Gravitational Pull From Venus and Jupiter Influence Earth's Climate/Life Forms

[SalixIncendium]

"Every 405,000 years, gravitational tugs from Jupiter and Venus slightly elongate Earth’s orbit, an amazingly consistent pattern that has influenced our planet’s climate for at least 215 million years and allows scientists to more precisely date geological events like the spread of dinosaurs, according to a Rutgers-led study."

http://www.newswise.com/articles/earth’s-orbital-changes-have-influenced-climate,-life-forms-for-at-least-215-million-years

While 405,000 years seems like a long time, by my calculations, the earth has gone through 11,185 of these cycles in its lifetime.

From the study itself:

"Rhythmic climate cycles of various assumed frequencies recorded in sedimentary archives are increasingly used to construct a continuous geologic timescale. However, the age range of valid theoretical orbital solutions is limited to only the past 50 million years. New U–Pb zircon dates from the Chinle Formation tied using magnetostratigraphy to the Newark–Hartford astrochronostratigraphic polarity timescale provide empirical confirmation that the unimodal 405-kiloyear orbital eccentricity cycle reliably paces Earth’s climate back to at least 215 million years ago, well back in the Late Triassic Period."

Empirical evidence for stability of the 405-kiloyear Jupiter–Venus eccentricity cycle over hundreds of millions of years

How, if at all, do you feel that this study may relate to the climate change we are experiencing in the present day?

 

[Polymath257]

Not st all....the time scales are too different. We are comparing changes over, at most, the last few centuries to changes over a cycle of 400,000 years.

/E: VERY interesting articles, though.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Not st all....the time scales are too different. We are comparing changes over, at most, the last few centuries to changes over a cycle of 400,000 years.

Understood. But the study doesn't going into detail (where I saw at least) marking the beginning/ending dates of the 405,000 year cycle or the magnitude of impact over a specific timeframe. Is it not at all possible that we may be at the start or end of the gravitational impact and this may be, to some degree, impacting the change in the earth's climate?

 

[Polymath257]

Understood. But the study doesn't going into detail (where I saw at least) marking the beginning/ending dates of the 405,000 year cycle or the magnitude of impact over a specific timeframe. Is it not at all possible that we may be at the start or end of the gravitational impact and this may be, to some degree, impacting the change in the earth's climate?

Not likely. Again, the time scales are too far off. We are talking *at most* of a .1% piece of the larger cycle. Even if it was at a 'fast' point of change, the effect would be small over this time period. At most, it provides a background.

 

[Polymath257]

Now, there are other cycles of smaller time scales that might well be relevant. Here is evidence for one that operates over a bit over a year, also due to Jupiter:

Empirical evidences for a planetary modulation of total solar irradiance and the TSI signature of the 1.09-year Earth-Jupiter conjunction cycle

Here's a few more:
The mid-term and long-term solar quasi-periodic cycles and the possible relationship with planetary motions

 

[Polymath257]

And don't forget the 11 year sunspot cycle--which is tied to total solar irradiance.

 

[suncowiam]

@Polymath257 has demonstrated so much expertise in math and science, that I just take his word for everything now.

 

[Kapalika]

Not st all....the time scales are too different. We are comparing changes over, at most, the last few centuries to changes over a cycle of 400,000 years.

/E: VERY interesting articles, though.

Maybe I misunderstood, but the elongation wasn't gradually over that 400k years, but more so happened every 400k years to either bring the Earth's orbit to more circular or to make it 5% more elliptical than that more circular orbit, like flipping between two different paths every 400k years when either Juipiter or Venus was in the right spot to pull us one way or the other.

So unless we are at the end/start of that 40,000 years I wouldn't expect it to matter for the climate change we are experiencing not because of the timescale but because we just totally aren't experiencing that acute event.

@Polymath257 has demonstrated so much expertise in math and science, that I just take his word for everything now.

That can lead to appeals to authority. Never be afraid to double check something someone says.

 

[suncowiam]

Maybe I misunderstood, but the elongation wasn't gradually over that 400k years, but more so happened every 400k years to either bring the Earth's orbit to more circular or to make it 5% more elliptical than that more circular orbit, like flipping between two different paths every 400k years when either Juipiter or Venus was in the right spot to pull us one way or the other.

So unless we are at the end/start of that 40,000 years I wouldn't expect it to matter for the climate change we are experiencing not because of the timescale but because we just totally aren't experiencing that acute event.



That can lead to appeals to authority. Never be afraid to double check something someone says.

Of course you're right.

But then when you keep losing to the same authority over and over, well... LOL

 

[SalixIncendium]

That can lead to appeals to authority. Never be afraid to double check something someone says.

I'm compelled to fact check this statement.

 

[Kapalika]

And don't forget the 11 year sunspot cycle--which is tied to total solar irradiance.

It's worth mentioning the the variation of that cycle only accounts for changes of 0.2 Kelvin up or down, depending on the point of the cycle. Over decades it's effect would even out to be almost nonexistent.

Surface warming by the solar cycle as revealed by the composite mean difference

Green house gases are the main driving force of climate change in our era.

 

[Kapalika]

Of course you're right.

But then when you keep losing to the same authority over and over, well... LOL

It can be hard for a layman to check against someone well educated in a field but it's been done before, and is actively encouraged to those getting into said fields. Science wouldn't get anywhere if people didn't review each others work either. So healthy skepticism is par for the course for scientists and people scientifically minded.

 

[suncowiam]

It can be hard for a layman to check against someone well educated in a field but it's been done before, and is actively encouraged to those getting into said fields. Science wouldn't get anywhere if people didn't review each others work either. So healthy skepticism is par for the course for scientists and people scientifically minded.

If the layman doesn't have the skills to back it up, then probably best not to continue the debate.

Skepticism is fair as long as it can be logically and fairly debated against. Appeal of authority does have a place in our society...

 

[Kapalika]

If the layman doesn't have the skills to back it up, then probably best not to continue the debate.

Skepticism is fair as long as it can be logically and fairly debated against. Appeal of authority does have a place in our society...

Well, what i mean is, you can check what anyone says against a consensus at least, for example:

The current scientific consensus, most specifically that of the IPCC, is that solar variations do play a smaller role in driving global warming,[74] since the measured magnitude of recent solar variation is much smaller than the forcing due to greenhouse gases.[81] Also, solar activity in the 2010s was not higher than in the 1950s (see above), whereas global warming had risen markedly. Otherwise, the level of understanding of solar impacts on weather is low.[82]

I'm not saying a layman should debate the late Hawkings on the mathematics black hole entropy but it's pretty easy to check it against something. How much you understand of it yourself will determine how much you need to rely on others versus just looking at it yourself. I use the word layman very broadly to mean anyone not professionally in the field.

The point is that no one is infallible. I'm not saying everyone will be the next patent clerk to shake physics but what I am saying is that it never hurts to double check what the rest of the scientific world is saying about it, or even looking into it yourself a little bit if you're familiar with the field, even if not professionally so.

At least for me, it's a chance to learn more about the subject and I come back with a better understanding regardless of whoever was "right" or "wrong". Double checking something doesn't mean trying to disprove or prove, it just means verifying what someone said, and maybe learning something along the way

 

[Polymath257]

Maybe I misunderstood, but the elongation wasn't gradually over that 400k years, but more so happened every 400k years to either bring the Earth's orbit to more circular or to make it 5% more elliptical than that more circular orbit, like flipping between two different paths every 400k years when either Juipiter or Venus was in the right spot to pull us one way or the other.

So unless we are at the end/start of that 40,000 years I wouldn't expect it to matter for the climate change we are experiencing not because of the timescale but because we just totally aren't experiencing that acute event.



That can lead to appeals to authority. Never be afraid to double check something someone says.

That would be a consideration, but the paper on which this is based, https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2011/08/aa16836-11.pdf doesn't seem to support it. The eccentricity varies fairly regularly on the short term with periodicities around 405ky and 2.4My dominant.

 

[Polymath257]

It's worth mentioning the the variation of that cycle only accounts for changes of 0.2 Kelvin up or down, depending on the point of the cycle. Over decades it's effect would even out to be almost nonexistent.

Surface warming by the solar cycle as revealed by the composite mean difference

Green house gases are the main driving force of climate change in our era.

Agreed.

 

[Polymath257]

If anything, the spectrum of the eccentricity seems to have a pretty clear peak at 405ky without the harmonics that would be present if the changes were limited to a smaller part of that cycle.

 

[David T]

Seems like a subductionzone question . Where is sub... Where is sub

 

[Polymath257]

@Polymath257 has demonstrated so much expertise in math and science, that I just take his word for everything now.

Please don't do that! It reduces my opportunity to learn!

 

[suncowiam]

Please don't do that! It reduces my opportunity to learn!

Who are you still learning from concerning math and science?

Sorry man... I can't see any possible debate on this forum to allow that. Possibly other forums specific towards those two subjects.

There was another fellow whom I haven't seen in a long time. He was a physicist/research for some school. I think LegionOfMoi, was it?

That would have been interesting to see you two go at it.