My thanks to Lawrence Wilson, who has taken the time and trouble to continue investigating the controversy around the question of the focus of Earth’s orbit. This has an important bearing on the climate debate, as quite large swings in TSI will occur if the Earth orbits the solar system barycentre (SSB) rather than the Sun-Earth barycentre. Surprisingly, expert opinion seems to be that the Earth doesn’t orbit the Sun, but the SSB. I’m awaiting a reference to Newton’s calculations. All I’ve ever seen is a small illustration showing an ellipse around the sun, not an epitrochoid. This leaves me uncertain that Newton ever did detailed calculations resolving this issue.
Solar Inertial Motion – Earth/Sun Displacement
Lawrence Wilson – 19 Feb 2013
The phenomenon of SIM was defined mathematically by Isaac Newton, his conclusion being that all planets followed a primary orbit around the SSB (their primary orbital foci) rather than the CofM of the Sun, indeed the Sun itself also proceeding on a seemingly ‘haphazard’ orbital dance around the SSB.
[Editor’s note] Newton states that: “The focus of the orbit of the Earth [is] in the common centre of gravity of Venus, Mercury and the Sun.” – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy Vol III pp28
In more technical terms its path is described as an epitrochoid, a path which is near repetitive each 178 years. Scientists subsequent to Newton who have studied the phenomenon and its potential implications, such as Jose, Landscheit, Fairbridge, Charvatova and numbers of others too, have independently validated Newton’s analysis.
Richard Mackey in his essay on the related work of Rhodes Fairbridge describes it in this way:-
The general form of the sun’s barycentric orbit is an epitrochoid, a big circle continuous with a little ring nestling asymmetrically inside it. At one phase, the orbit is nearly circular, almost two solar diameters in diameter. At another phase, the Sun is impelled on a backward, or retrograde, journey in which it undergoes a tight loop-the-loop, crossing over its own path in a loop that is less than one solar radius. The epitrochoid’s asymmetric ring arises from the sun undergoing the retrograde loop-the-loop.
No alignment of the planets in relation to the Sun repeats itself exactly, because the solar system is
chaotic, containing intrinsic randomness. As a result, no two epitrochoid-shaped solar orbits are the same. Nevertheless, they can be classified into eight distinctive patterns, each of about 179 years duration, which is also the time taken for the planets to occupy approximately the same positions again relative to each other and the sun. In this time the sun completes about nine orbits, or one planetary cycle.
[Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate
Richard Mackey, Canberra, ACT 2600 Australia, epitrochoid@hotmail.com ]
The question of the relationship between Earth and Sun (E/S) via the SIM phenomenon has been a subject of debate on the Tallbloke blog on several occasions, with some debaters saying, a) – Earth is locked in orbit of the Sun (meaning its major orbital foci is the Sun’s CofM, or more precisely the E/S barycentre), whilst, b) – others say that Earth primarily orbits the SSB (meaning its major orbital foci is the SSB), and yet others or at least one other on one occasion having a dollar each way saying it’s a bit of each – whatever that means.
Others again say that the difference between a) and b) is so very small that it is insignificant from the point of view of Astronomy/Astrophysics, and quite possibly this is correct. But is it correct for all purposes. There is a body of science and mathematical computation which strongly suggests it is not correct for all purposes, indeed significantly in the context of the climate change debate.
The most recent thread of debate is that in the preceeding material of this thread. At the time I did have some more material almost ready to post, but a series of most interesting posts by Ninderthana with numbers of references, all to do with measurement of the Sun’s diameter, which he provided delayed my posting further. (see these above)
Having got the Christmas/New Year distractions out of the way, I focussed on studying each of those references, and reviewing other material I had on the subject, and following up on the very interesting December 2nd post by Clive Best, in which Clive quoted a response he had received from Dr Greg Kopp, lead scientist on the NASA/JPL Sorce-TIM project (see Dec. 2nd above).
As I reread Greg’s response one of his paragraphs in particular captured my mental processes, and I requote it here:-
“…….In our orbital corrections, we use the JPL ephemeris VSOP87, which accounts for the positions of all the planets in the solar system as well as the Moon to make our Sun-Earth distance corrections to a fixed 1-AU; so you shouldn’t see any lunar signal in the ‘tsi_1au’, but you should (as you do) in the ‘tsi_true_earth’. This ephemeris also includes effects such as that the Sun itself rotates around the center of mass of the solar system, which, thanks to Jupiter, is close to the Sun’s surface and has a ~12-year period……”
And in particular, the last sentence of this para. As I interpreted that sentence, Greg was telling us that in adjusting their raw recordings to 1AU, the ephemeris they used (JPL ephemeris VSOP87), in addition to Earth/Moon variance, planet to planet variance, and Earth/Sun elliptical variance, also recognised and included Earth/Sun distance variations caused by the Solar Inertial Motion phenomenon.
In other words he was saying Earth (and all planets) orbited the SSB and not the Sun’s CofM (or the E/S B). Indeed, were this not the case, why would he even need to mention it?
To be sure of my interpretation I decided to seek direct contact with Greg to gain explicit confirmation: which I did, and which I got. I lay out the communication between Greg and I further below. I also comment further below on the Sun diameter measurement reports by Ninderthana.
But prior to that I would like to advise this forum about other investigative exploration I have initiated on this matter over the past six or eight months with astrophysicists at three universities, in Australia, England and USA where the question was put to them. I did allude to having started that process of enquiry earlier last year in an earlier thread on this subject, and Howard Bailey made reference to it also in his post of Dec.30th above. I supplied all of this information to the Bailey’s as it is fundamental to the Bailey Solarchord hypothesis; the universities’ responses are now reported on the Solarchord website, but I now set it out here:-
The essential question was put to several eminent astronomers/astrophysicists at distinguished universities around the western world; one at Cambridge, two (independently) at Swinburne, and two (independently as far as we know) at Cornell. I quote and paraphrase their responses here:-
Swinburne A (an ‘in person’ discussion): “It’s just not a matter of debate around the world of astrophysicists – it’s quite accepted and long accepted as solidly founded Newtonian science that all planets orbit the Barycentre whilst the Sun does its own related dance around the Barycentre.” Further this AP stated that many other astro-scientists, post Newton, including such as the Australian Rhodes Fairbridge have tested the proposition and come down totally convinced that it is the case. Amongst Astronomers at large it is simply not debated at all.
Swinburne B (via email): “The Earth and all the planets in the Solar System orbit the barycentre and not the Sun. The Sun is gravitationally perturbed by the planets (Jupiter in particular) and we can measure the motion of the Sun (see for example ‘Solar wobble caused by Jupiter’ –
http://sim.jpl.nasa.gov/images/solarwobble_high.tif and http://sim.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videosAnimations/).
The International Astronomical Union defines the origin of the International Celestial Reference System to be the Solar System’s barycentre, so they’re very keen to get that right! A lot of effort (and money) goes into high precision astrometry using VLBI (very long baseline interferometry). For more details, see -”
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/ICRS_doc.php
http://www.iers.org/
http://www.ga.gov.au/earth-monitoring/geodesy/geodetic-techniques/very-long-baseline-interferometry-vlbi.html
Cambridge: (via email)“………it is quite correct, when discussing the internal dynamics of the solar system, to regard all the bodies — Sun, planets, asteroids, etc — to be orbiting about the common centre of mass.”
“I looked briefly at what Bailey has to say, and so far as what is in the brief outline in the first link you gave me, his statements about the true TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) are basically correct. I have not checked the details of what he claims to have happened between 2002 and 2007; it is not the most pertinent calculation to perform. What I did do was to estimate the irradiance variation on a decadal timescale arising from variations in the Earth-Sun distance brought about by Jupiter and Saturn.
On a timescale of 30 years or so, that variation is about 1.5 per cent, which induces a variation in irradiance on Earth of 3 per cent, namely about 40 Watts per square metre. So Bailey’s calculated 28 Watts per square metre over a particular interval of very roughly comparable yet rather shorter duration is quite plausible. I shall stay away from any debate about whether or not such a natural variation is ‘acceptable’ — it cannot be otherwise.”
Cornell A1 (via email):“Technically, what is going on is that the Sun, Earth and all the planets are orbiting around the centre of mass of the Solar System.
This is actually how planets orbiting other stars are often detected, by searching for the motion of the stars they orbit that is caused by the fact that the star is orbiting the center of mass of the system, causing it to wobble on the sky.
The center of mass of our solar system is very close to the Sun itself, but not exactly at the Sun’s center (it is actually a little bit outside the radius of the Sun). However, since almost all of the mass within the solar system is contained in the Sun, its motion is only a slight wobble in comparison to the motion of the planets. Therefore, assuming that the Sun is stationary and the planets revolve around its center is a good enough approximation for most purposes.”
Cornell A2 (via email): “Actually, both the Sun and the planets move around each other with their center of mass lying at the focus of the elliptical orbits. However, since the Sun contains 99.9% of the mass of the solar system, the center of mass is located almost at the Sun and so it looks like the planets are going around the Sun”
Cornell B (via email): “Sorry for the very slow reply. This kind of thing is best explained with pictures but I have limited time so I’ll do my best with words. The short answer is that your suggested answer to your own question is right.” [The inquirer’s suggested answer was that the Earth and all planets orbit the solar system barycentre)
“As I’m sure you know, there are many complications to orbits besides eccentricity – planets do all kinds of crazy things besides go in ellipses – that’s why celestial mechanics is so complicated. For the purposes of this discussion though, let’s just assume all planets go in perfect ellipses. It’s a pretty good approximation, that’s why we call it Kepler’s first law even if it’s not strictly correct. Secondly, the motion of the sun is chaotic because it’s got lots of planets pulling it around but for here let’s just consider Jupiter as the only planet that tugs on the sun significantly even though Saturn also has a large effect.
All of these ellipses have a particular focus on which they orbit. (Ellipses have two foci but one is useful for astronomy and the other not so much). The focus is the center of mass of the whole solar system. Jupiter therefore will always orbit such that it’s focus is always the solar system’s barycenter. The Earth will also orbit such that it’s focus stays put at the solar system’s barycenter and so on and so on.
The sun is included too – it travels in an ellipse around the solar system’s barycenter. Therefore, the sun will appear to have a wobble with respect to the Earth’s focus – it will seem to get closer and farther with a rate close to 1 Earth year (with a small correction due to Jupiter’s slow orbit). If we take our assumptions of perfect ellipses away and put in the gravitational effect of Saturn and the rest of the planets with respect to the sun, all planet’s will see a tiny chaotic “wobble” of the sun as it gets slightly closer and farther.”
Cornell also referred to this animated site for interest
http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/extrasolarplanets/ca_extrasolarplanets_starwobble.html
Notes on the university responses
Only Cambridge was alerted that the context of the question was the Climate Change debate; accordingly the response arrived with some related commentary, and the respondent actually went to the trouble of doing wattage computations, confirming Frederick Bailey’s analysis. Others were not so alerted, the question being put in a purely astronomical processes context.
As will be seen all parties responded in the positive without equivocation, some adding their certain knowledge that astronomers and APs at large agreed with their position.
Respondents are not here named; their approval has not been sought but may be sought if relevant for ensuing serious enquiry after website posting; it is noteworthy that two of the respondents are at the most senior levels in their respective institutions. LAPW, Dec.30, 2012
Dr Greg Kopp Exchanges
I now lay out here the email exchanges with Greg Kopp:-
My first email of Jan. 28, and Greg’s response
Dear Greg
May I put a query to you which follows on from a posting by Clive Best on the Tallbloke blog December 2 last where Clive refers to your response to a question he had put to you earlier last year. https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/tsi-sorce-and-a-signature/
Here’s what Clive posted, with your response in italics – the part I am interested in is the para I’ve highlighted in yellow – my query follows below –
‘I emailed Greg Kopp (lead scientist on SORCE-TIM) last January about the lunar signal that pops out once the Earth’s elliptic orbital effects have been subtracted. He was kind enough to reply, explaining their analysis, thus both earning my deep respect for his scientific integrity and the professionalism of the TIM group’s data analysis. His reply helps explain the TSI data processing.
“The residual you show does not appear in our ‘tsi_1au’ value because we correct for the lunar effect on the Earth’s orbit (and many others). We produce the 1-AU corrected TSI for people studying the Sun’s output; and we produce the ‘tsi_true_earth’ value for those, such as climate modelers, wanting direct radiative inputs to the Earth’s system. Thus the ‘tsi_true_earth’ appropriately does not remove the effect of the lunar tug on the Earth, since that does affect the at-Earth radiative inputs.
In our orbital corrections, we use the JPL ephemeris VSOP87, which accounts for the positions of all the planets in the solar system as well as the Moon to make our Sun-Earth distance corrections to a fixed 1-AU; so you shouldn’t see any lunar signal in the ‘tsi_1au’, but you should (as you do) in the ‘tsi_true_earth’.
This ephemeris also includes effects such as that the Sun itself rotates around the center of mass of the solar system, which, thanks to Jupiter, is close to the Sun’s surface and has a ~12-year period.
We also correct for spacecraft effects, which include Sun-instrument distance changes due to the spacecraft’s low Earth orbit. These are comparable to the lunar effects (+/- 14000 km) and occur on 95-minute orbital time scales. And we apply Doppler corrections, as the instrument collects blue-shifted photons depending on its radial velocity toward the Sun, whether due to the spacecraft’s or the Earth’s orbital motions. These are ~50 ppm corrections over the spacecraft’s 95-minute orbital period.
If I’m understanding your lunar calculation correctly, you’re starting to apply some of the neat physics subtleties in these data — and now hopefully also starting to appreciate some of the many other corrections that we apply to make the accurate 1 AU data.”
He also pointed out that their latest value of TSI is 1360.8 W/m^2 at solar minimum (ref. Kopp & Lean 2011), which is considerably lower than the older 1367 W/m^2 value adopted by most IPCC models’
My Query – As I interpret the yellow highlighted para, it is referring to the Jovians driven Solar Inertial Motion phenomenon and the additional separation distance it causes between Earth and Sun. Firstly would you confirm that my understanding with this is correct.
Secondly, could you advise me how (and where) I may identify within JPL Ephemeris VSOP87 what is the magnitude of the additional E/S separation distance due to SIM only for each year over the period this data has been compiled or perhaps for a sample of years which would illustrate the typical magnitude. My understanding has been that E/S separation distances of up to over two solar radii may occur due to SIM, although infrequently at this level, but distances of up to one solar radius are not uncommon, perhaps regularly within a solar cycle period of 11 to 12 years.
I am an amateur ‘citizen scientist’, retiree aged 77 with lifelong interest in astronomy and astrophysics sciences. Chemical Engineer and Business management background. Location Melbourne, Australia
Appreciate any guidance you are able to offer.
Many thanks
Laurie Wilson
PS: Not sure how JPL creates names for its Ephemerides, but VSOP87 sure sounds like a good French cognac
Greg’s reply of Feb.2 was imbedded in my emailed message – to minimise repetition I have deleted much of the text here:-
“Hi Laurie,
Sorry for the delay responding. I’ve had to let e-mail pile up this week while I’ve tried to finish a long analysis report I just submitted this morning.
It was great to see the nice things Clive had to say about my reply from last year. Thanks for sending along that link!
I’ll embed my replies in your message below. Enjoy!
Greg”
My Query – As I interpret the yellow highlighted para, it is referring to the Jovians driven Solar Inertial Motion phenomenon and the additional separation distance it causes between Earth and Sun. Firstly would you confirm that my understanding with this is correct.
“Yes, that’s correct. The Sun really isn’t the center of mass of the solar system. Jupiter is the primary cause of displacing that center of mass to a point that’s near the solar surface. The other planets generally don’t cause so large an effect, being much less massive; although Saturn is close, with half the mass being out at twice the distance.”
Secondly, could you advise me how (and where) I may identify within JPL Ephemeris VSOP87 what is the magnitude of the additional E/S separation distance due to SIM only for each year over the period this data has been compiled or perhaps for a sample of years which would illustrate the typical magnitude. My understanding has been that E/S separation distances of up to over two solar radii may occur due to SIM, although infrequently at this level, but distances of up to one solar radius are not uncommon, perhaps regularly within a solar cycle period of 11 to 12 years.
“I couldn’t tell you how to get those values out of VSOP87 directly; but you can figure out the effect directly on the back of a napkin, and here’s how:
Jupiter’s mass is about 2e27 kg at 5 AU (1 AU = 1.5e8 km)
The Sun’s mass is 2e30 kg with radius 7e5 km
The center of mass of those two is thus separated from the center of the Sun by distance
R = distance of Jupiter * mass of Jupiter / mass of Sun = 5 AU * 2e27 kg / 2e30 kg = 5e-3 AU = 7.5e5 km, which is just larger than the radius of the Sun. Neat, huh?
You can apply the same techniques for Saturn, which is nearly comparable, and Neptune, which has the next biggest effect. You’ll see that if they do all add up together (i.e. if they are all in a line on the same side of the Sun), they can move the CM to about what you say, 2 radii from the Sun.
After doing those quick calculations, you’ll especially enjoy that cognac!”
My second email of Feb. 2nd to Greg and his response:-
Many thanks Greg
That’s most helpful for me in getting clarity in my thinking about these things.
As I now understand it, extending the maths model you laid out in the second part – if I were to calculate in like manner the Moment for each of the planets, Earth included, at any point in their multiple orbital circuits, applying appropriate vector adjustments for each and then total these forces, that would give me an ‘aggregate’ planetary centre of mass and the consequent balancing Moment and position of the Sun.
One final thing – I trust you will be happy for me to quote you if the occasion arises in blog debate such as Clive Best did on Tallbloke.
All the best with your fascinating research with Univ. Colorado, and NASA.
Cheers
Laurie
Greg’s Response of Feb.2nd:-
“Hi Laurie,
Yes, that’s right, on both accounts – the vector addition of forces and quoting me.
The ephemerides take these calculations another step by including all the interactions between multiple bodies, such as how Saturn affects Jupiter and other planets simultaneously. But that’s what computers are for – too much to fit on the back of our napkin!
Happy weekend,
Greg”
Finally on Ninderthana’s contributions re Sun diameter measurement:-
The six or seven references to learned papers which Ninderthana quoted in his posts above were extremely interesting and informative for me. However in a couple of them reference was made to the process of adjusting their raw measurements to a standard 1AU; just as we now find the SORCE/TIM data is adjusted, and as now confirmed by Greg Kopp inclusive within the ephemeride data is the Earth/Sun SIM displacement distance.
I could not find in these papers reference to precisely how they did that adjustment, and that is something I intend to follow up on if I can with the authors. But I’ll bet pounds to peanuts they too use the NASA/JPL ephemerides for this purpose, so that the SIM component is also factored out. In doing so they finish up with precisely what it is they are setting out to measure – the Sun’s real diameter and not an ‘apparent diameter’ which they would record if these 1AU adjustments were not made.
One last note probably previously known to all but me, JPL Ephemeris VSOP87 is apparently the creation of a French institution (can’t remember which) and is widely used including by JPL/NASA. The JPL/NASA ephemerides set found on their Horizons resource produces almost the same results – I ran out a dozen or so and they varied only after the 5th decimal place by minor amounts.
Lawrence Wilson
February 19, 2013
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
I wonder what replies Lawrence would have got if he’d asked:
“Does Earth orbit the Sun-Earth barycentre or the solar system barycentre?”
So much confusion or should I say generalization, even among the “experts”, not one hit it on the head. First, it was mentioned that the Earth’s orbit is not 1AU, even the mean, that is so true. Second, why in the world are you referencing the VSOP87 ephemeris? Read up on it and it’s traits, it is “adjusted” and idealized, fitted. Why not use the DE405 or DE406? Those are the real, more precise and up-to-date ephemerides.
Everyone here that really wants to know the exact answer to that question needs to download the software used to compute such ephemerides and even the Horizon system itself and dig into it until you find the inner acceleration loops.
By saying all of the planets orbit the SSB is much better than saying they orbit the sun’s CoM or the E/M barycenter… but, yet, they are all slightly wrong, but being very technically here. Each body orbits a point calculated from all of the other bodies excluding itself, a body does not gravitate itself. So of course each body has it’s own instantaneous point of revolution or attraction, one focus of the ever changing ellipse. And these points of attraction are themselves always changing because all of the “other” bodies are all in motion. This is exactly the same for the sun, it is just one of the bodies and it is calculated no different from the rest, in it’s case, all of the other bodies BUT the sun.
Another way to put that is for each body you calculate the center of mass of all of the other bodies excluding itself. That is the point that the vector sum radial acceleration vector for that one body points at. At the same time you also calculate the sum attraction (acceleration) of all of the other bodies. Do that for each body (sun is just one of them, never treated different). Now you can advance all a tiny amount, then repeat, about at least a thousand or thousands of times per orbit. If you can visualize this you now know what the Earth orbits.
If all bodies merely orbited the SSB it would be so HUGELY easier and faster by a factor of 210:1 in my case to create an accurate ephemeris but I am afraid that jsut is not so. Using the Mercury thru Pluto plus the Sun you have 10 x 9 or ninety steps of rather complex calculations to calculate each small time step and with some symmetry tricks you can get this down to 45. To get better get the best integrator. To get closer still include the five big asteroids. To get better still include relativity.
So when you hear all of these “experts” telling you that everything orbits the SSB, take that with a grain of salt, it is very close but not precise. But definitely it is not the center of the sun or a Sun/Body CoM.
Not worded well I know, in a hurry, but if you need clarification, just ask. 🙂
@wayne: “each body orbits a point calculated from all of the other bodies excluding itself” .. then you could not have an orbital system with two bodies. CoM it is for two bodies, not necessarily for three (Sun – Earth – Moon), but for planets the CoM of the Solar System is a good approximation.
Curious George, you misunderstood what I was saying a bit. “.. then you could not have an orbital system with two bodies. “, yes you can and that is exactly the way a two body set of bodies is calculated, the acceleration of the other excluding itself. Look into some ephemeris software.
And CoM is not for just a two body system, that is calculated each step or so to zero out any round-off errors (and they are always there) to keep the entire solar system centered on the screen if you are displaying it, otherwise it will slowly move about and eventually even move off the screen if zoomed in. That CoM IS the SSB.
I’ve not noticed anything significant.
For TSI you need to orbit the sun, not that it matters in simulation what is being orbited, distance to sun remains same answer.
If the suggestion is ephemeris is wrong, it clearly acts predictively, check say mercury or venus transits. It is not accurate but the errors are far too small to be of any TSI concern.
It’s a different matter outside of the intended timeframe of ephemeris, then orbital models such as VSOPxx are the thing to use.
Paris Observatory http://www.obspm.fr/
Which part? Start here http://www.obspm.fr/departementetservices/depart.en.shtml
Re Tallbloke Feb. 21
“I wonder what replies Lawrence would have got if he’d asked:
‘Does Earth orbit the Sun-Earth barycentre or the solar system barycentre?’
I suppose that’s a reasonable question to ask, and as the opportunity presents itself I’ll put that question back to them all. Remember my question was placed in the context of the earlier threads of discussion (December and July) which focused to Earth’s primary orbital foci being of the CofM of Sun or CofM of Solar System. However, these people are not amateurs or ninkampoops, and their responses, all, could not have been more explicit or less equivocal in saying very clearly it is the SSB, the Cambridge Professor even going voluntarily to doing calculations confirming those of Bailey. Had they believed it to be the ESB I feel sure they would have said so; as I say they are all very aware of all the aspects of SS dynamics. But, I’ll ask.
However I’ll be the first to acknowledge that ‘authority’ in itself is far from the final word on anything, although as I’ve mentioned, two of the respondents are at the highest levels (and I mean the highest) within their respective university institutions. But perhaps they are all wrong, do you really think ?
Then of course perhaps the strongest evidential response is that from Greg Kopp which is also explicitly clear. And he, as Clive Best noted and I have confirmed (Google his resume), is lead scientist on the SORCE_TIM team within Univ. Colorado’s AP department, and NASA/JPL’s team. So, maybe he has it all wrong too ? – I think not.
Also re Tallbloke –
“I’m awaiting a reference to Newton’s calculations. All I’ve ever seen is a small illustration showing an ellipse around the sun, not an epitrochoid. This leaves me uncertain that Newton ever did detailed calculations resolving this issue.”
I didn’t suggest Newton described SIM motion as an epitrochpoid – he certainly did not I think – If I recall correctly it was Jose or one of those later scientists who so described the motion, and others who drew images of it as it travelled its 178 year circuit. The two people I am ware who have an intimate knowledge of Newton’s mathematics in this context are Richard Mackey, and Frederick Bailey – no doubt there are many others. It would be great of these or others would join the debate and elaborate further on this. Other scientists have described the SIM motion in analgous ways – Fairbridge, Charvatova more recently, et al.
Re Wayne says: – February 21, 2013 at 12:58 am
“So much confusion or should I say generalization, even among the “experts”, not one hit it on the head. First, it was mentioned that the Earth’s orbit is not 1AU, even the mean, that is so true. Second, why in the world are you referencing the VSOP87 ephemeris? Read up on it and it’s traits, it is “adjusted” and idealized, fitted. Why not use the DE405 or DE406? Those are the real, more precise and up-to-date ephemerides.”
Confusion/generalisation – well Wayne we obviously have differing perceptions of clarity and confusion – I think the essence of their responses is quite crystal clear and explicitly answers the question put – ‘hits it on the head in fact’. Yes there are a few bits of text in some responses which elaborate in different ways, but nothing contradictory; and I could have deleted some of it in the post to confine to the essential element, but I decided to lay it out just as they responded.
Why did I refer to VSOP87 – well, because that’s the ephemeris that Greg Kopp in his response to Clive said they were using. You suggest they should be using one of the Horizons’ ephemerides – as I mentioned in my report I was interested to see how much difference there would be if an Horizon’s ephemeride was used, that’s why I ran a series of comparisons and found the differences amounted to SBA if you’ll pardon the vernacular. I can’t quite recall which Horizons ephemeris I used but pretty sure it was a DE40? something – I’ll check back on it.
But once again you are not really questioning my process but that of Greg and NASA/JPL, and whilst I have to agree that NASA/JPL have been well known for getting some things wrong, on balance, and particularly as I myself don’t have all the necessary expertise to fully appraise and judge, I would have to lean their and Greg’s way on this until I or better still, they acknowledge they’ve got it wrong.
Re Wayne –
“By saying all of the planets orbit the SSB is much better than saying they orbit the sun’s CoM or the E/M barycenter… but, yet, they are all slightly wrong, but being very technically here. Each body orbits a point calculated from all of the other bodies excluding itself, a body does not gravitate itself. So of course each body has it’s own instantaneous point of revolution or attraction, one focus of the ever changing ellipse. And these points of attraction are themselves always changing because all of the “other” bodies are all in motion. This is exactly the same for the sun, it is just one of the bodies and it is calculated no different from the rest, in its case, all of the other bodies BUT the sun.”
From all that I have read and studied as I have proceeded on my journey of learning in this field, I agree with this. It is, as I have read it, the ‘n’ body computational problem – everything affects everything and is perpetually changing; nothing is ever quite the same; the 178 year epitrochoid is never repetitive, always slightly different each cycle. Thousands and thousands of calculations as you say Wayne – and that, as Greg has said is why we have computers which necessarily get bigger and bigger.
But Wayne you have also said some of this gets quite technical and I believe whilst it may be significant for some applications eg, deep space stuff), I don’t think it is for purposes of short term (meaning multidecadal, decennial, millennial – but maybe not for multi-holocene/glaciation periods) climate analysis.
As to – “So when you hear all of these “experts” telling you that everything orbits the SSB, take that with a grain of salt, it is very close but not precise.”
Yes, scepticism is the essence of robust scientific process, no doubt at all about that. But such as amateurs like myself we have to have some guidance from those who follow the scientific process and are much advanced in their knowledge and understanding. In this context, short term climate cycling, I do think we would find such differences as might exist would be of minor significance.
But I appreciated your insights and thoughts, all of which I find adds to one’s comprehension of what’s going on in this fascinating field of scientific exploration.
Cheers – Lawrence
BTW – I have not disclosed names of the university respondents and could not without their permission. However I would be happy to disclose them to Tallbloke in confidence should he wish. I suspect he will know at least one of them and possibly a couple.
Lawrence
This graph using JPL data tells the whole story. The Earth/Moon barycentre orbits the Sun. The data is verified and beyond question.
re ephemeride comparisons – I used DE405
Wayne says:
Each body orbits a point calculated from all of the other bodies excluding itself, a body does not gravitate itself. So of course each body has it’s own instantaneous point of revolution or attraction, one focus of the ever changing ellipse. And these points of attraction are themselves always changing because all of the “other” bodies are all in motion.
Yes, but in the Earth’s case, not very much. I agree with Wayne that The focus of Earth’s orbit will move a bit from the Sun-Earth barycentre due to the changing disposition of the rest of the planets, but the accelerations on the Earth caused by the other planets are tiny compared to that caused by the Sun, so it won’t stray far from the Earth Sun barycentre.
As Geoff Sharp’s plot above shows, the Sun Earth distance changes in a steady and consistent manner over the annual orbit as it moves from perihelion to aphelion. This is because the Earth-Moon system is orbiting the Earth-Moon / Sun barycentre (give or take tiny variances caused by the gravitational attraction between it and other planets). If Lawrence or the Baileys disagree with that, they need to get a lot more clarity into their argument regarding any ‘adjustments’ they believe are made to epehmerides such as DE405. Greg Kopp may be able to write numbers on napkins, but this doesn’t prove anything.
Lawrence says:
I didn’t suggest Newton described SIM motion as an epitrochpoid – he certainly did not I think – If I recall correctly it was Jose or one of those later scientists who so described the motion, and others who drew images of it as it travelled its 178 year circuit.
Here’s the sentence Lawrence opened his article with:
The phenomenon of SIM was defined mathematically by Isaac Newton, his conclusion being that all planets followed a primary orbit around the SSB (their primary orbital foci) rather than the CofM of the Sun,
To the best of my knowledge, Newton never made any such statement. I await the reference to “his conclusion”. Newton did however believe that the centre of mass of the system would change as the large planets moved from conjunction to opposition in their orbits. But I’m not aware of any conclusions regarding the orbits of the smaller planets. I’d like Mr Bailey to stop hiding behind his book price and give us the beef, or at least the reference to what Newton said.
Hello, though I find *every* discussion of the Sun/Earth distance exiting (and respect the opinions), I personally wouldn’t go into an academic theater for a “Sun/Earth distance” onstage performance.
Instead, there is GREGOR solar telescope on Tenerife island “one of the most powerful solar telescopes of the world” and the science crew has posted a report http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.4289 about WHAT they measure and HOW they measure (solar variability, enigmatic [their word, not mine!] heating mechanisms, references to other solar telescopes, etc).
I’ll be on Tenerife island in late summer and try to ask the GREGOR crew for their Solar Cycle and Terrestrial Climate data.
Think about it. Let’s assume that they are right and the Earth does, in fact, orbit the centre-of-mass of the Solar System (CMSS), rather than the centre of the Sun.
The location of this CMSS relative to the Sun’s centre is primarily determined by Jupiter and Saturn. When Jupiter and Saturn line up on the same side of the Sun every 19.858 years, the CMSS will be drawn out about 1.5 million km from the centre of the Sun.
Hence, there will be times when the Sun is directly between the CMSS and the Earth and so the Sun will be 1.5 million km closer than normal to the Earth, and there will be times when the CMSS will between the Sun and the Earth, so the the Sun will be 1.5 million km further away than normal.
The net effect is that Sun will move towards and away from the Earth by 1.5 million km over the cause of decades. This will change the apparent diameter of the Sun by a considerable amount.
If we compare the size of the Sun when it is closest to when it is furthest away we should see
a change in apparent subtended diameter (Dtheta) of
DTheta/Theta = DR/R
Where DR = the change the distance between the Earth and the Sun (R).
DR/R is roughly 3 million km/150 million km = 0.02
Given that the Sun’s diameter is ~ 30 arc minutes this corresponds to a change in diameter
of the Sun ~ 36 arc seconds!
Seriously, don’t you think that people would have measured a change in the solar diameter that is this large by now?
Exhibit A: Part of page 23 of volume 3 of Newton’s dusty tome ‘The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy’
Exhibit B: Ibid – Page 27
Exhibit C: Ibid – Page 28 (This is the clincher)
Read more here.
“This ephemeris also includes effects such as that the Sun itself rotates around the center of mass of the solar system, which, thanks to Jupiter, is close to the Sun’s surface and has a ~12-year period……”
The same is true of the Earth-Moon system, which makes the above statement intuitive, since Jupiter is so massive in relation to the aggregate mass of the other planets.
Nicola Scafetta discussed some relevant ideas in his paper “Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications” (2010) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.4639.pdf
[The paper contains references to studies by Jose, 1965; Landscheidt, 1988, 1999;CharvLatovLa, 1990, 2009; CharvLatovLa and St.re.stL.k, 2004; Mackey, 2007;Wilson et al., 2008; Hung, 2007]
The following is another interesting Scafetta paper, but I could not determine if the sunspot numbers were corrected as proposed by Lief Svalgaard as I believe they should be corrected.
“Multi-scale harmonic model for solar and climate cyclical variation throughout the Holocene based on Jupiter-Saturn tidal frequencies plus the 11-year solar dynamo cycle” (2012) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.4143.pdf
Isaac Newton Says (In a big booming voice from on high):
The focus of the orbit of the Earth
[is] the common centre of gravity
of Venus, Mercury and the Sun.
Is that clear enough for you Lawrence? 😉
I’ll give you another 24 hours to find supporting references for your assertion that:
“The phenomenon of SIM was defined mathematically by Isaac Newton, his conclusion being that all planets followed a primary orbit around the SSB (their primary orbital foci) rather than the CofM of the Sun,”
Failing that, there will be some crossings out and corrections made in the headline post.
Hi tallbloke,
Your statement “Yes, but in the Earth’s case, not very much. I agree with Wayne that The focus of Earth’s orbit will move a bit from the Sun-Earth barycentre due to the changing disposition of the rest of the planets, but the accelerations on the Earth caused by the other planets are tiny compared to that caused by the Sun, so it won’t stray far from the Earth Sun barycentre.” …
I’ll go with that somewhat, but the small planets are affected by all of the biggies, I have never made a run to check just how much Earth’s distance is affected BUT, I did want everyone to think of it more correctly. The Earth “sees” the OTHER body’s than it’s own gravitational pull, Venus “sees” all of the OTHER bodies according to it, each body has it’s own acceleration center and that was the only point I was trying to make. None of the planets see it exactly as the way the sun does, it bows to all of the planets, none excluded. Some say the sun’s center, some say the SS barycenter, some say the body/Sun center of mass, and quite honestly, none of those are really correct. Glad you can see that Rog, it’s the way integrators of that rather complicated 3D multi-bodied ODE is solved numerically and quite perfectly if it were not for round-off errors in the math co-processors, limited floating point digits, and limits and quirks within the integrators themselves. Those “limits” are what I battled for a couple of years, not the math facts mentioned above.
Off the top of my head, it seems Jupiter, since it does not feel it’s own gravitational pull, is the closest of all of the planets to revolve about the sun’s center but still not exactly, there’s still Saturn and further out Neptune and so on that tugging on it especially when on the same side of the sun.
Wayne:
Off the top of my head, it seems Jupiter, since it does not feel it’s own gravitational pull, is the closest of all of the planets to revolve about the sun’s center
Well, I think Jupiter and the Sun will both revolve around their common centre of mass, and I think (and hope) that’s what you meant to say. I think the point you’re making is that because Jupiter is big compared to the other planets, it is less affected by their gravitational pull than other planets are affected by Jupiter’s. I agree. I also think that Jupiter’s (and the other jovians) effect on the focus of Earth’s orbit is partially translated into a change in the Earth’s spin rate, and this is why changes in Earth’s length of day mimic the z axis motion of the Jovians above and below the solar equatorial plane.
Haha… Rog, after a trip for coffee I was just coming in to have you scratch that last, too fast, comment, it had dawned on me what I just said. Brother! You are too fast! Of course that is totally wrong.
You know, I just might fire up that old software if I can locate it and see what it says itself on this matter. This is a question that needs a final answer. How about if I program in the TSI variances while I am at it, including the sun’s varying radius, that shouldn’t be too awfully hard. Run it from 1969 to today recording every season (3 month’s centered on perihelion).
By the way, a big welcome! to the newcomers (or delurkers?) commenting here.
Wayne, please do. I have a big job for you with your software which might solve the Fibonacci puzzle too.
Firstly thanks and kudos to Laurie for getting this round of advice from world authorities on the subject. Clearly a good place to start and a clear assesment of the current authodoxy. Clearly if you go to ask the high preists you will the orthodox view. ( I was tempted to say Papal Bull 😉 )
One thing I note in many of their full and curtious replies (which is why I didn’t) is that they are seriously talking down to you. “wobble” “tugging” , they seem to think they have to talk to use like children, since we would understand otherwise.
I think Wayne sums the situation up pretty well in his comment.
In fact it’s neither one nor the other.
Thanks also to Geoff Sharp for reposting his graph. (Saved me trying to remember where I’d seen and I could remember last time I needed it).
For me that is the full stop, bottom line proof. It’s neither but it’s near to being the Sun than SSB.
Unless of course one of our learned friends can explain how Geoff has mis-used the emphemaris in doing this plot, which has also to be given serious inspection. There are so many ‘adjustments’ and frig factors in all this, that you are never sure what you are really looking at.
Even the most complex models are ultimately not deterministic and require constant empirical ad hoc correction factors to ensure spacescraft end up where intended.
So if Laurie has any further contact with these learned men, it would be useful to ask them to explain the apparent contradiction between their explanations and what is shown by the ephemaris plot. If there is some error in what Geoff was plotting, I expect that their familiarity with the subject would enable them to quickly point out the error.
If not, their answers should be most interesting.
Climate models use a single value of TSI for 1 AU and then follow the seasonal orbit of the Earth around a fixed sun at one focus. They ignore any other orbital variations.
If instead solar/planetary orbits around SSB result in
then this really should be included in climate models. Even assuming a further factor 4 reduction for surface + day/night averaging and another 30% albedo effect, this still ends up as 60 year cycle with amplitude ~5 watts/m2. For comparison a doubling CO2 is predicted to cause 3.7 watts/m2 forcing !
Can this really be true ?
Clive Best asks:
Can this really be true ?
The evidence against it being true is being laid out in this thread:
* Geoff Sharps plot from JPL data
* Newtons words
* Apparent almost constant size of Sun’s diameter
* The masslessness of the COM, in comparison to the Sun’s 1.9891 × 10^30 kilograms
* more to come I suspect
CliveBest: Even assuming a further factor 4 reduction for surface + day/night averaging and another 30% albedo effect, this still ends up as 60 year cycle with amplitude ~5 watts/m2. For comparison a doubling CO2 is predicted to cause 3.7 watts/m2 forcing !
Thanks for adding that those extra calculations to bring the 40W/m2 figure “down to Earth”.
“Can this really be true ?”
Sounds more credible than unproven positive feedbacks with zero empirical evidence.
If the movements of the bodies of the solar system are chaotic, then intuitively there is no fixed barycentre. The barycentre wanders in a chaotic manner.
As I understand it, a multi-body system like the solar is so complex that it may not be possible to compute a deterministic result, even if the system is inherently deterministic.
I conclude that the position of the barycentre in relation to the solar system cannot be defined, either because the system is chaotic or because the system is deterministic and overly complex.
Therefore the best we can manage are approximations.
This whole SSB proposition seems so obviously wrong, it’s hard to see how it has become so entrenched in the orthodoxy.
Just look at the supposed trajectory of the Sun around SSB. It quite clearly is NOT “rotating” around it.
It is “rotating” around something close to the SSB that may well not, itself, be stationary.
The whole idea of barycentre rotation is a desperate attempt to cling to the simplicity of the 2 body system, where by the triviality of the geometry, the centre of rotation is _coincident with_ the barycentre.
This does not mean the barycentre IS the centre of rotation, just that in this simple case the two end up being the same.
‘the 178 year epitrochoid is never repetitive, always slightly different each cycle’
One of Charvatova’s papers is titled: ‘Can origin of the 2400-year cycle of solar activity be caused
by solar inertial motion?’
She concludes it could be repetitive every 2400 years, and makes a few predictions.
Fred C: If you check the Fibonacci thread posted before this one, you’ll see that there is more order in the solar system than we’ve been led to believe. The mtoion of the Sun WRT the barycentre is ‘semi-chaotic’, but there are identifiable repeating patterns at all timescales. Particularly interesting are Charvatova’s ‘harmonious periods’ when the Sun does a ~50 year epitrochoidal dance around the barycentre every ~180 years which coincides with periods of shorter, higher amplitude solar cycles.
Tallbloke says_
Isaac Newton Says (In a big booming voice from on high):
The focus of the orbit of the Earth [is] the common centre of gravity of Venus, Mercury and the Sun.
Is that clear enough for you Lawrence?
I’ll give you another 24 hours to find supporting references for your assertion that:
“The phenomenon of SIM was defined mathematically by Isaac Newton, his conclusion being that all planets followed a primary orbit around the SSB (their primary orbital foci) rather than the CofM of the Sun,”
Failing that, there will be some crossings out and corrections made in the headline post.
Fair comment Tallbloke – in fact like Newton, you too must have a booming voice too because before I opened my computer and read your above comment I actually heard you say it all the way to here in Australia! (Smiley)
I can not dispute the words of Newton of course, and the text you posted of what he said is clear enough. I have spent some preliminary time quickly searching back through various papers on Newton’s work and that of subsequent scientists who have researched it and elaborated on it.
As I read the Newton text I did recall having read that a couple of years back. So I must acknowledge that my stating that Newton drew the conclusion about all planets orbiting the SSB was not right. Lesson is not to rely on memory rather check the papers of origin first.
However again from a paper I have rather quickly just looked at (Mackey’s paper) it is clear from this that Newton did identify the SIM phenomenon. It was other subsequent scientists who studied this phenomenon after Newton, who proposed that SIM did cause a displacement of Earth/Sun which could impact on climate. In particular Fairbridge and more recently I understand Charvatova, and from memory again some others too. Fairbridge calculated up to the order of 1% variance in total separation distance, equivalent to two solar radii.
Notwithstanding my misquote, the fact remains that there exists wide professional belief that such E/S separation distance does result from SIM caused orbital focus displacement, and it was this that my investigations sought (in the light of contradictory debate) to confirm amongst the ranks of astronomers/astrophysicists by referencing the universities as I have done and with the outcomes I have reported.
My idea of asking A/APs who were not involved in the heat of climate debate was to try to avoid the level of emotionally charged dialogue which is too often seen in the debate – to seek objective viewpoints. I continue to think they were too.
And then Greg Kopp weighed in with his contribution again confirming his (and therefore presumably NASA/JPL’s) belief about it, to the point of including it in adjustments they apply in their TSI work. All to me very strong supporting ‘evidence’ albeit resting on their stated belief, but by people one would expect to have deep knowledge of the essentials of solar mechanics.
The strong response in the posts so far by people who are quite committed in their contrary views was to be expected; most have expressed their views previously on this and other blogs over recent years. And it seems to me there is a substantial amount of independent and objective validation work which could be usefully carried out on some of the papers they reference too.
I was particularly looking forward to and interested in the post by Ninderthana, and had hoped when he commented as I was sure he would that he might advise on the question I raised about what ephemeride basis was used in adjusting the raw measurements to 1AU to which I saw reference in the papers he referenced last December.
A further point in regard to the computations by the Cambridge Professor, and Bailey and others about consequential variability in radiant energy receipt on Earth from E/S displacement, and as now commented on within by Clive Best and Greg Goodman (‘can this really be true’). Wattage receipts to the order of 30/40 w/m2.
I have no doubt if the SIM displacement is valid, these seasonal wattages are valid, courtesy of the inverse square law effect. I have spent quite a bit of time in past months doing a lot of arithmetic on these numbers and contemplating their significance.
These raw figures certainly sound very large, but when adjusted (yes I do adjustments too – surely all good ‘scientists’ do so) for seasonal shifts re Earth/Sun annual changing positions, the net effect is more modest but still in my opinion very significant. Furthermore when one looks at the fuller effect of SIM whereby the Sun can be displaced for extended periods of years each solar cycle and over multiple solar cycles in a particular quadrant/hemisphere versus opposite locations of the ecliptic, the effect can I believe be regionally quite concentrated. But possibly more of that later.
Lawrence
Lawrence says:
However again from a paper I have rather quickly just looked at (Mackey’s paper) it is clear from this that Newton did identify the SIM phenomenon. It was other subsequent scientists who studied this phenomenon after Newton, who proposed that SIM did cause a displacement of Earth/Sun which could impact on climate. In particular Fairbridge and more recently I understand Charvatova, and from memory again some others too. Fairbridge calculated up to the order of 1% variance in total separation distance, equivalent to two solar radii.
No. You are conflating two separate issues here. Charvatova proposes that the Sun’s motion in its ’50 yr every 178 years Harmonious phase’ is such that solar cycles become shorter and of higher amplitude, thus boosting the energy levels. She does not speculate on the mechanism.
This has nothing, repeat NOTHING WHATSOEVER, to do with Sun – Earth distance.
Nor have the other scientists you mentioned in your introduction proposed a change in Sun-Earth distance due to SIM as a cause of changing TSI levels at Earth orbital radius. Jose never had anything to say about Sun-Earth distance in his 1965 paper. Landscheidt speculated that the motion of the sun through it’s own magnetic field as it swings around the barycentre might affect its activity levels. Again, this has nothing, repeat NOTHING WHATSOEVER, to do with Sun-Earth distance.
You are claiming support for the Bailey’s theory from SCIENTISTS WHO DID NOT POSIT A SUN-EARTH DISTANCE CHANGE due to the Solar Inertial Motion. If you want to disagree with that, then vague ‘from memory’ statements are not enough. You will have to provide references and quotes.
Lawrence says:
The six or seven references to learned papers which Ninderthana quoted in his posts above were extremely interesting and informative for me. However in a couple of them reference was made to the process of adjusting their raw measurements to a standard 1AU; just as we now find the SORCE/TIM data is adjusted, and as now confirmed by Greg Kopp
In my opinion, Greg Kopp doesn’t actually address your question about Earth -Sun distance in his replies to you. The adjustments to 1AU are likely much smaller than a distance of 2 solar radii. Please supply the references to the papers concerned so we can check.
Lawrence,
If the Earth moves about the Sun in an ellipse with the Sun at one focus then the variation in the Earth-Sun distance between perihelion (distance 147 million km) and aphelion (distance 152 million km) is about 5 million km. This produces a change in the Sun’s apparent subtended angle in the sky which goes from 31.6 arc minutes on the 4th of July to 32.7 arc minutes on the 3rd of January. Hence, the Sun’s apparent size changes by 1.1 arc minutes or 66 arc seconds as it moves from perihelion in January to aphelion in July. This size change is easily measure using modern astronomical equipment.
The important point is that the observations and the model of the Earth moving about the Sun in an ellipse with the Sun at one focus perfectly match.
If the Moon moves about the Barycentre of the Solar System then we would see a change in size of the Sun of up to ~ 36 arc seconds between times when the Jupiter and Saturn were aligned on the same side of the Sun (inferior conjunction of Jupiter with respect to Saturn) compared to times when Jupiter and Saturn were on opposite sides of the Sun (superior conjunction of Jupiter with respect to Saturn).
Hence, if you measured the Sun’s apparent diameter at these times, separated by ~ 9.929 years = 19.858 years/2, the fact that the measurements would be separated by almost
exactly 10.0 years would effectively control for possible variations of the Earth-Sun distance caused by the ellipticity of the Earth’s orbit.
Again, the important point is that there are no observed variations in the Sun’s apparent size (~ 36 arc seconds) between inferior and superior conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn.
This piece of observational evidence, based upon simple geometric arguments, should be enough to totally refute any claims that the Earth rotates around the Barycentre of the Solar System.
‘Surprisingly, expert opinion seems to be that the Earth doesn’t orbit the Sun, but the SSB’
As the Sun and SSB are, while always varying slightly in location, a very similarly long distance from Earth it would seem to be hard to tell the difference, especially since one of them is invisible and only exists in the mind 😉
The SSB can’t exert any force of its own because it doesn’t physically exist, so isn’t it just a way of visualising the net result of all other planetary forces in the solar system?
“The SSB can’t exert any force of its own because it doesn’t physically exist, so isn’t it just a way of visualising the net result of all other planetary forces in the solar system?”
Which is, of course, totally incorrect since forces are calculated by inv. sqr distance, not the moment which _increases_ with distance.
The barycentre provides a convenient centre for a coordinate frame for solar system mechanics. Grouping all the mass together and ignoring longer-term, interstellar motion of the ensemble we can consider that grouped mass is at rest or in steady linear motion.
Taking SSB as a reference point we can say that none of solar system bodies are drifting off out of the picture and this includes the Sun. So in that sense we can say that everything is “rotating about” SSB in some lose way. Like we see the Sun’s complex path staying roughly in the same region around SSB though moving over centuries and never completing an ‘orbit’ or cycle.
In this sense the Sun , Earth or any other SS body can be said to be in rotation about SBB because, well they are rotating and at the same time not drifting permanently away from SSB.
But this is really nothing more than stating the definition of the centre of mass and the assumption that there are no external accelerations. ie the centre of mass does not move relative to the centre of mass.
There is a curious leap of logic to go from there to suggest that SSB is the focus of the orbital ellipse for the path of the Earth on an annual scale.
To be “rotating about” in that sense it would have to be attracted to it. And since SSB has no mass or any other physical properties there is nothing to be attracted to.
SSB only has mass in the interstellar sense, when in the gravitational far field it can be taken to represent a point of action of the mass of the SS. This can not be done within the system itself where the masses are separate and distinct.
If we wish to find what a body is attracted to we need to vector sum it’s attraction to all the _other_ bodies within the system. We can find a centre of attraction for each body at any one time. This will clearly be different for each body at the same instant and will also itself move with relation to the SSB.
Because of the inverse square relation these ‘centres of attration’ will be much closer to the centre of the Sun than the SBB, with the possible exception of the sun itself because its own mass which dominates all other calculations is taken out.
Nevertheless, by similar reasoning, the centre of attraction of all the planets on the Sun will be dominated by Jupiter and will be closer to Jupiter than SSB.
It should be clear that the body for which the centre of attraction is most distant from the centre of the Sun is the Sun itself and it will usually be much further away from the Sun than the barycentre is.
Now if someone wants challenge that, I suggest they do the numbers and demonstrate that the net gravitational force on a body is in along the vector joining its own centre to SSB.
Thanks greg, that’s a neatly organised summary.
“Which is, of course, totally incorrect since forces are calculated by inv. sqr distance, not the moment which _increases_ with distance”
That seems to mean calculating distances to/from a position which is itself a calculated distance from actual objects. Sounds a bit circular?
“Does Earth orbit the Sun-Earth barycentre or the solar system barycentre?”
IMHO, the Earth *must* orbit the Sun-Earth barycentre because the Sun is the source of gravity which is driving the planetary orbits (all of them) in the first place. Now, the Sun may be getting ‘tugged around’ by the larger gas giants, but since the Suns gravity influence is so much larger to the inner planets (Mercury, Venus Earth & Mars), where the Sun goes (in it’s motion through space around the Milky Way), so goes the orbits of the inner planets. That is why the Sun’s size & distance is ‘relatively’ the same from our point of view.
I would think a good way to check this would be to track the long-term position of Alpha Centauri (anything close by *but* outside the Solar System). Would 1-2 solar radii (whatever the effect imparted on the Sun by the gas giants away from the SSB) shifts in the Earths orbit be reflected in the apparent position of Alpha Centauri? Does our ground/space based observatories have that angular resolution to detect a motion of that degree from 4.2 light years away?
Just some thoughts,
Jeff
All this has been pointed out to the Bailey’s several years ago but they continue to push their website and sell their book. This is a tragedy and far from anything scientific.
The original discussions can be read below for those interested.
http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/200
“I would think a good way to check this would be to track the long-term position of Alpha Centauri ”
No, a good way would be to track the distance to the Sun. This is what Geoff did a long time ago and posted again here:
Now unless someone can show that Geoff has made an error in using the ephemeris, that pretty much puts and end to it.
Perhaps Laurie could ask his expert witnesses whether Geoff has made a mistake.
This is not some intractable philosophical question. We know planetary movements to ten significant figures.
Why is this still being discussed ?!
Greg: It’s being discussed because we’re assessing the value of ‘expert opinion’.
TB, I was not meaning why is it being discussed here, I should have been more explicit.
I meant , with clear factual data on the position of the planets how is it even possible for this not be a settled issue?
Could you please confirm that I’m understanding the issue here. Bailey believes that planet Earth’s annual orbit is centred on SSB and as such has significant deviations in it’s distance from Sol, other than the classical elliptical orbit. He came up with 28 W/m2 variation in TSI hitting Earth over recent years .
This was backed up by some senior astronomer at Cambridge Univ. who found 40W/m2 over a longer period and says this makes Bailey’s figures credible.
Other expert witnesses say yes to rotating about SSB but may have some wriggle room as to what is meant by “rotate about”.
[Reply] Another good summary. Fascinating isn’t it? 🙂
Tallbloke
For several years now as I studied dozens of relevant published papers by scientists my emerging view was that A/APs and many other scientists including those to whom I have alluded and now the set with whom I have been in recent contact as reported, were in unison in their belief in the reality of the SIM phenomenon, that the Sun orbits (rotates, circuits, loops de loop, or whatever) the common centre of mass of the entire solar system (the SSB), and that all planets contribute individually/collectively to the SIM motion and perpetual repositioning, each in turn experiencing varying displacement distances from the Sun in consequence, Earth included.
It is true that the group of scientists alluded to in my opening statement proceeded on their various quests of research and hypotheses development along differing paths, but all based I have understood on that opening position of unison re SIM and planetary dynamics, and its relevance to the fields they were researching. Certainly it was to Fairbridge that fell the task of computing Earth/Sun displacement distances, and proposing the link to climate.
Charvatova who researched (and still does I believe) in the SIM field, and quite brilliantly it seems to me, and precisely as you have said, was in great admiration of Fairbridge and his work and I have seen no indication in her work that she disagreed with his belief. One could say he was almost her mentor albeit remote and perhaps unmet. It would be great to have access to the communications between them. I have been attempting contact through an intermediary I know in her country over recent months, so far without success. I shall persevere.
The new group I have accessed all share the same SIM belief set and have been happy to declare it in response to my queries to them. Some of them advise that the belief set is very common at least within the ranks of the A/AP communities. I now see on this thread debate that many regard them in what might be seen as a derogatory manner as old set orthodox and presumably therefore suspect or plain wrong in their beliefs. Well, time will tell I suppose. Maybe they are all wrong which raises some real questions about the standards in many major institutions does it not, NASA/JPL included.
I believe their responses to my queries to them, and the query itself were quite clear in what was asked, and their responses were equally clear and concise. You particularly challenge that from Greg Kopp – on this I could not disagree more; the question was clear, as was his response; both directly addressed the E/S displacement question. Some may not like his answer but it is quite clear.
You then suggest the magnitude of adjustment at 2 solar radii is excessive and is likely to be much smaller – I don’t know who has suggested he has made adjustments of that magnitude, not me, or him – and I agree it would be extremely unlikely as the planetary conjunction required to produce such a displacement distance I understand would only occur every few million years. But adjustments of up to 1 SR or even a little above do apparently occur not untypically within each solar cycle. Use the balancing Moment formula Greg quoted to figure the displacement numbers. As to references in this regard – I don’t have them and that would be for Greg to supply. I’m happy to ask him for what he’s got, and I will.
Of all the posts in this thread, and that of December last, that from Ninderthana in my view was the most professional and objective in its offering (with extensive supporting references which you would appreciate). I found it quite compelling as I do his latest post which makes eminent sense.
But I am keen to understand what AU adjustment it is that some of these researchers were referring to and I intend to try to make contact with the lead authors for this purpose. I will also be following up further with the AP respondent group on various aspects raised during this debate thread (eg, per Greg Goodman’s suggestion re the GS item), and I’ll report again if and when there is something of relevance to advise, likewise if I can make contact with Ms Charvatova.
Hopefully these folks will still be prepared to give me the time, and you will be happy to adopt my posts. Promise I’ll leave my memory at home.
As you mentioned in your recent post, the essential question is do the ‘experts’ (as you perhaps satirically dubbed them in the topic heading) have it right, or not.
Lawrence
Please read:
Ninderthana says:
February 21, 2013 at 2:38 pm
and end this farce!
Suggesting that the Earth rotates about the E/S barycentre is a rather silly and naive extension of the 2-body idea. I don’t think any A/AS will go along with that. It would imply that Sun also rotates about the same point which really does not get off the ground, so to speak.
The idea that Earth has SSB as an elliptical orbit focus is demonstrably wrong. See GS plot.
I think what needs clarifying is what we mean by “rotates about”.
Any orbital motion has to be driven by gravity , not centre of mass. The centre(s) of gravitational attraction are what each body is rotating about. It is these points, that are themselves moving, that are rotating about the SSB because the mass of the SS is, by definition, constrained to remain in the region of the SSB. Therefore any motion of the planets can be said by definition to be “rotates about” the SSB.
A/AS opinion is probably taking such a broader view, which is saying no more than that the centre of mass stays at the centre of mass.
Anyone who still thinks an object is “rotating about” SSB in the sense that it is the centre of gravitational attraction at any one time clearly isn’t thinking that hard.
I think Geoff’s plot is a very clear way to distinguish the two and look forward to seeing how your various experts explain it.
I have asked twice without response whether the 40W/m2 variation is based on barycentre as an elliptical orbital focus, which would seem to be where this whole discussion is leading in a climate context.
No one able to clarify?
Greg – I’ll post my understanding on this in the next hour or so – L
I see posters using the term “rotate” when the writer actually mean “revolve”. A planet rotates on its own axis, and planets nominally revolve in orbits about the Sun, or better, revolve about their common centre of mass as that centre of mass moves under the influence of all the other bodies in the system.
——————————————
Tallbloke: I have seen references to the fibonacci sequence as applied to the solar system. I am interested to know if this points to a fundamental law of nature or is an approximation. Binet’s Formula for the computation of a Fibonacci number can be approximated by a Taylor series. [Binet’s Formula: http://www.whitman.edu/mathematics/SeniorProjectArchive/2008/clancy.pdf%5D
Conceptually the mechanics of the solar system is an n-body problem for which a complete solution is known heuristically (the Taylor series). In practice approximations are computed by truncating the series, the precision determined by the purpose of making the calculation.
The following reference starts with the 3-body problem and hen generalizes to the n-body problem:
Possibly a mathematician could advise whether or not the coefficients of the Taylor series for the n-body problem approximate coefficients of the Taylor series for Fibonacci numbers with n = 3 or 4 or 5. An approximate fit with the Fibonacci numbers might result from the fact that most of the mass of the solar system is concentrated in 3 to 5 bodies.
My own view is that the solar system is not chaotic, but because of the complexity of the system, the apparent perturbations from the underlying order are not distinguishable from chaos..
Sorry that my references were lost in my previous post.
Conceptually this is an n-body problem for which a complete solution is known heuristically. In practice approximations are computed, the precision determined by the purpose of making the calculation.
The following reference starts with the 3-body problem and hen generalizes to the n-body problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem
Fred Colbourne says:
“I see posters using the term “rotate” when the writer actually mean “revolve”. A planet rotates on its own axis, and planets nominally revolve in orbits about the Sun….”
Thanks, wording is important.
“… or better, revolve about their common centre of mass as that centre of mass moves under the influence of all the other bodies in the system.”
What? The centre of mass moves under the influence of the centre of mass, or are we supposed to count just the “other” planets in the centre of mass and not the one that is supposed to be _revolving_ around it.
Verily , ‘tif much confufion we are feeing. [As Newton would surely have written]
Oh , I think I see. Superpostition theory. A two body system that is itself being revolved (?) by the 9 or so other bodies.
Can you add inverse squares like that , I think not. Non linear etc.
Greg says:
Suggesting that the Earth rotates about the E/S barycentre is a rather silly and naive extension of the 2-body idea.
I would agree that the question in my first comment on theis thread should strictly speaking have been couched in relative terms:-
“Does Earth more closely orbit the Earth-Sun Barycentre or the Solar System Barycentre?”
It was offered as a simple engineering approximation, which I think will be found to be not far out. As Newton said, you need to add Venus and Mercury to the picture, but if you calculate how far the CM of the Sun-Mercury-Venus system moves relative to Earth as Mercury and Venus form superior and inferior conjunctions, it’s not a very big hill of beans. The direct gravitational pull of Venus on Earth is probably a bigger factor, but not really the concern of this thread. The direct pull of Mars and the Jovians on Earth likewise.
Your differentiation of the centre of mass and centres of gravity is interesting. Since gravity is defined in terms of mass and distance, I’m unsure how you think it makes a difference?
Lawrence:
Yesterday you offered to share the names of the experts with me in confidence. I emailed you to request them, because I want to check their publication histories to see what their expertise actually is. Astronomy and astrophysics are big wide subjects. Not every A/AS expert is hot with celestial mechanics, there are literally hundreds of sub-specialisms covering everything from chromatography to spectroscopy.
You haven’t responded.
Why not?
If it is something to do with this:
” I now see on this thread debate that many regard them in what might be seen as a derogatory manner as old set orthodox and presumably therefore suspect or plain wrong in their beliefs.”
let me reassure you. The problem is not the expertise of experts. The problem is the implicit assumption by laymen of those experts ability to correctly assess the answers to problems which are outside their area of speciality expertise. You wouldn’t go to a doctor of urinary medecine for answers to brain surgery questions, because he’ll probably take the piss out of you. Nor would you go to an astrophysicist with a doctorate in red-shifts for answers to question concerning solar system dynamics. This is because they’ll know their stuff about galactic spectroscopy, but may not have the much of a clue about interplanetary gravitation and perturbation.
That’s why I want to know about the publication histories of your experts, so please supply me with their names as you promised you would.
Ian Wilson says:
“Please read:
Ninderthana says:
February 21, 2013 at 2:38 pm
and end this farce!”
Lawrence appears to be asking for time to contact the authors of the studies you referred to on the previous thread to ask them what ‘adjustments’ they made to ‘standardize the E-S distance to 1AU’. I presume they are correcting for the seasonally related changes due to the orbital ellipticality. But then, presumption is the mother of all F*ck-ups, so can you shed light on this issue?
TB: “Your differentiation of the centre of mass and centres of gravity is interesting. Since gravity is defined in terms of mass and distance, I’m unsure how you think it makes a difference?”
You really have not been paying attention then. I pointed out at least once that centre of mass is based on the moment m*r whereas gravity m/r^2 .
Sure they both contain the letters m and r but it does matter rather a lot where they are and whether they have a little number two tucked in with them.
That’s why Venus and Mercury matter for gravity but are a spit in the ocean for SSB.
Greg – the Cambridge professor did not send details of the data he used in his calculations or the process but it would be along these lines, applying Inverse Sq. Law for energy propagation. This is how I understand the process.
EG, Northern Hemisphere Winter – January; Earth located at Perihelion
Situation 1 – Sun C of M is, say, right on SSB; Earth to Sun distance = Standard 147.1M km;
TSI therefore is the standard 1430 w/m² at perihelion
Situation 2 – Sun CM now 700K km from SSB towards perihelion; E/S distance = 146.4M km
TSI = 147.1÷146.4 = (1.0048)² = 1.0096×1430 = 1444 w/m² = +14 w/m²
Situation 3 – Sun CM now 1.0K km from SSB towards perihelion; E/S distance = 146.1M km
TSI = 147.1÷146,1 = (1.0068)² = 1.0137×1430 = 1450 w/m² = +20 w/m²
Situation 4 – Sun CM now 1.5K km from SSB towards perihelion; E/S distance = 145.6M km
TSI = 147.1÷145.6 = (1.0103)² = 1.0207×1430 = 1460 w/m² = +30 w/m²
The above demo examples serve to demonstrate the arithmetic process, and highlights the sort of size of w/m² regional variation that distance can bring about. The professor probably selected a particular 30 year period, calculated E/S separation distances with the Sun and Earth in a variety of relative positions including annual seasonal position changes for Earth and highlighted an overall high/low variance range of 40 w/m² over that particular period. It can be so demonstrated – I think he did it to show to himself that those orders of magnitude were possible.
A Situation 5 as used above = two solar radii is a very extreme example which would seldom occur, but Fairbridge showed it could, mathematically.
Obviously it assumes Earth orbits SSB and is not locked to the Sun – I’m inclined to that view, you are not I think. The jury is still out in my mind at least.
Don’t think Earth gets exposed to actual variances of that magnitude across whole years at a time – annual seasonal movements by Earth mean actual effective annual variances are much more modest.
Lawrence
Tallbloke re no reply to your email. Not for any of those reasons TB – I simply hadn’t checked that particular email box the past day – will get back soon on it
L
“Does Earth more closely orbit the Earth-Sun Barycentre or the Solar System Barycentre?”
Since ESB is so damn close to centre of the Sun that would be an obvious yes, except for those still confusing moment of angular momentum with the inverse square law: gMm/r^2
Lawrence A P Wilson says: “Obviously it assumes Earth orbits SSB and is not locked to the Sun ”
Thanks, that’s key point I was not sure about. I thought that was what all this was about but just wanted to be totally clear.
And so your interpretation of the responses you got is that expert opinion is that the Earth has the SSB as the focus of the annual elliptical orbit.
Like I said that is easily falsifiable with the precision of the data we have.
It will be interesting to see how they explain Geoff’s graph.
Thanks for the reply.
Not sure how or when this 40W ought to be visible maybe someone can spot it:
All basins are shown individually even split into tropical and ex-tropical. So any signal should be seen.
One interesting thing is that Schwabe is clearly visible but Hale notably absent.
Short peaks noted are typical for smaller Pacific Nino regions but do not necessarily relate to other basins.
3.6 year is lunar + annual solar , very clear in all basins. Strong evidence that El Nino is celestial in origin. More on that elsewhere, later.
Lawrence says: ” The jury is still out in my mind at least.”
Ah, you work on a jury system. It may take you some time to reach a majority decision 😉
I have one judge, sitting alone on the bench. Rarely grants appeals.
Detail on Nino 1 and 2 regions. Beautiful example of amplitude modulation with sidebands.
Values I picked of a more detailed view earlier:
p1=3.422; pc=3.599; p2=3.795; print -1/(//pc-1/p1), 1/(1/pc-1/p2)
69.5806666666664
69.6847193877554
3.6 year cycle is modulated 69.6 year cycle. Classic 1:2:1 ratios indicate equal magnitude of carrier and modulating cycles.
Any suggestions for the origin of 69.6 ??
Distance from Barycentre? ;P
Lawrence said in reply to Greg Kopp:
if I were to calculate in like manner the Moment for each of the planets, Earth included, at any point in their multiple orbital circuits, applying appropriate vector adjustments for each and then total these forces, that would give me an ‘aggregate’ planetary centre of mass and the consequent balancing Moment and position of the Sun.
And to do that you’d need to use the ephemeris, which would give the correct Sun-Earth co-ordinates from which you derive distance as shown on Geoff Sharp’s plot in blue, and that’s why Greg Kopp agreed that this would enable you to work out the position of the Sun relative to the SSB from the planets positions.
Greg Kopp’s response does not support Fred Bailey’s claim that the planets orbit the massless SSB on a seasonal timescale while the 1.9891 × 10^30 kilogram Sun wanders off somewhere else without remembering to gravitationally drag its inner planet-children with it.
Greg says:
You really have not been paying attention then.
No need to be condescending, I’m just trying to get you to elucidate for the benefit of everyone trying to follow this thread. A lot of whom don’t dare post questions themselves for fear of getting a snitty reply like yours. Science communication on open forums isn’t just for the benefit of vocal participants.
Any suggestions for the origin of 69.6 ??
Distance from Barycentre? ;P
My money would be on lunar tidal cycles.
Greg Goodman says: February 21, 2013 at 10:37 am
‘It is “rotating” around something close to the SSB that may well not, itself, be stationary.’
Yes, it’s hard to see how the SSB could be static when its position is linked to that of moving bodies. Quoting Scafetta’s ‘proxy’ idea:
‘Note that the barycenter movement of the Sun needs to be interpreted just as an approximate “proxy” for the forces and the physical mechanisms acting on the Sun and on the solar systems: no claim is made that the barycenter movement by itself is the physical cause of the observed dynamics because the sun is evidently in free-fall in it.’
http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/#Nicola_Scafetta
“No need to be condescending,”
Saying you had not been paying attention was not condescending, it was meaning you had not been paying attention. I had explicitly made the point earlier.
Don’t get all mythered, lad. Surely I’ll not be having a Yorkshireman mind a bit of plain talking. 😉
I thought your “I’m unsure how you think it makes a difference” was being critical so my reply maybe showed a little irritation but was in no way condescending.
We probably both misread intent. No offence taken, none meant.
Oldbrew:
it’s hard to see how the SSB could be static when its position is linked to that of moving bodies
Where are you going to stand while you decide whether it’s moving or not? 😉
I realize that people here are trying to go over the claims and counter claims that the Earth revolves around the Barycentre of the Solar system (BSS). Clearly it is interesting to investigate why people might think that this is the case, hence I am not dissing the good discussion that is taking place here.
However, I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that the Earth revolves around the BSS.
It does not and anyone who suggest that is does is speaking through their hat.
All it requires to convince even the most ardent skeptic that this is indeed the the case is to conduct simple experiment:
Take a picture of the Sun through a small (~ 4″) refracting telescope when Jupiter and Saturn almost lined up on opposite sides of the Sun – January 2011 would have been a good time.
At this time the Earth is ~ 90 degrees from the Jupiter-Sun-Saturn line, so you should be seeing the Sun when its centre roughly coincides with the BSS.
Keep the picture until January of 2021 – i.e. ten years later when Jupiter and Saturn are roughly aligned on the same side of the Sun. Take another picture of the Sun with the same setup/instrument. Compare the two pictures.
At this time the Earth is on the opposite side of the Sun to both Jupiter and Saturn, so you should be seeing about 1.5 million km closer than when the centre of the Sun and the BSS coincide as they did in January 2011 [note: this assumes that earth revolves around the BSS]
You should be able to measure the apparent size of the Sun (using multiple measurements) to +/- 5 arc seconds provided you take your observations on a cloudless cold still day and you take your photograph around noon [note: this means that you would have be observing in the Northern Hemisphere and not in Britain where the skies are almost always cloudy].
If you notice any change in the Sun’s apparent diameter – I will not only eat my hat, I will also start believing in the Tooth Fairy and Leprechauns.
If the Earth actually revolves around the BSS, the Sun should have an apparent diameter that is ~ 18 arc seconds larger in 2021 than it was in 2011. This is more than three times larger than your 5 arc second measurement error.
It is this easy.
Good one Ian.
Experimentum summas judex – Experiment is the final arbiter
-Albert Einstein-
“If the Earth actually revolves around the BSS, the Sun should have an apparent diameter that is ~ 18 arc seconds larger in 2021 than it was in 2011”
Why? Orbits are eliptical and SSB should be in one of the foci of the orbit . Maybe I’m missing something.
Angular diameter of the Sun (as seen from the Earth) is 31.6′ – 32.7′.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_diameter#Use_in_astronomy
Edim: The Sun moves up to a solar radius or more from the solar system barycentre (SSB or BSS as Ian has it). If the earth orbits the solar system barycentre rather than somewhere close to the earth-sun barycentre, then the apparent size of the sun as seen from earth will vary as Ian outlines. This hasn’t been observed, and so the inference is that the Earth does not orbit the solar system barycentre.
Why do you think it would? From the point of view of Earth, the gravitational pull of the Sun is far stronger than the gravitational pull of the outer planets which are responsible for the Sun’s motion with respect to the barycentre. Ergo the Earth will follow the Sun, not the SSB.
Yes, my point is that the apparent size of the sun does vary.
Edim: Please point us to your data on the variation in the Sun’s apparent size from Earth. It certainly varies over the annual orbit as Earth moves around 5 million km closer to the Sun at Perihelion than it is at aphelion. What other timescales are you alluding to? Leif says it also varies over the solar cycle by a few km, but that wouldn’t concern us here.
OK, I’ve plotted the distance in AU to the SSB and the Sun at perihelion from 1900 to 2100. Earth-Sun distance is stable, Earth-SSB distance isn’t. My plot is consistent with Geoff’s. The Earth pretty much orbits the Sun, with small perturbations caused by other planets. That settles the argument for me, though your mileage may vary. The data is from JPL Horizons DE 405 ephemeris. Any questions or counter-arguments?
Settles it for me too. Tallbloke, I could find no further errors in my ephemeris software and it shows the same, basically level. I always know it was neither exactly but I did have a view that it was close to the SSB, but was not exact, I was wrong.
Others might wonder how this can be so. It all seems so logical. The best way I can come up with to look at this is when the big gas giants like Jupiter are on one side of the sun (or the other), they are affecting THEIR center of mass to the sun but they are also affecting the Earth by close to the same amount, there is a gravitational cancellation in play here. We are so close to the sun that OUR center of attraction to the sun stays close to the same, not exactly, but close.
So scratch the ideas about the Earth circling the SSB, or even closely orbiting it. Follow the evidence. However, the SSB has it’s own importance, it is the center of mass of the entire solar system so this is the one point that precisely follows our orbit about the galaxy. Don’t throw it away. 😉
So nuch thanks goes to Tallbloke for prompting me to dig deeper, do an all-nighter, to help answer this important (and very controversial) question. Hats off to him. To me, science discovery does still live on.
Greg –
“Lawrence says: ” The jury is still out in my mind at least.”
Ah, you work on a jury system. It may take you some time to reach a majority decision 😉
I have one judge, sitting alone on the bench. Rarely grants appeals.”
Sounds a bit like my wife actually!
Lawrence A P Wilson says: Sounds a bit like my wife actually!
Thanks, burst out laughing when I read that 😉
TB. That plot is even more explicit than Geoff’s. Nice one.
Wayne, now you’ve actually got some numbers available, just out of interest how does the centre of attraction compare to the E/S barycentre?
Do you have enough to do a plot the movement of the centre of attraction? This is what we where heading towards about 6 months ago here and let it drop.
Scafetta used the JPL ephemeris to look at radial sunward variations of the movement of the Earth and E-M pair and found a 9 year cycle due to the moon.
If you have fully worked out the centre of attraction this is also the direction of acceleration and this is where we should be looking for inertial effects on the oceans. Since this where we should see the direct gravitational effect of J and V on the Earth.
Now if you have or can produce a detailed time series of 3D vectors of the centre of attraction relative to SSB I’d like to do some frequency analysis on that.
Tallbloke, your Earth-Sun distance doesn’t look right. It’s 1.00 ± 0.02 AU, according to wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit#Examples
Or:
-aphelion (furthest distance in about July each year) 152,097,701 km ,1.0167103335 AU
-perihelion (closest approach in about February each year) 147,098,074 km , 0.9832898912 AU
Edim says:
“perihelion (closest approach in about February each year) 147,098,074 km , 0.9832898912 AU”
The blue line on my plot is indeed at .9832 AU. The datapoints are at every Jan 6 (very near Perihelion) from 1900 to 2100. It’s a quick and dirty engineers approximation because perihelion drifts slowly from Jan 6 as the equinoxes precess but its perfectly good enough to settle the issue of what the focus of the Earth’s orbit is. Wiki is wrong about February however:
The Earth reaches perihelion – the point in its orbit closest to the Sun – in early January, only about two weeks after the December solstice…. The date of perihelion does not remain fixed, but, over very long periods of time, slowly regresses (moves later) within the year.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.php
TB says: ‘Where are you going to stand while you decide whether it’s moving or not’
I already decided 🙂
Seriously though…the whole lot is linked, so they’re all moving relative to each other all the time, which must include the point where all the forces equalize i.e. the SSB.
Just to add some detail which provides further evidence that the changing distance of the Sun from the Solar System Barycentre doesn’t affect the Sun-Earth distance, here’s a close up plot of the Distance on Jan 6 each year from 1900 to 2100. Distance is in AU.
As you can see, the distance slowly drifts as the equinoxes precess, but this is a tiny fraction of the distance, and is an artifact of choosing a fixed yearly date for the plot. The downspikes every ~12 years are the effect of Jupiter coming to it’s own aphelion in tandem with harmonically related Earth-Venus syzygies, the 0.5AU eccentricity of its orbit has a cyclic gravitational effect on Earth of a couple of thousand miles. But notice there is no effect showing a signal at ~20 years which is the principle period of solar inertial motion with respect to the solar system barycentre, due to the conjunction cycle of Jupiter and Saturn. This is further evidence that the focus of Earth’s orbit is tightly bound to the Sun-Earth barycentre, which is very close to the centre of the Sun at all times.
Oldbrew says:
“the whole lot is linked, so they’re all moving relative to each other all the time, which must include the point where all the forces equalize i.e. the SSB.”
Well, almost equalise anyway. The reason the synodic period meeting points are always precessing is because the system is never quite in balance. So yes, from the point of view of a hypothetical gravitationally unaffected vantage point moving along near the solar system as it orbits the galaxy, the SSB does itself wobble very slightly compared to the wobble of the Sun as it has its path around the solar system barycentre determined by all the gravitational attractions of the constantly moving planets.
TB: As you can see, the distance slowly drifts as the equinoxes precess,
This may be significant. Remember the thing about warmer winters. Coldest NH month is Feb. As perihelion comes closer to Feb this should ease the winter extremes.
Are you able to extent this 100y in each direction and put proper dates on it so it’s easier to visually tie this to climate events.
Or better still send me some data 😉
Greg: Sure, give me half an hour to add the data and I’ll email you a .csv
1600 to 2100 suit you?
Thanks TB.
As I suspected from you shorter plot the bottom of those spikes seems related to SST. Looks like were in for some drastic cooling like early 20th c. until at least 2020. Those deep reaching troughs look ominous.
Several other points :
drastic phase change around 1800 preceded decade of high volcanic activity leading to year without a summer etc. Lesser but similar change circa 1900 also preceded sustained activity. The double low that preceded matches Krakatoa.
Before going too far speculating on 1600’s this probable needs correcting for precession. Going back that far may be drifting off perihelion. This probably should be plotting something slightly different but there’s something in it clearly.
SSN: note this E-S separation is not synchronised with SSN. It is in phase in 1880 and 1990 but out of phase in 1940-50. I’ve pointed out elsewhere that there are factors confounding a simple correlation of temp and SSN.
Also the flat topped cycles that are coming up seem uncommon , last see during LIA 😦
There’s more in the detail but that’ll do for a first hit.
Hmmm, I don’t suppose the discontinuities falling right on the centennial changes might be some kind of ephemeris artifact? If not, what planetary configuration might cause them? Colour me sceptical on this one. 🙂
Yes, I have the same doubt, except that both centuries began with very cold decades and there is not the same phase change at the millennium.
Also both centuries were followed by strong volcanic activity which would seem to be coherent with unusual accelerations.
Other than that , yes, leap years. IIRC 2000 was a leap year exception. The header shows you pulled calendar year intervals , maybe you should use julian year.
Also precession is about 1 week in 500 years so 1600s are probably drift as I suggested. How about 1.002 julian years ? Make sense?
sure, I’ll see if I can specify it. And, good points.
As Newton himself realized, a gravitational motion of three or more bodies is not analytically solvable using methods of calculus. Thanks to the fact that the mass of all planets taken together is only 0.14% of the mass of the Sun, we can make a pretty good first approximation by ignoring the influence of other planets on the Earth’s orbit.
Taking the center of mass of the Solar system promises a better approximation – relative positions of all planets and the Sun are represented, and it is guaranteed to retain its absolute position. However, it is only a mathematical convenience; it exerts no pull of its own; should Jupiter be twice as far from the Sun, the center of mass would also be twice as far from the Sun’s center, but Jupiter’s gravitational pull on the Sun would be four times weaker. So don’t assign physical properties to a mathematical vehicle.
This is not to say that the discussion is worthless, quite the contrary. By using increasingly precise approximations we can discover many non-obvious relations.
Arcseconds looks like the only viable option, but it 3600 max, which is every degree. Snapshot of 10 degrees across each centennial boundary?
On average, the anomalistic year is about 25 minutes longer than the tropical year, so the date of perihelion slowly shifts over time, regressing by about 1 full day every 58 years. The date of perihelion thus moves completely through the tropical year in about 21,000 years
By my calc, perihelion in 1700 was 0.0001AU closer than in 1695, which is worth about +0.7W/m^2 below cloud level. It then dropped steadily to around +0.2W/^2 in 1705
Rog, the idea perihelion is showing a logical chronology but it’s actually upside down. You’ll notice dips in your plot you noted to be Jupiter are when we are nearest but that corresponds to colder years in the temperature time series:
this actually makes sense. Closest perihelion means most excentric orbit. Since the solid angle subtended by the Earth that catches radiation has an inverse square dependance on distance, it’s easy to see that years of closest approach are going to cool the Earth not warm it.
Keplet III shows that 6m is still 6m so the inv sqr is what we need to consider. What probably needs plotting is mean of inv sqr distance over each year. Though I’d be surprised if this is not done in the climate models, I would not be at all surprised to find they have not accounted for the planets.
What is interesting here is the interplay of other planets modulating the Jupiter dip and the mimimum of these dips seems to correlate quite well with century scale climate trends.
This gives a simple, direct link for planetary influence on climate that may be a lot easier to establish that various tidal effects on the sun affecting solar output end hence climate.
PS the detailed work I’ve been doing on SST peroidicity ties in here as do Scafetta’s papers.
There is the eccentricity influence plus a direct inertial infulence of the oceans which I have suggested is the true cause of Nino/Nina events. La Nina being a ‘spring tide’ equivalent in the much longer scale tides in the thermocline.
tallbloke says: February 21, 2013 at 8:34 am
Isaac Newton Says (In a big booming voice from on high):
The focus of the orbit of the Earth [is] the common centre of gravity of Venus, Mercury and the Sun.
Is that clear enough for you Lawrence? 😉
I would be impressed if the Prince of Post-Normal [aka the King of the Fudge Factor, Newton] had presented some OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE… unfortunately he did not.
On the other hand Johannes Kepler [based upon the astronomical observations of Tycho Brahe] published [in 1619] his Third Law of Planetary Motion
Kepler’s Third Law clearly indicates that the “orbital period” and the “orbital semi-major axis” are properties of the Solar SYSTEM.
In other words: the SYSTEM drives the planets… not the other way around… and not even Newton’s “big booming voice “ [and mathematical alchemy] can hide the fact that his post-normal theories were falsified by Kepler long before Newton put pen to paper… but a “big booming voice “ never lets observational evidence get in the way of their ego…
Wheels within Wheels – Vortex within Vortex
Ninderthana says: February 21, 2013 at 7:49 am
Seriously, don’t you think that people would have measured a change in the solar diameter that is this large by now?
PRECISELY!
Inventions and Deceptions – Barycentric Orbits
Ninderthana says: February 21, 2013 at 2:38 pm
This piece of observational evidence, based upon simple geometric arguments, should be enough to totally refute any claims that the Earth rotates around the Barycentre of the Solar System.
PRECISELY!
Ninderthana (aka Ian Wilson) says: February 22, 2013 at 4:38 am
and end this farce!
It really is time to bring the curtain down on “this farce!”
Greg: I agree that closer approach means longer time spent further from the Sun. It will be interesting to calculate the annual insolation and test your idea. There is a useful pdf handout I found with the relevant equations here:
Click to access week13.pdf
It could be done from jpl Horizons quite easily using these equations to integrate the daily insolation (assuming constant cloud albedo) and sum the received energy. It’s not going to give swings like the Baileys believe in, but it may be significant enough to make a significant difference to Earth’s energy budget which should be accounted for in climate models.
Then your SST work might help lead to something more concrete in terms of the longer ocean cycles.
“but a “big booming voice “ never lets observational evidence get in the way of their ego…”
I think the big booming voice bit was about what Newton had actually claimed. Not whether it was correct. Laurie had made an incorrect statement in the heading paragraph.That’s all this was referring to.
BSS=bull-shit-sentral 😉
Tim Cullen, I’ve commented on your barycentric orbits post at your site. Here, I’ll deal with this one:
“Kepler’s Third Law clearly indicates that the “orbital period” and the “orbital semi-major axis” are properties of the Solar SYSTEM.
In other words: the SYSTEM drives the planets… not the other way around…”
The ‘system’ IS the planets and Sun. The question is WHY the apparent order which leads us to characterise the planets and Sun as a ‘system’ arises. A ‘system’ is a human conceptual construct describing a collection of phenomena that appears to exhibit self maintaining order. Concepts don’t drive anything. Forces resulting from the transfer of energy drives things.
TB: The ‘system’ IS the planets and Sun.
PRECISELY! 😉
“Concepts don’t drive anything. Forces resulting from the transfer of energy drives things.”
don’t want to get too philosophical but forces are also human conceptual constructions. Especially those pesky “action at at distance” ones that no one can explain.
Greg: I’m going to push you into the stinging nettles and then you can tell me how conceptual my force was. 😉
As for gravity, I’d rather put up with a Newtonian inability to frame hypotheses than an Einsteinian tendency to hide the problem in a curvature I can’t calculate with my slide rule.
be careful my friend , every action has an equal opposite reaction !
getting back to business, is the JPL ephemeris easy to get into, or is it complicated get what you sent me?
tallbloke says: February 24, 2013 at 2:02 pm
The ‘system’ IS the planets and Sun…
Provided you ignore any external energy sources, the actually mechanics driving the energy transfers within the system, every other object [except the planets and sun] that are in the solar system and all the partially [and yet to be discovered] understood properties of the Solar System… seems like a Monty Python “what did the Romans every do for us?” argument to me 🙂
A ‘system’ is a human conceptual construct describing a collection of phenomena that appears to exhibit self maintaining order.
Except, of course, when the system is a SYSTEM… a bit like the Solar System 🙂
Human do indeed conceptualise… sometimes these concept reflect reality… sometimes these concepts are supported by observational data… sometimes these concepts are just supported by “big booming voices”.
Natural systems can be very complex… the human body [for example] is a natural system… the water cycle is another natural system… and once these systems are established they tend to have a “life” of their own provided the external energy source [driver] is maintained.
The Solar System Barycentre is a concept… it is a concept that only has meaning within a system [the Solar System]… unfortunately, the Solar System Barycentre is a concept that is not supported by any observational data… unfortunately, the Solar System Barycentre relies upon an immeasurable human concept called “planetary mass”… unfortunately, “planetary mass” is an unscientific concept because it can never be measured…. and following the “planetary mass” path has caused the mainstream to disappear into a “rabbit warren” of unscientific conjecture – like black holes and dark matter…
Concepts don’t drive anything.
Just like “magical forces at a distance” don’t drive [or explain] anything…
But “concepts” can help humans analyse reality.
Relying upon “magic” just leaves us with “witch doctors” and “big booming voices”.
The human ability to conceptualise complex systems has been led to many practical [and useful] real inventions [and discoveries]… like the steam engine and the internal combustion engine… interestingly, these invented systems also seem to rely upon an external supply of energy… just like the climate system relies [primarily] upon the energy input from the sun… perhaps the most interesting aspect of a “system” is that it has more “properties” than the sum of its [standalone] component parts…
Personally, I find it very perverse to present evidence [in one post] that the Solar System is a self-organising “Phi” system and then to argue [in the comments of this post] that the “system” is a concept that doesn’t drive anything… that seems like trying to have your cake and eat it… personally, I find it very difficult to have a “big booming voice” when my mouth is full of cake… but then I am a bear of very little brain… and we can probably agree on that point 🙂
Greg: easy to use JPL web front end. Big documentation on using their via email system which has more options.
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi
Have a click around, and if you don’t understand anything, leave it at the default. 🙂
Hello, I can send a file 21kyPerihelionEarthSol.csv (494 KB), it contains data points made with (most recent) ephemerides DE421 using Solex/v11 numerical integration. The file spans the julian years -10500 to +10500, you may just want the subinterval for years 1600 to 2100. It has a column with JD2000 julian date and another with distance in AU (ecliptic longitude [for assessing seasons] can be added if needed).
The reason I made the data points is that perihelion (min spatial distance to apple), over more than 100 years, drifts notably against equinox (axial tilt of orange). But also [made it] because I wanted to see how Earth-Sol perihelion develops its overall curve, in one simple plot. Some here may be surprised by this y = x^2 curve (eek!) as it shows that Earth-Sol perihelion is increasing by circa 3x Earth-Luna distance during merely 21ky. I’m going to ask the Solex author why his always excellent numerical integration software shows the square of time elapsed in this case (but anticipate his “no problem” as usual whenever I’ve asked him such triviality).
Chaeremon: Thanks for the offer of sharing data, I’ll send an email you can reply to with the attachment.
TB, looking at the csv you sent me “1 calendar year” is 365 days . There will be significant drift.
2310201.500000000, A.D. 1613-Jan-06 00:00:00.0000, -3.579509968615616E-01, 9.159068463316987E-01, 7.836197184627773E-04, -1.630831602839$
2310566.500000000, A.D. 1614-Jan-06 00:00:00.0000, -3.537670930670132E-01, 9.175131069212764E-01, 7.836020870260616E-04, -1.633691781963$
Since it’s a drop down list with few choices, I cant see a way to request 1.002 year interval .
Chaeremon
y=x**2
Well the Earth is probably drifting outwards as the moon is distancing itself from the Earth.
not sure what your x and y are here but rotational kinetic energy is 1/2. m(v/r)**2 . So a steady loss of energy would translate with a square law.
could you explain whether your file is actually showing closest approach or something drifting w.r.t. true perihelion?
What is the interval between each data point?
Greg, I used the Earth-Luna distance for comparison in *this* comment, as in order of magnitude. Though the actual Earth-Sol perihelion is also affected by the actual Earth-Luna distance, this is rather a mathematical artifact (unless we have control over much-much-better-than-naked-eye radar measurements) and not explicitly considered here (of course it’s implicit by the ephemerides).
Yes you guessed it correctly! the point in time shown is actually T the time of closest approach (and not a fixed interval). The actual interval t, if needed, is t = (T[-1] – T[0]) you know how that’s meant.
Here is Chaeremon’s plot of perihelion Earth-sun distance over 21kyr
Given that the shape of Earth’s orbit changes over a cycle of around 100kyr (milankovitch cycle of eccentricity) I guess we are looking at just under a quarter of the full sine wave. Chaeremon’s earlier comment seemed to imply the tilt would affect perihelion as well. Perhaps he could tell us a bit more about the interpretation of the plot. I’ve made the file available in xls format too.
https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/21kyperihelionearthsol.xls
I thought I’d look at this the other way up. I’ve taken aphelion to be nominal 6 july. The inverted it to get it that same way up as it would affect global temps and passed a light 2y gaussian filter to make it more legible.
Can’t get ephemeris to do what I need so this is still fixed data.
It is at least clear that the turn of century changes are changes in the pattern and now calendar glitches. What was a sharp step is 1700 has become a small kink by 2000. Instead of the notable cooling in the early years of each century we now just have the “plateau” in warming.
Also seen is a smaller inflection around the half century mark. The low point after WWII is 1975 which pretty much agrees with the climate record. Warming rate in later half the same as earlier warming, also as per climate.
The thing that does not tie in perfectly is the lack of a clear post war cooling. Which is probably a good time for us to consider Folland’s folly. The spurious 0.5C cooling that Hadley injected into the climate record.
More on that later perhaps.
Bottom line is that, without doing calcs and putting numbers on it, the seems to pretty much characterise climate of the last 300 years.
And if the numbers aren’t big enough I suppose we could always suggest it’s amplified by water vapour or something 😛
tallbloke, about the interpretation of the plot. I have a gut feeling that either the ephemerides or the numerical integrator doesn’t know what is wanted for assessing cause of climate impact by perihelion (or else there’s somewhere or somehow a mistake, by someone). OTOH one can zoom in, for example, into just a 200y range and see the tug of the jovians, as already plotted in your February 23, 2013 at 12:16 pm diagram (my plot overlays all these pixels into a wide band).
I’m curious as you are to see that the 21ky plot’s y = x^2 curve form is just one baby curvelet of Milankovitch’s 100ky elephant and then some. Currently I’m learning about the cover-with-accuracy for +/- 50ky (but that is just ~4x21ky!) by the given ephemerides and numerical integration.
Or are we at the beginning of just another catastrophic cause of climate impact 😎
This is not optimally scaled to match the century long record but does illustrate a key point: the WWII glitch was a climate glitch , not a data collection error !!
Its unfortunate coincidence with entry of US into WWII had everyone presuming it was a data sampling error. However, there is strong evidence here that it was an anomalous planetary alignment the caused aphelion to less distant for several years in a row. This would have caused milder winters in NH and warmer summers down under.
For the last 30 years Met Office Hadley have been fudging around trying to “correct” one side of this bump. This spurious, one sided rigging of the climate record has always been a problem in attempts to fit periodic functions to the 20th.
Whatever, you try to fit this (artificial) post war drop just does not work. I suggested a year in my article on hadSST on Judith’s Climate Etc., that Hadley were disrupting the structure of the data with their speculative “bias corrections”.
At the time I demonstrated that just removing a fixed 0.4C for the wartime period was less disruptive. It now looks like even that maybe unwarranted.
As the old saying goes ; the data is the data.
So Folland and Parker and Parker and Folland et at, et al , could we please have our 0.5C back now please ?
Chaeremon , I have pulled E-S 6th Jan distance from JPL and it basically the same as TB plot but with bigger spikes. Makes sense, his was EM barycentre which moved less.
However, they are quite different from what I get if I extract 1600-2100 from your file.
Yours is nearer to 1AU which may be OK if 6 Jan is badly off. However the form is pretty different too. That’s more worrying. There’s a lot less magnitude in the ‘jupiter’ troughs in your data ie its variance is quite a bit less. Now, yours is labelled r^2 , so I would expect more variation.
Are we looking at the same quantity here?
Hello, after one very long thought I’ve come to the following mental state: the impresarios of the academic theater would never manipulate Kepler’s laws only for obtaining ephemerides. Therefore, the 21ky plot (and any larger range plot) is showing that equal areas are swept in equal time (etc). Obviously the impresarios asserted additionally that Earth-Sol distance was shorter in geologically earlier times (from now) and will be longer in geologically later times (from now), so the 21ky plot shows an y = x^2 curve form (thanks Greg for commenting). But since the archaeological record has not shown that life-forms were boiled in oceanic waters all the way towards the past (there be ice ages), Earth-Sol perihelion changes can have had an impact on climate, but amplitudes (by perihelion alone) are obviously mathematically low by assertion (e.g dino’s were large but cold, etc).
The Milankovitch (and similar) cycles (thanks tallbloke for commenting), when taken together, arbitrarily change the length of seasons and therefore affect climate (arbitrarily but plausibly, along adjacent sequences of equinoxes and solstices), and also the high orbital speed during Earth-Sol perihelion (and low speed during aphelion) have their imprint on that change. This all follows from the impresarios’ assertions, is manifest in published and used ephemerides, but also nothing new.
What IMHO remains is the 179y (etc) stirring, by the jovians (etc), of the solar dough in its Einsteinian bowl of gravitationally curved space.
Greg asked: [Greg] would expect more variation, and: are we looking at the same quantity here. For sure there must be differences between interval-fixed calendrical (fictitious, absolutely non-existing) time of data points and physically event-occurring time of data points, this I see as the biggest differences between “plain” Keplerian swept areas and “cusp-ed” Newtonian points in time of closest (etc) approach by radius (etc) between two or more Newtonian bodies under mutual gravitational influence.
An example: would you think that Luna-Sol perihelion happens simultaneously with lunar conjunction (the latter you can observe with eclipses). But the former can occur loong before or loong after new-moon (I was not aware until I myself made the differential plot). So, your questions are no surprise for me.
FWIW I also understood from earlier comments that JPL has an outdated DE405 ephemerides, I cannot select that in Solex/v11 and so cannot reproduce for comparison.
Rog,
What in heaven’s name is the X-axis of the xls data?
It’s irregular scattered, mean 365.26 something.
Assuming sample rate is 1, primary curve is 121xxx or thereabouts. Actually handling the irregular is feasible but I would like to know what it is.
The software I have here is adequate for shredding JPL but all the same why the scatter?
Second up to suspiciously close to the sample rate pointing to aliasing.
Third up is jupiter.
If it is years 121ky looks awful like the “non-existent” ice age stuff.
A causal look at 7 terms r2=0.999996 starts to reach maths detail breakdown.
Dropped out at this
period -var- 120924.83 2.71 11.86 3.98 5.93 2.67 15.78
r2=1
rmsd 4.56E-006
Have to look and see what is left, the residual.
4.510047E-06
-2.270170E-06
1.334724E-06
8.952440E-06
1.537909E-05
1.148229E-05
1.060096E-05
6.092602E-06
7.050031E-06
-2.563722E-06
1.065811E-06
6.074630E-06
1.311894E-05
1.131943E-05
1.170804E-05
1.039714E-05
More than 6 digit data is needed.
I am currently out of normal service. Use irregular? If I am feeling strong.
See how I feel tomorrow.
“outdated DE405 ephemerides” …. ??
I guess it depends on whether you are okay with a kilometer or so in position error over time or really need to home in to no more that 100 meters in error. I seems if you are dropping a fragile package into a crater on Mars it does matter a bit, and then probably you should call that old and outdated DE405 version just that, out-of-date, let everyone know how “unreliable” it’s results really are. 😉
Tim: “Second up to suspiciously close to the sample rate pointing to aliasing.”
Yeah, I thought it looked suspicious. I’ll stick the JPL on this one. That almost unique shift in the pattern of aphelion finally providing an explanation for the wartime bump is a killer.
I suppose I should try to do some basic calculations in W/m2 but I doubt it’s a coincidence.
If I can prove that, it’s really going to blow Hadley’s bucket adjustments and other fairly tale “corrections”. Needs looking at.
err, I’ll stick WITH the JPL on this one.
Just a quick look at fixed date perihelion and aphelion looks very similar but clearly not identical.
Jan 6
20.17
12.84
10.04
6.85
5.98
July 6
20.0
12.69
10.136
There’s my circa 13a signal coming out again. That is common to most basin’s SST so no surprise to find it is of celestial origin. Apparently TB knows where it comes from but it’s a secret for now.
I have another idea…
Tim C: Dunno, Chaeremon got it from Solex. Sounds like it a keplerian approximation, which will be why it doesn’t show the perturbations from the other planets as Greg spotted. My JPL annual data is fixed to midnight Jan 6 so it’ll get a small bump every 4 yers from the leap year, and leap centuries will get a little kick too. We ought to pull the data for a day earlier and later to compare. I doubt it makes much difference though since the distance changes slowly. Not as slowly as aphelion though, and that might be why Greg sees slight differences.
Greg: My back of fag packet calculation on W/m^2 at 1700 says we are looking at 0.7W/m^2 difference between 1695 and 1700 at perihelion. As you pointed out, closer perihelion means more distant aphelion. I think (but haven’t calculated) that will make for a cooler year because of the longer slower arc out near aphelion. We really need to work this out because as Tim touched on, there is the question of how much difference Milankovitch eccentricity cycle makes to insolation over the annual term. I can see you are focussed on modern era SST data, but I don’t think you can reach conclusions about wartime years on the basis of perihelion distance. Too many other factors such as cloud cover, ENSO etc. Still worth considering though, and it’s worth getting a bit more sophisticated about it.
To do that, we need to pull, say, weekly data covering the 1930’s and 1940’s and integrate with the SB equation to get a curve for insolation at constant albedo. The link I gave earlier has all the equations. Then do the same for the satellite era where the data is better and compare.
The sudden post war drop is purely a product of Hadley’s intervention. Folland started it by “correcting” the early WWII rise but leaving the post war fall thus creating a totally spurious 0.5C drop in 1946. In HadSST3 they have recently refined it and decided Folland was “right for the wrong reason”. They have made up another set of adjustments that ends up with the same result but just slide it in gently.
They also removed about 2/3 of variation from whole pre 1940 record ! An uncharitable mind may think they were trying to remove an inconvenient degree of natural variation from the early record and a warmer late 19th c. in order to make recent warming look more significant.
Whatever the original motivation, that is the result.
The change in orbital pattern ties in very closely with this apparent anomaly in the data.
This bump is probably the biggest issue in the 20th c. surface record. I’d be very surprised if I haven’t stumbled upon a significant detail that has been over looked for 30 years. (Principally because those doing the work have not even been looking, since they new the answer as soon as Thatcher cut ribbon). I digress.
I guess what needs to be done is to integrate 1/r^2 over a the year for a few Jupiter cycles to get the net effect. Then do the same for the war period.
Once the method is set up I suspect running up to 2010 will show a warming plateau. Certainly looks that way by eye.
Leap years should not be big problem since they only compensate the 1/4 day drift anyway. 2000 may be visible because it breaks the regular system but there’s not flagrantly obvious in what I’ve seen so far.
“To do that, we need to pull, say, weekly data covering the 1930′s and 1940′s and integrate with the SB equation to get a curve for insolation at constant albedo. ”
Probably needs daily to avoid rounding to near week.
Why all the SB stuff. Just work out 1/r^2 which gives the drop off of radiation with distance. Just find out the difference in incoming power don’t start trying to model the earth.
” Too many other factors such as cloud cover, ENSO etc”
All ties together. I’m fairly convinced that we should be regarding El Nino as sub surface tides. They have complex cycles and are as intractable as surface tides but the basic physics is the same , just 2 or 3 orders of magnitude slower.
If the JPL data is correct and I have correctly extracted it, that war time orbital anomaly will have had inertial effects on all the major oceans. Nino/Nina included. Maybe the induced effect on El Nino would have been more significant than the direct radiation difference.
May be a look at LOD would help.
LOD shows 1945 as change of direction but not jumps.
Actually, did Wayne get as far as generating a time series of vectors for the centre of attraction?
The magnitude of that vector may be easier to work with than the distance.
That’s the sort of thing I was thinking of.
Cooling either side when there’s a J-trough and warm bump during WWII.
Ok let’s get specific, here’s an overlay:
Greg: one of the things complicating this is Earth’s negative feedbacks. The response to solar minimum is to kick out energy from the ocean. Viz the big El ninos in 2010, 1998, and 1987 was a bit smaller because El Chichon had already caused a kickout from the warm pool. So the response to a low insolation year mioght be similar. Hence the el nino in 1940. Having said that there is often a smaller El nino part way down the downslope of the solar cycle anyway. There’s a big downturn in solar activity in 1939 that might have helped make it a bigger one.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1930/to:1950
Interesting comments.
I have been maintaining for a couple of years that volcanoes are climate neutral by the end of 5 or 6 after eruption precisely for the same reasons. Initially warmer winters offset the cooler summers (ash cloud acting similarly to cloud covered nights being less cold). Then negative feedbacks ensure extra solar energy is absorbed to make up the deficit.
The idea that volcanoes leave a permanent energy deficit that only an amplified CO2 AGW effect can counter ( if it were not for the volcanoes CAGW would be FAR worse !) , is just a convenient untruth.
The relationship in the graph is quite tight before 1950 and stays in step with the baseline later but some of the detail does not match as closely.
In particular the two big El Nino peaks. The 1998 peak is very likely to have been so strong in order to compensate for Mount Pinatubo eruption.
So I agree to a point.
However, closer aphelion is about milder winters when the climate feedbacks will be working their hardest to stabilise the annual season variations. They may not fight back too hard if a closer sun wants to lighten the load.
Also “global warming” is recognised to be more about warming minimum temperatures than summer heat waves.
As I commented a day or two back here, the drift of perihelion towards mid-winter will also tend to ease the extremes.
Ephemeris have a validity range on date.
Generally the later DExxx have lots of fiddle factors imposed to try and fit data from satellites and are very restricted on date range.
ftp://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/eph/planets/ioms/de405.iom.pdf
ftp://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/eph/planets/ioms/de421.iom.v1.pdf
The planet
UranusNeptune was discovered in 1846 from a calculation of its gravitational pull on other planets. This discussion, 167 years later, is just amazing.[author corrected –Tim]
tchannon, good find (validity range on date for ephemeris). You may perhaps want to read how this all developed, from achievements reached 3000 years ago in Mesopotamia until the high-precision fit with the data:
Martin C. Gutzwiller, “Moon-Earth-Sun: The oldest three-body problem” (a.k.a perturbation theory), he also points out unexplained phenomenae.
Click to access moon-earth-sin%20rmp.70.589.pdf
Gutzwiller is very systematic, good read this his review paper. I’m indepted to one idea in it that “…the orbital plane straightens up a bit when facing the Sun…” which, e.g. for the lunar orbit, happens e.g. from quadrature to quadrature.
In the context of say ice ages the history is cloudy, in relatively recent times there is pretty clear data matched closely by approximations.
This leads to the context of discussion. If it is geologists considering orbital as accounting for far history and trying to relate this to today, with prediction, I feel that is going too far.
There will be many tiny effects. Do you know of any which are significant?
tchannon says: “In the context of say ice ages the history is cloudy, in relatively recent times there is pretty clear data matched closely by approximations.” hats off to you 😎
tchannon says: “This leads to the context of discussion. If it is geologists considering orbital as accounting for far history and trying to relate this to today, with prediction, I feel that is going too far.” Yes, way too far and obviously (intentionally? psychopathically?) mad 😡 The impresarios of ‘soft’ sciences operate an elitist academic theater in which the absence of evidence is equated with the evidence of absence, in their ongoing search for another unfalsifiable Truest Truth[tm] and science sensations. An example for this direction: ‘out of Africa’ of mankind (which we want to date in geological terms, in order to update our knowledge of orbital occurrences) cannot have happened via the oceans (down-under, anybody?), simply because [the ancients] have not been observed their building of ocean-going ships (and fisher-boats are rejected), despite the success of experimental ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl (his Kon-Tiki and other expeditions). You can see that Heyerdahl and his [reed and timber] ships are intentionally held controversial by the impresarios of the academic theater.
tchannon says: “There will be many tiny effects. Do you know of any which are significant?” The more recent past (the last ~50kyr, YMMV) is the playground for the most controversial (but overwhelmingly and absolutely fictitious) tiny effects. E.g. it is impossible for the impresarios to predict the eclipses of 10kyr ago (as this would allow orbital phenomenae being used for highest-precision dating), therefore our remotest ancestors cannot have done that as well, and cannot have recorded their observations as petroglyphs and as pictographs “hieroglyphs”, in particular not by the expert-scouts, endurance-hunting with their experience and tradition in their hunting-ground and the Nile river valley. Even NASA/GSFC proves the [ancient’s] idiocy on the basis of scientific fraud, they drop 90% of their calculated solar eclipses for ancient Egypt and claim that the remaining 10% (just NASA’s claimed total solar eclipses) must have been insufficient for idiots to recognize eclipse cycles:
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11846.html (see their use of Canon of Eclipses)
Until 1-2 years ago NASA also published their fraud on
http://eclipse99.nasa.gov/pages/traditions_moreegypt.htm#moreegypt
but I wrote that to many people on the Internet. It now seems that something has changed NASA’s attitude a bit recently by [astronomically correct] 180°, whatever that was.
The most tiniest effects appear at the (sub-)atomic level. Since the Earth must have been made out of Uranium and Plutonium by the impresarios’ assertions[tm], and cannot have had much lead Pb (etc) aside of radioactive material, the lead/uranium (etc) decay ratio found in the archaeological record is used in the academic theater for unfalsifiable[tm] Radiodating of every find on the bodies of our solar system.
“the impresarios of the academic theater.”
Yes, there’s a lot of that in all branches of science. Many have wondered why there was not an outcry from other branches of science when climategate scandal hit. “They are devaluing the whole of science, why aren’t other scientists demanding they get their house in order?”
The simple reason is they dare not, least someone turn the spot light on them.
I started looking into polar drift , nutation etc. I though that astronomy was a hard science where everything was accurate to at least 10 significant figures and there was no messing .
Sadly, there seems to be the same entrenched orthodoxy that suppresses non conformist ideas. As Carl Sagan pointed out , Velakovski came up with some improbably and refutable ideas. The problem was not that he was wrong but the efforts that went to stifle him.
And as the subject of this thread demonstrates the high priests of astronomy seem confused about something as obvious as the SSB question.
Greg: that’s probably over-egging it. The real problem is over-specialisation. So we get a Solar interior theoretician who doesn’t understand orbital dynamics making authoritative comment on Sun-Earth distance for example. People assume that a Prof of astrophysics won’t make that kind of basic error, but it happens all the time.
And because all these over-specialised people don’t feel confident to comment on someone elses patch, all the egregious stats fudges and over-reaching conclusions are allowed to stand. Add the whip hand of the funding hierarchy and its political paymaster, and there you have it. Lysenkoism.
Greg said: “…SSB question.” I think that, by our math alone, every n-body system has such a barycenter. When barycenters are exaggerated, mathematically, for clusters, nebulae, galaxies: there be black holes (spots in the backdrop where nobody sees anything in the telescope, and by mathematical definition this nothing cannot move into sight) :sighing:
Chaeremon,
every n-body system has such a barycenter by definition. That does not mean anything is attracted to it. I’m not sure what point you are trying to make.
Greg wrote: “…barcycenter by definition…” but I wrote “…by our math alone…” it’s possible we misunderstand each other, I see barycenter as a consequence (outcome of theoretical considerations) and I personally don’t know how to observe them.
As to “what’s attracted by a barycenter.” I think I don’t understand that argument, for me a barycenter is straight on the line between (at least) two bodies, and bodies attract mutually along that line. This is how I see it.
Chaeremon says: “… and bodies attract mutually along that line.”
Hey, please go back are read more than the headline article. You have missed the whole discussion here apparently, and I don’t feel inclined to start it all again just for you.
Greg: can you please be very specific on which part of my view you don’t like.
[Moderation note] Greg: Be aware of potential language misunderstandings as Chaeremon is not a native speaker.
ch says Greg: can you please be very specific on which part of my view you don’t like.
It’s not a case of like or dislike. This thread contains a lengthy discussion of the issue and it appears from you comment that you have not followed the discussion.
Maybe it’s just a language problem because your previous comment did not make any sense to me either as I indicated.
I don’t wish to reiterate the whole discussion so I’m suggesting you read comments. Search for my comments if you wish to shorten the time it takes.
The latter part, diverges somewhat into something I spotted in perihelion plot TB put up. The SSB issue was covered by then.
Once you’ve read that , you should not longer be talking about two-body trivial cases and saying things like “and bodies attract mutually along that line.”.
I’ve spent enough of this week discussing silly misunderstandings of what celestial bodies revolve about. The hope is that people can read this thread instead of it having to be argued out each time.
Greg wrote: “Search for my comments…” no. I either quoted or addressed your remarks directly.
Greg wrote: “…you should not longer be talking…” no.
Greg wrote: “…talking about two-body trivial cases…” me restricted something to 2-body? hmm, no.
Greg wrote: “…what celestial bodies revolve about…” me wrote about revolve? no.
Perhaps you meant someone else, dunno. This seems to be end-of-communication. Over and out.
P.S. please don’t misunderstand my reaction Greg. If you like we can discuss SBB issues at length somewhere else and then come back here, you are invited to make the contact.
“This seems to be end-of-communication.”
I don’t think there ever was any communication to end. I was unable to make sense of what you wrote and you seem unable to express yourself adequately in English for there to be any discussion.
You now seem to be getting annoyed because I didn’t understand you and my reply probably was not understood by you either.
Sorry. Hope you managed to get something useful from the thread.
At least this can serve as a point of reference, putting to rest the wide spread mus-conception that things revolve around barycentres.”
[Let’s leave it at that and move on please. co-moderator]
Greg says: At least this can serve as a point of reference, putting to rest the wide spread mus-conception that things revolve around barycentres.
According to the equations JPL use to construct their main ephemeris, all solar system bodies revolve around barycentres, notwithstanding small perturbations from their neighbours. The point of my respnses in this thread is to demonstrate that the planets revolve around their respective barycentres with the Sun, not the solar system barycentre. Only the Sun itself ‘revolves’ (or ‘wobbles’) around the solar system barycentre; in a path determined mainly by the gas giant planets. This is not due so much to the gravitational force the Jovians exert on the Sun, as due to the motion of the Sun with respect to the changing combinatory disposition of these gas giant’s masses. The resultant is known as ‘Solar inertial motion’.
Rather than embark on tediously tortuous mathematical proofs of these facts, I’ll simply point Greg to the relevant chapter of JPL’s documentation (thanks Wayne).
Click to access XSChap8.pdf
Moving on to “what kind of effect we think matters”
The Sun is an extended wobbly mass of roiling plasma and dense core with energy pouring from its centre, rather than a nice neat point mass or elastic billiard ball fully described by simple Newtonian (or complicated relativistic) calculations. This has potentially important ramifications. One of the several possibilities is formalised mathematically in a 2010 paper by NASA scientists Wolff and Patrone:
On this blog we have found many interesting correlations between the motion of the Sun with respect to the solar system barycentre and other phenomena such as variation in Earth’s length of day, changes in the hemispheric asymmetry of sunspot production, overall levels of solar activity and variations in solar wind speed and density. The underlying mechanism(s) are as yet uncertain, but the probability of all these phenomena coinciding by chance is vanishingly small.
Many scientific theories are based on observations which enable the development of successful predictions, without the underlying mechanism(s) being known. Unlike some other blogs, we don’t dismiss as uninteresting phenomena for which no mechanism is evident. That would be an unscientific approach in our opinion. Follow the data.
I think the discussion has been confused by the initial reference to Newton’s statement which was taken out of context, he acknowledges that the Sun moves about the SSB elsewhere. In fact the Sun has now embarked on a diversion from it’s more stable trefoil trajectory into a pattern associated with reduced TSI. the regular 60Y departure will be more long term this time due to the 179 Y oscillation that was associated with the Dalton minimum.The question asked is what of Earth’s orbit? and I submit that like all the planets and the Sun, Earth orbits the SSB as proposed by Newton and like the Sun periodically it’s orbit is forced away from SSB but nevertheless it continues with SSB focus and to a large extent maintains it’s distance from massive Sun. Importantly it is happening NOW now and it would be instructive to find software that could demonstrate what is happening if anyone has a lead that would be very helpful.