin orbit coupling between solar orbit and solar spin rates, providing a viable mechanism for a link between solar inertial motion and solar activity levels. This link is further confirmed by the correlations directly observed between the two.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
there is a strong correlation between the times of maximum deviation of the Earth’s LOD from its long-term trend and the times where there are abrupt asymmetries in the motion of the Sun about the CM of the Solar System
This means changes in eccentricity of the orbit of the Sun around the barycenter; the more eccentricity the higher the EM field component.
1.18, 1 and 6.4 are the components of the Chandler wobble.
http://www.john-daly.com/solar/solar.htm
Theodor Landscheidt: SOLAR ACTIVITY:A DOMINANT FACTOR IN CLIMATE DYNAMICS
“Cycles of big fingers have a mean length of 35.8 years (178.8 years [big hand] / 5 = 35.76 years [big fingers]). They are closely connected with solar activity. They coincide with maxima and minima in the Gleissberg cycle and open up the possibility of predicting these crucial phases many years ahead [62, 63]. As will be shown below, they also define the length of the 22.1-year magnetic cycle of sunspot activity (Hale cycle)”
But we’ll cover Landscheidt’s theory in the next few posts, let’s focus on Ian’s work here.
Tallbloke and Ian,
Ian has this stipulation:
“In order to prove that it is the changes in the Earth’s rotation rate that are responsible
for the variations seen in the NAO and PDO indices, and not the other way around, we
are required to show that the observed inter-decadal deviation in the Earth’s LOD are
synchronized with variations that are seen in a physical phenomenon that is external to
the Earth.”
This is plausible on the condition that you can demonstrate that variations in the physical phenomena that are external to the Earth are related to variations in the NAO and PDO? I can help with this.
The NAO is simply the Atlantic expression of the Arctic Oscillation Index which is a measure of the Northern Annular Mode..
The PDO is possibly an expression of the dynamics of the Northern Annular Mode as well because there are two areas where the coupled circulation in the Arctic winter atmosphere brings ozone into the troposphere, one in the Atlantic, strongest near Greenland and another in the north Pacific south of Kamchatka and Alaska.
So, really the climate dynamic that you are talking about is the result of the coupling of the stratosphere and the troposphere between December and February in the Arctic. This coupling is the main driver of Northern Hemisphere weather and climate and drives the short term jerks in ENSO that are most expressed in the months December to February.
The Arctic circulation is the mirror image of the much stronger coupling of the stratosphere and the troposphere over Antarctica that drives inter-hemispheric shifts in the mass of the atmosphere that modulate the expression of the Northern Annular mode via the influence of atmospheric pressure at the northern pole on the activity of the night jet…..driving ozone concentration in the northern stratosphere. Witness the marked cooling (ozone loss) associated with the Low AO index (high polar surface pressure) this last winter. Arctic Pressure was high because Antarctic pressure was low. But the poles are gaining pressure going forwards and this will be expressed as La Nina dominance in the Pacific.
The major driver is in Antarctica. This is where the surface pressure fluctuation really manifests. It is expressed as the Southern Annular Mode.
What I am about in my paper is showing how the joint influences of solar irradiance and the solar wind initiate the shifts in atmospheric mass that ultimately manifest as the Southern Annular Mode. The SAM drives the underlying long term shifts in ENSO that is simply the Pacific manifestation of changes in the global tropics that in turn is driven by change in mid latitude cloud cover directly driven by polar processes related to the SAM, solar irradiance and the solar wind.
It is the mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere where there is so much ocean that energy is accumulated or not accumulated depending upon cloud cover in southern summer when the Earth just happens to be closest to the sun. So, this expresses as a very strong variation of global temperature in January when the Earth is coolest.
Climate change relates to long term variation in the Southern Annular Mode.
I am not the only person on Earth noticing correlation between solar processes and the nature of the interaction between the mesosphere and the stratosphere over Antarctica.
The question is, can those changes to high pressure at the surface in the Arctic and Antarctic cause enough wind to push enough water towards the equator to account for the slowing down of Earth’s rate of spin and vise versa on a multi-decadal basis? So far as I’ve seen from looking at the LOD data, the changes in LOD associated with changes in atmospheric angular momentum on an inter-annual basis are about an order of magnitude smaller than the multi-decadal variations in LOD.
It looks to me like they are the subharmonic resonances of larger, longer term changes caused by the interplanetary perturbation which governs both LOD variation and the motion of the SUn with repect to the centre of mass of the solar system. So the question then becomes: Is gravity alone enough to account for this, or do we need Miles Mathis’ fundamental E/M field hidden inside Newton’s gravitation equation to help it along?
Tenuc pointed us to this Miles Mathis essay on changes to gravity during eclipses on the suggestions thread yesterday: http://milesmathis.com/allais.html
There is a link on that to his third paper on tides which I haven’t had time to read yet.
Tallbloke
Chapter 9
Change in the pressure differential driving the prevailing winds.
The heating cycle involves a strong increase in the differential pressure driving the westerlies in the southern hemisphere. That is a direct response to a fall in pressure at 60-70° south.and the accompanying increase at 30-40° latitude.
The NAO is simply the Atlantic expression of the Arctic Oscillation Index which is a measure of the Northern Annular Mode..
Agree. I do not see noticable correlation between the NAO and LOD, and if there is one than it would be the N. Atlantic anticlockwise subpolar gyre’s strength (driver of the NAO) affecting the LOD.
For the NAO’s current trend see bottom graph of
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAO-.htm
The NAO has entered negative phase, with important consequences for the North Atlantic basin’s climate.
“The NAO has entered negative phase, with important consequences for the North Atlantic basin’s climate.”
Like more whale sightings and increasing cod numbers. Just like the FAO (The American fisheries organisation) predicted from LOD considerations all those years ago. Adolfo has the link. But it’s not the NAO the FAO were correlating with LOD, it was global temperature swings, the PDO and fish stocks of various species in viarious geographic locations. I suspect the PDO is sensitive to input from both polar water regions, but the proportion vary, so you won’t see a neat correlation between NAO or AAO. Looking at an addition of the data might do something though. Erl?
Edit, hmm, the FAO doc is at ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e00.pdf but it seems to have had the table of contents links disabled.
Here’s the graph on Zonal ACI and cod numbers
IIRC they used LOD as the leading indicator of zonal ACI = Accumulated Cylcone Index?
Yep, here’s the page with the comnparison of LOD and zonal ACI
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y2787e/y2787e03a.htm#FiguraA
tallbloke says:
June 21, 2011 at 10:38 am
“…Like more whale sightings and increasing cod numbers. Just like the FAO (The American fisheries organisation) predicted from LOD considerations all those years ago. Adolfo has the link. But it’s not the NAO the FAO were correlating with LOD, it was global temperature swings…”
My cod, Rog, what an amazing result! Interesting that commercial fishery people use real correlations that work – I wonder if the use CO2 levels too, although I suspect they’ve got more sense… :-))
@Tenuc :
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
All:ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
and, Professor Leonid B. Klyashtorin of the Federal Institute for Fisheries and Oceanography, Moscow, Russian
Federation
e-mail: Klyashtorin (at) mtu-net.ru
And Scafetta´s paper: http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf
A synthesis: http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm
@Vuk: I do not see noticable correlation between the NAO and LOD…..Different wires (one at Hudson Bay and the other at Siberia?)
Hiya Tallbloke.
Just had a shifty around the site. Really neat. How come all the best blogging sceptics are bikers?
Pointman
Hey, welcome in Pointman:and thanks.
I reckon bikers are more self propelled with individuality. And all my biker mates think so too. 😉
Night Wolves – Russian bikers ‘pack’ arriving today to my hometown in Montenegro.
Vuk, I see the Russian guys like American bikes. All of them on Harleys. I always liked V twins myself. Here’s mine:
@Tallbloke: It´s not a bike, it´s a machine!
@Tallbloke. I like the hall of shame and hall of fame idea. Perhaps something similar could apply to the predictions menu? There’s lots of scope on the shame side, we’re spoilt for choice; the looming ice age of the 70s, acid rain, the ozone hole, various bio pandemics, the sixth wave of mass extinction, sinking archipelagos, rising oceans, melting ice caps, resource wars of the 80s that never happened, climate refugees, global warming etc etc. Perhaps accompanied by a few choice quotes from the likes of Hansen. LOL
Pointman
Pointman says:
June 22, 2011 at 11:34 am
“@Tallbloke. I like the hall of shame and hall of fame idea. Perhaps something similar could apply to the predictions menu? There’s lots of scope on the shame side, we’re spoilt for choice; the looming ice age of the 70s, acid rain, the ozone hole, various bio pandemics, the sixth wave of mass extinction, sinking archipelagos, rising oceans, melting ice caps, resource wars of the 80s that never happened, climate refugees, global warming etc etc…”
Good idea, Pointman. If you open it out to include ‘hard sciences’, then we could go for a really long list…
Big bang – black holes – dark matter – Higgs boson – vacuum energy – virtual electron – messenger photon – graviton – etc, etc…
I wonder if LBK’s FAO tech report was sent over to IPPC in 2001?
Time based on the rotation of the earth with reference to the background of stars……