arXiv subjects

Ian R. Edmonds

Publications and source records attributed to Ian R. Edmonds.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Is climate variability the result of frequency modulation by the solar cycle? Evidence from the El Nino Southern Oscillation, Australian climate, Central England Temperature, and reconstructed solar activity and climate records

Oceanic atmospheric oscillations and climate variability are tightly linked and both exhibit broad band spectral content that ranges, with roughly equal strength, from annual to centennial periodicity. The explanation for variability based on the integration of weather noise leads to a spectral content heavily weighted to low frequencies; explaining the variability as resulting from solar forcing leads to a narrow band, approximately eleven year period, spectral content. In both cases the spectral content is incompatible with the observed spectrum. It is known that the Southern Oscillation is frequency modulated, i.e. the time interval between successive events varies on an approximately centenary scale. In this paper we develop a model of the Southern Oscillation responding to the slowly changing frequency of the solar cycle. This results in a frequency modulated oscillation, the spectrum of which is intrinsically broad and flat and therefore compatible with the observed spectrum. Fortunately, the change in frequency of the solar cycle with time has been reconstructed from tree ring data for the last millennium. It is possible to identify time intervals when the frequency was dominated by a single frequency in which case the model oscillation is relatively simple. The 11 year period component of the model time variation was shown to correlate closely with the 11 year period components of observed Southern Oscillation and climate variability. A characteristic of a frequency modulated variable, the equal spacing of spectral peaks, was utilized via a double Fourier transform method to recover solar cycle periodicity from instrumental and reconstructed climate records, with the recovered periodicity and the known periodicity of the solar cycle in good agreement. The concept outlined provides a new way of viewing and assessing the Sun climate connection.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

On the origin of quasi-periodicity in the atmospheres of Earth, Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun

This paper explores a possible linkage between solar motion about the solar system center of mass and the quasi-periodicity evident in the pressure and temperature of planet atmospheres. We establish that dominant mid frequency range periodicity in planet atmospheres corresponds closely to the harmonic series 39.5/n = TA/n years where n = 2, 3, 4, etc. We establish that the period TA = 39.5 years is the interval between acceleration impulses experienced by the Sun as it passes close to the solar system center of mass and that the time sequence of impulses generates the spectral harmonic series TA/n that is observed in the periodicity of climate indices like the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Quasi Biennial Oscillation. We develop a model of a simple harmonic oscillator responding to periodic acceleration impulses and show that the response duplicates several features of the Quasi Biennial Oscillation. We conclude that oscillatory phenomena observed in solar activity and in planet atmosphere variability could be due to the response of the various natural oscillatory modes to impulsive Sun acceleration associated with planetary motion.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2022

The sunspot number record supports the existence of Planet 9 and the effect of planetary motion on solar activity

This paper assesses if the Planet 9 hypothesis, the existence of a ninth planet, is consistent with the planetary hypothesis, the synchronization of sunspot emergence to solar inertial motion (SIM) induced by the planets. We show that SIM would be profoundly affected if Planet 9 exists and that the hypothesized effect of SIM on sunspot emergence would be radically different from the effect of SIM due to the existing eight planets. We compare the spectral and time variation of Sun to barycentre distance, RB, calculated for both the eight and nine planet systems, with variation of sunspot number (SSN). Including Planet 9 improves spectral correlation and time coherence between RB and SSN in the decadal, centennial and millennial time range. Additionally, as the variation of RB is sensitive to Planet 9 parameters, longitude and period, it is possible to tune both parameters to SSN variation and obtain new estimates of the Planet 9 parameters independent of astronomical observations. We develop a mechanism for the influence of SIM on SSN that provides an explanation of the consistency between SIM, calculated with Planet nine, and records of reconstructed SSN.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2021

Evidence that 1.6-year solar quasi-biennial oscillations are synchronous with maximum Sun-planet alignments

Solar quasi-biennial oscillations with period range 0.6 to 4 years, are prominent in records of solar activity. Here we show that the 1.6 year quasi-biennial oscillation in solar activity has the exceptional feature of phase inversion between each solar cycle in the sequence of four solar cycles, 20 to 23. The hypothesis advanced is that this feature is due to synchronicity between solar activity and planetary alignment. An index of alignment between Earth and Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn is shown to have dominant peaks of alignment separated by 1.6 years in each solar cycle with, however, peak alignments shifting by half a period, 0.8 years, between alternate solar cycles. Accepting that solar activity increases when planets align would explain the phase inversion in alternate solar cycles observed in the 1.6 year quasi-biennial oscillation. Two new methods were developed to test this hypothesis: (a) Narrow band filtering of solar activity with the pass band based on the frequency content of the planetary alignment index. (b) Superposing intervals of raw solar activity data centered on times of maximum planet alignment. Both methods provided strong support for the hypothesis. Planetary alignment is complex but predictable enabling the forecasting of solar oscillation intermittency and future oscillation spectral content.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2018

Assessment of a planetary model to predict Rieger periodicity in sunspots and flares

This paper develops a planetary model to predict the occurrence of intermediate range periodicity in solar activity, in particular the ~155 day Rieger periodicity in flare activity. It is shown that periodicity at half integer multiples of the period of Mercury occurs consistently in indices of solar activity. For this reason the planetary model is based on the triggering of sunspot emergence when planetary tides peak at times of conjunction of Mercury with Venus, Earth and/or Jupiter. The periodicity of components in the planetary model match reasonably well the observed intermediate periodicity in sunspot and flare activity with the strongest model component occurring at 155 day period. A comparison of filtered versions of the model and the N.O.A.A. flare index at 155 day periodicity demonstrates the potential for both short term, (within a solar cycle), and longer term, (over several solar cycles), predictive capability of the model. However, this assessment finds that prediction of 155 day periodicity in flare activity is effective only when the north and south hemispheric components of flare activity are in-phase.

astro-ph.SR↗