Can the Moon change our climate? Can tides in the atmosphere solve the mystery of ENSO?

Image by Luc Viatour  www.Lucnix.be

The Moon has such a big effect — moving 70% of the matter on the Earth’s surface every day, that it seems like the bleeding obvious to suggest that just maybe, it also affects the air, the wind, and causes atmospheric tides. Yet the climate models assume the effect is zero or close to it.

Indeed, it seems so obvious, it’s a “surely they have studied this before” moment. Though, as you’ll see, the reason lunar effects may have been ignored is not just “lunar-politics” and a lack of funding, but because it’s also seriously complex. Keep your brain engaged…

Ian Wilson and Nikolay Sidorenkov have published a provocative paper, Long-Term Lunar Atmospheric Tides in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s an epic effort of 14,000 words and a gallery of graphs. As these atmospheric tides swirl around the planet they appear to be creating standing waves of abnormal air-pressure that slowly circle the planet, once every 18 years. If this is right, then it could be the key to finally understanding, and one day predicting, the mysterious Pacific ENSO pattern that so affects the global climate. Even at this early stage, brave predictions are on the table — the atmospheric lunar tides should favor the onset of an El Nino either during the summer of 2018-19 or possibly the following southern summer. Wouldn’t it be a major step forward if we could predict the extremes?

Atmospheric tides* might be seeding the El Niños / La Nina pattern

Each summer, there are four stationary high pressure systems in the air at sea level around the Southern Hemisphere. These large regular patterns are spread evenly around the southern half of the planet, spaced at about 90 degrees longitude to each other. Each summer they reform again in roughly the same spot. (See the points marked “H” in Figure 1 below).

Fig. (1a). The NOAA SST anomaly map for the 25th of January 1981.

About 3km up above the ocean the air has its own patterns of air pressure, and the atmospheric tides appear to be standing waves of abnormal pressure (higher or lower than normal) that slowly circumnavigate the planet. There are four peaks in these standing waves, again spread evenly around the southern hemisphere. In addition, it appears that there are two epochs, it seems, the first is from 1947-1970 when all four abnormal pressure cells were high (and La Nina’s were more common). The second is from 1971 – 1994 when all four were low (and El Ninos were predominant).

There are two alternating patterns – before 1970, and after

1947-1970 — Four high pressure standing waves lead to more La Nina’s

In the first epoch, once every 4.5 years, the four main regions of drifting high-pressure cells would have passed over and strengthened the four large semipermanent high-pressure systems at sea-level.

Possibly the most influential stationary summer high occurs near Easter Island in the Pacific (see the map below). High’s rotate counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, so having two stacked high pressure systems would presumably make the East-Pacific Trade Winds stronger. These kind of conditions would favour the onset of La Nina events over El Nino events.

1971-1994 — Four low pressure standing waves lead to more El Nino’s

In the second epoch, roughly every 4½ years, the roaming low pressure cells would drift on top of the sea-level high-pressure cells. “Lows” rotate clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, and “highs” rotate counter-clockwise, so having a low zone parked over a high zone tends to neutralize the prevailing trade winds. Thus the high near Easter Island is weakened by a roaming low pressure pattern in the air above, so the trade winds slow across the Pacific.

Normally the prevailing winds drive water from East to West, allowing cold water to well up near Peru, and warm water to sit over the Western Pacific. As the prevailing trade winds slow, the cold water stops rising, the ocean stops mixing, and the surface heats up. The effect on weather and lives extends for thousands and thousands of miles in all directions. The fishing industry off Peru is devastated by the warming seas and the nearby Peruvian hinterland experiences severe crop losses caused by torrential rains and land-slides. Eastern Australia suffers through a terrible drought at the same time as large areas of north-western Mexico and south-eastern United States experience wetter than normal winters.

 

When a high pressure cell in the standing wave lies over the high pressure summer semi-stationary high, the anticlockwise circulation is strengthened. This increases the prevailing trade winds (which run East to West across that part of the Pacific). This sets up La Nina type conditions.

The lower three kilometres of the Pacific Ocean is near freezing, and during an El Niño the calm ocean means that water stays cold, locked away under the surface. For a few months, the heat accumulates in the top layers, and the “stored cold” lies in wait for the El Niño to subside.

So why don’t we get an El Niño or La Nina exactly every 4½ years?

The period (technically 4.65 years) is not a whole integer, and ENSO’s form only at certain times of the year. In Spanish El Niño means “the boy child” (specifically Jesus Christ) because the effects on South America usually become obvious around Christmas. So some years the standing wave hovers over the right point, but at the wrong time of year. The overlaying cells of the standing wave and the surface highs have to coincide during the right season to seed an ENSO pattern.

The moon’s orbit not only oscillates up and down, it swings closer and further from Earth, and closer and further from the sun. The track is so complex, it will give you a headache if you try to imagine it in 3D.

Source: ScienceU

What drives these standing waves? Is it the moon?

Wilson and Sidorenkov (2013) studied the pattern of the westward shifts and found that these high pressure standing wave cells would take 18.6 years to circle the planet. In astronomical terms, 18.6 is a magic number — it’s the lunar cycle known as the Draconic Cycle. The moon does a lazy spiral around Earth as both objects go around the Sun. But it’s only after 18.6 laps (or years) around the Sun, that the Earth, Moon and Sun return to at the same position relative to each other, ready for another cycle to begin.

Lunar cycles are even more complex than this, because the orbits are not circles. Sometimes the moon is closer to the Earth (that’s perigee), and sometimes the Earth-Sun distance is at its shortest (called “perhelion”). Perhelion occurs on January 3 at the moment, but it shifts o-so-slowly on a 26,000 year cycle. Perigee makes enough difference to the appearance of the moon that we can see the change, even without a telescope. The moon looks bigger. Perhelion makes a difference to Earth – we get 7% more solar energy in January than we do at aperhelion in July.

Because both the Sun and Moon affect our tides, the largest tides are when the Sun-Moon-Earth system lines up (called “syzygy”) and all three are at the shortest distance. The full tidal cycle takes 186 years. If I tried to accurately draw the Earth-Moon orbit around the sun in 3 dimensions I’d have an ultra-stretched slinky-spring leaning 5 degrees from flat looping 186 times around the sun. Impossibly for a slinky, the 5 degree tilt of the moons orbit has a constantly changing axis. No I can’t picture that in my head either. The tilted lunar orbit means that sometimes the moon crosses the sky in front of the sun (an eclipse), but usually it tracks across the sky without doing that.

...

The moon spirals around the sun.

Image found on Battle Point Astronomical Association.

The atmospheric standing waves

Fig 2a shows four semi-permanent highs being enhanced by pressure “bumps” in the moving standing wave that passes through these four highs roughly once every 4 – 5 years.

Fig. (2a). A plot of the average MSLP anomaly between the latitudes of 20° S and 50° S, as a function of longitude. The longitudinal profiles are shown for those years between 1947 and 1976 that exhibit an N=4 standing wave-like zonal pattern similar to the one that appeared in the Southern Summer of 1981. Arbitrary fixed offsets have been applied to the MSLP  anomalies to vertically separate the longitudinal profiles.

 

Wilson and Sidorenkov took years of measurements of atmospheric pressure and stacked the results year after year. With a zero shift (the atmospheric pressure at each spot is not shifted west at all) the resulting average is blurred out mostly. With an annual 10 or 20 degree shift regular patterns appear to form suggesting that high or low pressure cells are drifting at that rate around the world. The full paper contains many shift and add graphs like this (see Fig 6a-c).

Fig. (6). (a-c) The shift-and-add maps of the Southern Hemisphere MSLP anomalies between the latitudes of 20° and 60° S for westerly longitudinal drift rates of 0°, 10°, and 20° per year, respectively. The pressure anomalies are plotted so that lower-than-normal MSLP anomalies are displayed as positive numbers.

 

Fourier transforms pull out the dominant cycles

This graph (Figure 5) shows how fast the lunar tidal atmospheric highs appear to be drifting around the planet — which is about 10, 20 and 40 degrees per year in longitude. Note the pattern of the first three peaks is repeated in the second three at 55, 65, and 85 degrees per year drift. This is because four high zones drifting at 10 degrees makes a very similar pattern every second year to four highs travelling at 55 degrees per year. (Spots travelling 10 degrees a year would move 20 degrees from their start position by the second year, but spots travelling at 55 degrees would have moved 110 degrees in two years and since the spots start 90 degrees apart the faster spots would have caught up with the slower ones. 110 = 90 + 20.)

The vertical bars mark the lunar cycle lengths.  The black line immediately above the 20 degree point corresponds to an 18 year cycle. The peak above 40 degrees matches a 9 year cycle.

Fig. (5). The relative power spectral density (PSD) for those features that have an N=4 pattern in the average longitudinal profile for latitudes between 30° and 50° S, for the shift-and-add map of the summer MSLP anomalies, plotted against westerly longitudinal drift rate. N.B. The
step in westerly drift rates has been increased to 2.5° per year between 0 and 25° degrees per  year for greater resolution. A solid black line drawn across the lower part of this figure indicates the minimum power spectral density that is required to rule out the possibility that the
signal is generated by noise at the 0.01 (= 99 %) confidence limit. This limit was obtained by applying the Multi-Taper Method (MTM) (number of tapers =3) to each shift-and-add anomaly profile that is associated with a given drift rate in this diagram. Only those points which had spectral densities that could not be generated by chance from either white noise or AR(1) noise at the 0.01 level were accepted as being statistically significant. All points above the 99 % confidence line in this figure are statistically significant while all the points below this line are not (with the exception of the point with a drift-rate of 50° per year). It is important to note that there are strong, low frequency spatial features present in the individual spatial MSLP anomaly profiles. Under these circumstances, simple spectrogram analysis is not good at determining the true spectra noise levels that are need to test the statistical significance of spectral features. One way to circumvent this problem is to use MTM analysis, since it better able to distinguish strong low frequency signals from spectral noise.

The peaks of the 9.3 / 93 year tidal cycle

Fig 14 combines the two dominant long term lunar cycles. The top red line is a combination of the two lower lines and represents the years when lunar tidal effects are strongest because the Earth, Moon and Sun line up and have minimal distances as well. The blue node line represents the tilt of the Moons orbit. A Node is the point of the Moons orbit where the Moon crosses the plane of the solar system.

The Nodes are the points where the Moon crosses the plane of the Solar System. The Line of Nodes joins the two Nodes on either side.

The Moon’s orbit has two nodes on opposite sides of the Earth. The Line-of-Nodes joins these two nodes. In an eclipse (i.e. when lunar tidal effects are strongest), the Line-of-Node of the lunar orbit points directly at the Sun. The blue line in figure 14 represents the angle between the Line-of-Nodes compared to the Earth-Sun direction. The blue line peaks when the Line-of-Nodes points directly at the Sun at perihelion.

When the Moon is at perigee or apogee it travels closer and further away from the Earth. The line joining perigee and apogee is called the Line-of-Apsides. The lower brown line (inverted) shows the angle of the Line-of-Apsides compared to the Earth-Sun direction. The brown line peaks when the Line-of-Apsides points directly at the Sun at perihelion.

Fig. (14). Blue curve: The angle between the line-of-nodes of the lunar orbit and the Earth-Sun line at the time of Perihelion ( θ) is plotted as a function 1/(1+ θ) between the years 1857 and 2024, in order to highlight the years in which these two axes are is close alignment. Brown curve: The angle between the line-of-apse of the lunar orbit and the Earth-Sun line at the time of perihelion (φ) plotted as the function φ1/(1+φ), in order to highlight the years in which these two axes are is close alignment. Red curve: This is an alignment index that is designed to represent the level of reinforcement of the Draconic tidal cycle by the Perigee-Syzygy tidal cycle. This is done by plotting the values of the blue curve at times when there is a close alignment of the line-of-apse and the Earth-Sun line at perihelion (i.e. when φ ≤ 16°).

 

Note that no one is suggesting that Lunar cycles are the dominant drivers of climate, just that they change conditions on Earth in ways that may favor certain kinds of climate patterns, and may explain the magnitude of some of the extremes. The message is that climate models will not be complete without factoring in the lunar cycles.

Below (fig 15) Wilson and Sidorenkov plot summer temperatures in Melbourne and Adelaide compared to lunar effects.

Fig. (15). The median summer time (December 1st to March 15th) maximum temperature, averaged for the cities of Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia, between 1856 and 2010 (blue curve). The alignment index curve from Fig. (13) is superimposed on this figure (red line).

 

Do the lunar cycles play a role in explaining why we have had a 30 year warming and then 30 year cooling cycle in the last century or so?  Support for this last contention is supplied by a recent paper by Chris de Frietas and John McLean, confirming earlier work by Bob Tisdale and Ian Wilson.

There are many more graphs in the paper as the authors sought to confirm whether the drift was westward, or eastward, and the various rates possible. It is open access, so keen readers can see for themselves the depth of work that has gone into this.

——————–

REFERENCES

Wilson, Ian and Sidorenkov, Nikolay (2013) Long-Term Lunar Atmospheric Tides in the Southern Hemisphere, The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2013, 7, 29-54 [PDF]

Chris R. de Freitas, John D. McLean (2013) Update of the Chronology of Natural Signals in the Near-Surface Mean Global Temperature Record and the Southern Oscillation Index  International Journal of Geosciences, vol 4, 234-239

Other information

Ian Wilson describes the effect on his blog.

[1] http://www.stormfax.com/elnino.htm

[2] http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/mcph2029/text.shtml

[3] http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/history/ln-2010-12/ENSO-when.shtml

Image: Moon  via wikimedia by Luc Viatour.

 

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*Atmospheric tides refers to atmospheric lunar tides in this article, not Rossby waves.

8.7 out of 10 based on 74 ratings

165 comments to Can the Moon change our climate? Can tides in the atmosphere solve the mystery of ENSO?

  • #
    Ian Wilson

    star comment
    Jo Nova has spent considerable time and effort to study and understand what Nikolay Sidorenkov and I were trying to say in our most recent joint publication.

    I would like to personally thank her for her excellent post which I believe has capture the essence of our proposals. I hope that this post will lead to some constructive discussion about the possibility that lunar atmospheric tides may play an important role in determining changes in climate on inter-decadal to centennial time scales.

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  • #
    janama

    Ken Ring is a New Zealand long range weather predictor. He uses the Moon cycles and orbits to do it. He was the first to introduce me to the atmospheric tides. When the moon pulls on the atmosphere, like the tides it creates high tides and low tides in the atmosphere. At low tide the atmosphere is thin more heat escapes to space, at high tide the atmosphere is thick less heat escapes to space.

    http://www.predictweather.co.nz/About.aspx

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    • #
      Ross

      Janama

      There is an interesting difference of opinion bewtween NIWA and Ken Ring in their forecasts for this winter’s weather in NZ. Ken says it will be a bad winter , especially in the South Island and more particularly in the latter part of winter. NIWA says it will be a mild winter. NIWA came out with their forecast late last month. Ken publishes his in his book months in advance.
      So it will be interesting to see who is closest to the mark.

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  • #
    John Westman

    I have only had the most cursory of look at this, but boy it make me sit up and take note. The reason is the 18 year cycle.

    I have noted that every 18 years, Wagga Wagga my home town, goes through a very wet period-it is metronomic. Some times there is only the one very wet year, at other times there is a prolonged wet period lasting 2 years. 1956; 1974; 1992; and 2010-2011. This cycle can be traced over 120 years, although it does have a hiccup early in the period. It would be interesting if people checked other towns around the country to see if the results are replicated elsewhere. It is possible that some areas may experience a dry period. Judging by the metronomic nature of the cycle, I expect that Wagga will have another very wet year in 2028.

    By the way, I showed the rainfall graph (from BOM) to a “greenie friend”, but he did not want to look at it.

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  • #
    Ian Wilson

    star comment
    Dear John Westman,

    You might want to look at my Senate Submission No. 106 at:

    http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=ec_ctte/extreme_weather/submissions.htm

    It argues that much of the central East-coast of Australia shows this 18.6 year Draconic periodicity in rainfall/flooding with the
    pattern being evident back to 1825 in SE Queensland.

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  • #
    Alan D McIntire

    I remember reading that Kepler first proposed that the moon caused our tides. Galileo dismissed his speculation as the rantings of s superstitious nut. We’re now at an equivalent stage in climatology- just becoming aware of the effects that lunar and solar tides can have on our atmosphere.

    I suppose a similar tidal effect caused by the orbits of the various planets about the sun can affect the sun’s sunspot cycles, maunder minimums, etc.

    http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980127d.html

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    • #
      Kevin Lohse

      Galileo WAS trying to keep his head on his shoulders at the time. The Inquisition was even nastier than the Deep Greens, and for much the same reasons.

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      • #
        Manfred

        Kevin, I think ‘nastier’ is a diminishing relativism in this instance.

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      • #
        jorgekafkazar

        So far, Kevin, but only so far. Didn’t the 10-10 video demonstrate that the Inquisition is alive in the hearts of Warmists?

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      • #
        Alan D McIntire

        I like bringing up Kepler to make a point. Kepler WAS a superstitious nut. He paid his bills by casting horoscopes for wealthy royalty. Despite this, he brilliantly discovered that

        he orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.
        A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.[1]
        The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

        Newton’s law of universal gravitation can be deduced logically from Kepler’s laws.

        If you disagree with someone’s theory or hypothesis, you’ve got to attack and find flaws in the theory itself. Making ad hominem attacks doesn’t cut the mustard. Superstitious nuts can be brilliant and correct.

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    • #
      GrahamP

      Alan, you said “I suppose a similar tidal effect caused by the orbits of the various planets about the sun can affect the sun’s sunspot cycles, maunder minimums, etc.”

      You might be interested in the article by Richard Mackey titled “Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate”. What you are suggesting is described by Fairbridge.

      A link to the pdf can be found here. http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-change-by-author.php#anchor12

      GrahamP

      40

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Now adding the Moon to the Diurnal Bulge we have a very physical atmosphere.

    Anyone who has experienced the rush of air moving to meet the rising sun each day and later the rush of air in the opposite direction towards the setting sun knows a thing or two about the atmosphere.

    It is very reactive to stimulus and the energy considerations are vast.

    The effect of the moon is going to be less obvious but the tidal effect shows us that it needn’t be small.

    CO2 gets lost in all of this.

    KK 🙂

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  • #
    Spence

    You might be surprised to know that the Moon doesn’t even figure in the sea level calculations.

    They presume lunar influences are smoothed out over 29.5 days but there are numerous important cycles including 18.11 year Saros Cycle, 18.6 year Nodal Cycle, 19 year Metonic Cycle.

    And yes, without doubt these will affect climate.

    150

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Hi Spence

      An interesting comment.

      Does it relate to our tidal experience from month to month?

      or

      the average sea level over long periods (100 years) being affected

      or to a

      rolling bulge or valley in the ocean being moved around the globe by the moon?

      KK 🙂

      20

      • #
        Spence

        Hi Keith

        The bulge or slosh is what they are mistakenly estimating. And they are estimating, not measuring. They go to sufficient lengths in the first paragraph stating twice that the data are ‘estimates’ not ‘measurements’

        http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

        Basically they are attempting the impossible using five or six main parameters and missing a dozen that are more pertinent.

        Sea level cannot be measured unless the network is sufficiently representative of the ‘globe’ and measurements would have to be taken simultaneously for the entire globe.

        They add 0.03mm as an estimate of isostatic rebound from the last ice age yet fail to appreciate that the Fundy Bay flow bends the surface of the earth visible from space, twice diurnally.

        The fact that the earth compresses and expands in response to the lunar orbit and to the weight of displaced water, equatorially, land rises and falls in excess of half a metre and the tidal guages are extimated to rise equally producing no net effect, but the water will move away to equalise and therefore the effect is not net zero.

        No two Moon orbits are equal and therefore no two tides are equal, bit of a problem.

        40

  • #
    Ace

    A fundamental rule of science: Correlation is not evidence of causation.

    All the snazzy statistics mean nothing unless it enables them to PREDICT the events they say the Lunar cycle causes.Evaluation of an hypothesis is always prediction.

    Always remember, there is direct correlation between increases in the price of a US postage stamp and increases in atmospheric temperature. Does the US post office cause global warming?

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    • #

      Two points:
      I am told by my “Betters” in parliament that I must give money to the Climate Change department so they can change the temperature and weather of the planet, so if the Climate Change department can change the weather why not the Postal Department?

      The next:
      It is in my opinion questionable if studies such as economics or climate “science” are really science proper at all. Natural History was in the past used to name the field of study and I think it is an under-used term. Prediction of an event that occurs is not even evidence of causation, it is just history. One cannot do double blind randomised trials on climate, or money – it all becomes history. Nothing wrong with that it is just he way it is.

      While correlation is not evidence of causation it does not mean that correlation cannot be used to explore phenomena and develop theories.

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      • #
        Ace

        You under-estimate the power of prediction. If a hypothesis consistently predicts that under certain conditions certain things will happen, against the likelihood of coincidence, that constitutes a validation of the hypothesis. It doesn’t matter whether those “certain circumstances” are under ones control as in an experiment, or not. The problem with not having an experiment is controlling for contingent variables.As in the earlier story about exercise and longevity.

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      • #
        Joe V.

        Well Climate Science will be history, as soon as it falls out of fashion, and in the historical sense of the word.

        90

    • #
      Ian Wilson

      star comment
      Ace,

      Our paper on atmospheric lunar tides makes testable predictions in the not too distant future.
      Like all scientific ideas, our simple model will succeed or fail depending how well our predictions compare with (future) observations.

      340

      • #
        Ace

        Thats fine, I’m not surprised and nor will I be surprised to see the hypothesis validated , but its not the “headline” story and that was what got my reaction.

        05

      • #
        Manfred

        …if I might also add at great risk of pedantry, in this case where one is predicting a plausible association (there is far too much of this today), that the remaining criteria of causality are satisfied and that elements of chance, bias and confounding are absent as potential and alternative explanations.

        I say this because this is where we will witness the imposition of a far higher evidential bar by the ‘consensus’ in stark contrast to that which was required to incarcerate the politically unfalsifiable AGW hypothesis into widespread fashion.

        The superposition of lunar influence is indeed fascinating and it is (as always) tiresome to wonder why it has not apparently been analysed in close detail in the search for a greater understanding of the ENSO phenomenon, particularly given its putative role in recent warming / cooling..or has it?

        A brief history of its place in the wider consideration of climate discourse would help enormously to see it in perspective, and perhaps explain why it is not considered as a ‘forcing’ by the IPCC to date.

        Finally, as I read the article, I wondered about the role of the moon in paleo and future climate. After all, it is constantly increasing its mean distance from the Earth by some 1.5″per annum. Presumably it once had a greater influence on the amplitude and periodicity of any standing atmospheric or water waves, and similarly in the future, such influence will diminish to irrelevance?

        Thank you for bringing this fascinating dimension to our attention and for the hard work required in its genesis.

        100

      • #

        I am a farmer and under the weather cycles you study we either prosper of suffer, and they control our lives.

        I thank you for your work and hope you can with some reliability predict these cycles. I dont even mind if you cant prove a causation, so long as your predictions are good.

        These wet / dry and warm/cool cycles are well known among farming communities, who in some cases have family kept rainfall records going back to the 1850’s.

        When making financial and planning decisions I look up the ENSO charts. It is such a shame so much research money and time has been wasted on BS and not used to do proper research like yours.

        120

      • #

        Mr Wilson.
        I am in awe of your good work and the efforts that Jo goes to but have questions.

        Your Adelaide data for site no 023000 is quoted as beginning in 1879. Should this be 1887?
        There is data for that site going back beyond 1858 but it is neither Stevenson screen or easily available from the BOM website.

        Also would like to know if your predictions take the supposed accelerating rate that the moon appears to be moving away from the earth into account?
        http://www.moondaily.com/reports/Moon_being_pushed_away_from_Earth_faster_than_ever_999.html

        Oh and you may be interested in this old 19 year cycle theory from Mr H. C. Russell who was the government astronomer at the Sydney observatory back before there was a Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology.
        http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/71246924

        Lance Pidgeon

        30

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      A good point Ace,

      but I’m trying to work out what relevance it has to this post?

      KK 🙂

      31

      • #
        Ace

        The post is ALL about correlations.

        06

        • #
          Ian Wilson

          Ace,

          If you read the paper you will see that evidence is presented for large regions of enhanced or diminished atmospheric pressure moving about the Southern Hemisphere at ~ 20 degrees per year. These phenomenon are obtained from the analysis of real observations, not correlations. Our paper tries to explain these observations with a simple physical model. As far as I can tell, our results are not based on correlations alone.

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    • #

      Ace: While correlation is not causality, causality cannot exist without correlation. Therefore, it seems prudent to check correlation first. No correlation, no causality.

      80

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        I ticked it Sheri, but I’m still trying to work out what it means

        KK 🙂

        00

      • #
        Ace

        Actually that’s irrelevant, because the point is that zillions of correlations exist which mean absolutely nothing.

        HOWEVER…what you say is also untrue. Alcohol DOES definitely cause intoxication (see my comments on previous threads for evidence) BUT among veteran drinkers a few bottles here and there may not necessarily produce any correlation with observable intoxication. Causation does occur without correlational effects when other variables counter the key processes, as in the case of high levels of alcohol tolerance among veteran boozers.

        010

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          OK

          I think we get the picture.

          KK

          10

        • #
          Tim Hammond

          You are taking this too far.

          Causation of a change can only occur if there is a cause.

          If nothing is changing, then there can be no cause of the change.

          And in any event, you example is not correct – even veteran drinkers show the effects of alcohol at low levels of alcohol. The fact that they have trained themselves to hide some of the effects is irrelevant.

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        • #

          Ace: Actually I suppose if one is drawn to linguistic play, causation without correlation could seem possible. However, since language and it’s exactness is your friend, “causality cannot exist without correlation, even if that correlation is indirect”. It changes the argument to deductive, instead of inductive. However, your example does not prove your point. It simply says that alcohol causes drunkenness in those who have not developed a tolerance (your hypothesis–alcohol causes drunkenness in everyone–was wrong). One cannot get drunk without drinking, unless we redefine “drunk”, which changes the argument, but the correlation will still be there (between whatever newly defined agents you add). Missing a correlation does not mean it is not there, only that you missed it–as in the case of observational studies, where factors are often unknown or unnoticed. Missing correlation is not proof it does not exist.

          An agent cannot “cause” something without correlating with it unless you’re playing “2AM philosophy” games (where you see how far you can stretch something in an attempt to prove logical superiority, though not necessarily sanity). I will note that the warmist crowd embraces this ad nauseaum. It’s a technique to wear out your opponent and then declare yourself king of the mountain and safe from rising sea levels.

          Your comment about meaningless correlations is irrelevant, unless you don’t understand that one starts with an hypothesis, then looks for the correlation between what they believe to tbe cause. Unless the zillions of meaningless hypotheses out there are being checked out (which needs to be stopped), it is still prudent to check correlation, then move on to causality in most cases.

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        • #
          Joe V.

          Actually that’s irrelevant, because the point is that zillions of correlations exist which mean absolutely nothing.

          Yes, actually it’s what us lesser mortals call coincidence. There are lots of coincidences, but causality is rather more complicated.
          Actually , it was on one dreary Saturday afternoon while I was enduring the mind numbing exercise of completing time sheets, that I was driven by the shear ennuie to a higher plane of consciousness, to discover that time doesn’t really exist. All there is, is matter, energy and causation. Everything that happens is just a consequence of what went before.

          The renowned physicist John Wheeler and the late Bryce DeWitt , developed an extraordinary equation that provides a possible framework for unifying relativity and quantum mechanics.
          “One finds that time just disappears from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation,”

          When I keep telling my boss, as she keeps piling it on, ‘There is no time’, I hope she never twigs what I really mean, as that’s what they’re paying for.

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    Tim

    I’m not a scientist, but in my simple calculations: if the moon has causality for tidal forces on earth’s oceans and atmosphere and both El Niño and La Niña are tidal-driven events that effect weather; why aren’t these ‘97% of scientists’ at least having a look at options like this significant correlation?

    Or is that too simple.

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2000GL012117/abstract

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      Because 97% of scientists are not being paid to look at options like this.

      They are being paid by the government to study the things the government wants them to study. Scientists dont get to pay their mortgages and send their kids to school, and indeed dont get stay as scientists, they turn into carpenters or truck drivers or whatever.

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        jorgekafkazar

        Another way of putting it is that they’re being paid not to study natural alternatives.

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          michael hart

          Exactly. If the funding process is designed to reward “studying the causes and effects of global-warming’, then we shouldn’t be surprised that many of them will not contradict the assumed premise.

          You get what you select for.

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        Dennis

        It is much more important to get economists to model the economic outcomes

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    DaveF

    I notice that Piers Corbyn at WeatherAction has been using the Moon in his calculations for many years.

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    TomRude

    Once again the description of atmospheric circulation is rather simplistic and statistical (lows, highs etc…) instead of being synoptical (MPHs). The authors would benefit immensely from reading the work by the late Marcel Leroux (Dynamic Analysis of weather and climate, Springer 2010) as he exposed the climatic shift of the 1970s entering into a rapid mode of circulation always linked to cooling.

    19

    • #
      Ian Wilson

      star comment
      TomRude,

      You will need to be more specific in your criticism. Does Marcel Leroux’s work invalid any of the conclusion in our paper?
      One of the first lessons of communication is laying your cards on the table.

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    This is consistent and a confirmation to what I have found using an Artificial Neural Network
    Here is a description of what I have done http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/enso-and-tidal-forcing.htm including an ENSO forecast for the coming next 4 years.

    Right now I’m investigation the tidal force against TAO buoy data. I can now confirm that I have found a tidal signal in the TAO data.

    This new data is going to enable me to create a physical model which can show how variations in the tides are affecting the sea currents close to the equator of the Pacific Ocean.

    What we have today is a situation that we have a large number of data modelers at various universities that are working with climate models which are failing because they ignore the dominant forcing which is coming from variations in the Sun and from variations in ENSO.

    Then we have the same type of data modelers that build computer models for ENSO forecast which usually are failing for timeframes longer than a few months.
    And the reason for that is that they ignore the main forcing agent which are tidal forcing and variations in the magnetic field.

    Amazing isn’t it?

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    Jon

    So according UNFCCC we are now responsible for the Moon’s behavior?

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Jon,

      It is probably not a good idea to put such thoughts into the minds of politicians and bureaucrats.

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      Joe V.

      Well there is the matter of the expanding atmosphere (as it heats) causing extra drag on satellites, which may bring them crashing down to Earth sooner. The Moon is one bigger Mother of a satellite.

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    TomRude

    Ian Wilson, I suggested your work would benefit from reading Leroux and I was very clear that statistical entities such as Lows and Highs do not reflect the synoptical reality. Physical processes are producing this reality not statistics. So beyond covariation, the need to explain how physically the Moon would influence circulation is on your side of the court.

    Leroux died in 2008 and his last book was published in 2010. You can also read the following link to his seminal 1993 paper in Global and Planetary Change.

    I regret that suggesting what I view as important and beneficial reading was thumbed down.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Tom,

      I respectfully suggest that the thumbs down were more related to the tone of your comments, rather than their content.

      If Leroux reaches contrary conclusions, then that needs to be understood. However if Leroux reaches the same conclusions through a different pathway, then that is useful to know.

      I do not think that this is the place for a contest at this level.

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        TomRude

        If only you guys could read before assuming. As for the tone, indeed circulation resumed as statistical entities is a rather simplistic view of it. I never said the paper was simplist.

        09

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Hi Tom

          It might be useful for you to read the comments and responses to the posts of D Cotton on another recent thread “Weekend UnThreaded.

          There is a certain similarity in approach that may help you understand why people are a bit tense.

          KK 🙂

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            TomRude

            Thanks. Really I was not putting anyone down here, just healthy discussion on what seems promising, especially since Piers Corbyn has been quite successful integrating some lunar data.

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              Ian Wilson

              star comment
              star comment
              Dear TomRude,

              You are right in pointing out that our paper is a simplistic first attempt to try an understand this phenomenon. I cannot afford the $ 150 to buy Leroux’s book but thank you for the link to his seminal paper. I will take a look at it in the coming week.

              Just a little more about the the actual mechanism that might explain how the atmospheric tides work.

              First: If you want to see the much smaller effects of the lunar tides upon the atmosphere, compared to the much larger seasonal changes in atmospheric pressure that are driven by the changes in solar insolation, you need to limit your studies to one season.

              Second: The tilt of the lunar orbit moves around the Earth once every the 18.6 years. It blindly obvious that the tilt of the orbit is moving at a much slower rate ( ~ 10 degrees of longitude per year in a westerly direction) than the daily (easterly) rotation of the Earth (15 degrees of longitude per hour).

              Third: The second point tells us that the time-of-day at which the lunar tidal impulse acts is very important. If the Lunar orbit reaches its most southerly point along the sun-rise terminator (i.e. in the morning skies when the Moon is at last quarter), the lunar tidal impulse will act upon the conditions of the atmosphere at that time. Similarly, if If the Lunar orbit reaches its most southerly point at midday (when the Moon is New), the lunar tidal impulse will act upon the conditions of the atmosphere at that time etc.

              Fourth: The four semi-permanent (and semi-stationary) high pressure systems that form every summer are probably the features in the atmosphere that daily lunar impulse reacts with to produce the standing-wave phenomenon that we see in our paper. I envisage the enhanced/reduced areas of atmospheric pressure that are seen propagating slowly around the Earth (once every 18.6) years are disturbances (or ripples) that form in the wake of the four semi-permanent Highs – much like ripples that form on the surface of rivers as they flow over submerged rocks.

              Fifth: Hence, for a quarter of the 18.6 tilt cycle of the lunar orbit (i.e. ~ 4.5 years) the tidal impulse of the Lunar tilt applies to semi-permanent Highs near sunrise, for the second quarter it applies to the midday semi-permanent highs, for the third quarter to the evening highs, and finally for the last quarter to the midnight highs.

              Sixth: The strength of all high pressure systems changes substantially through the daily Sun-cycle, strengthening and weakening as the level of solar insolation (or lack thereof) changes throughout the day and night.

              Seventh: Thus, the nature of the “ripple” in atmospheric pressure that forms in the wake of each of the four semi-permanent highs will change over the 18.6 year cycle depending upon the point in the day that the lunar tidal impulse reacts with the semi-permanent highs. A detailed look at our data suggests that these “ripples” first propagates eastward for four to five years, then westward for 10 years, and finally eastward again for four to five years. If the “ripples” start out at the semi-permanent highs, it is possible that they could crudely mimic a slowly westward drift phenomenon given that the cycle is dominated by 10 years of westward drift.

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                Mark Hladik

                Ian —

                If you should have any access at all to any local institution of higher learning, you could look at Inter Library Loan (ILL). I have often used it when I cannot afford the work I want to look at. Nominally, most institutions do not charge for an ILL, and usually you are allowed to keep the volume for 3 – 4 weeks.

                Renewals may or may not be possible, depending upon the policies of the loaning and borrowing libraries.

                Give it a shot — it cannot hurt!

                Regards,

                Mark H.

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                TomRude

                Thank you Ian Wilson. Much appreciated these points and where you come from. Here is a comment I posted on WUWT with regard to a post about increased solar radiation.

                1. TomRude says:
                June 6, 2013 at 10:21 pm
                The rise in atmospheric pressure observed in temperate regions of both hemispheres since the climatic shift of the 1970s has been well documented (Leroux). It is the result of renewed higher pressure anticyclones moving deeper toward the equator that feed stronger anticyclonic agglutinations, typical of a rapid mode of circulation observed during cooling periods. Thus one can expect wider areas with fewer clouds and increased insolation even if the solar output is weakening, as this paper presents. As seen in South America for a few years now, winter weather tends to be clearer sky with plummeting temperatures. Russia, China and Western Europe have also experienced strong cold snaps (Moscow had its coldest winter in a century about two years ago). Meanwhile in summer we have seen heat waves in both hemispheres (USA, Russia, and Australia). These regional extreme temperatures are a consequence of these high pressure agglutinations.
                That all this happens during a weakening of solar output is in fact very logical. But since we have been repeatedly told by eminent solar scientists that the TSI variations cannot alone account for climatic shifts, this suggests that more research could focus on mechanisms that could amplify small variations in order to directly influence the nature and speed of atmospheric circulation beyond the known astronomical longer term changes.
                BTW there is an interesting debate on Jo Nova’s blog about lunar influence on climatic cyclical variations such as ENSO. Obviously the science is not settled.
                http://joannenova.com.au/2013/06/can-the-moon-change-our-climate-can-tides-in-the-atmosphere-solve-the-mystery-of-enso/#comment-1282843

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                Ian Wilson

                TomRude,

                Thanks for the positive comments over at WUWT! It would good if you could use this opportunity to promote some discussion about Leroux’s ideas.

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              • #
                TomRude

                Thank You.
                Check what happened last year to Leroux’s Wikipedia page…http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/09/death-by-stoat/

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Tom

                Leroux’s page.

                It’s good to know what is going on in the media in terms of opinion diversion away from “important and protected” lines of thought.

                It makes me a little bit more cautious.

                KK 🙂

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    TomRude

    BTW given Piers Corbyn interesting rate of success, I do find your research welcome.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      BTW Tom,

      I suggest you use the “Reply” button, so your responses don’t become detached from the comment you are responding to.

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    In a universe in which nearly everything affects nearly everything eventually, it would not be surprising that an orbiting moon could affect the climate of the earth to some degree. Maybe even to a significant degree.

    In the simulated earth of the “climate scientists” that focuses on radiative forcing of a stationary flat earth with a cold sun, it is not surprising they do not consider the affect of an orbiting moon. After all the moon moves in relation to the sun and earth. Their simulated earth and cold sun don’t move. How then can they logically be expected to get correct answers? Especially since they don’t allow themselves to ask the right questions.

    Unfortunately, most everyone seems to be looking for simple (one factor controls all) answers to ultimately complex questions. The “climate scientists” respond by producing simple static models that give simple answers. Yet, the real world is neither simple nor static. Nearly everything is in motion and the only thing that can be relied upon is that everything changes in many different and non-obvious patterns on many different time scales.

    Perhaps climate is said to be a chaotic non-linear system and therefor cannot simulated is because it is too complex with too many things still unknown. I suspect we don’t know what to measure or even how to measure many of the unknowns. We just measure stuff and hope to find something useful in the measurements.

    A big part of the problem is from the six blind men trying to explain an elephant syndrome. That syndrome infects the entire field of climate science. Each party has its own thing held as a central truth and they are not about to allow alternate things into their world view. They do not see that they are only dealing with part of the picture and misinterpreting even that part to the point of distorting what they allow themselves to see. Full context is never considered. It’s just too complicated to be considered.

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    lemiere jacques

    and in general, you don’t need much energy to change the state of any circulation pattern…most of the time you just have to get the right frequency…
    so you can imagine thousands of “oscillator ” in the climate system…atmophere /solid ocean in their bassin…

    and you can imagine at least hundreds of forcing ..

    and given that what radiate the earth depend on the circuclation….
    it is bold to say i do understand the cimate if you don’t have the circulation patterns right….

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    Joe V.

    Blaming the Moon, or the Sun , has no guilt value(unless we made them angry). CO2 has far greater self recrimination , guilt tripping & general self rightiousness potential.

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    Geophysics 101:

    The Moon has such a big effect — moving 70% of the matter on the Earth’s surface every day

    Make that 100%.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide

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    gai

    Speaking of the moon and its possible effect on the climate, E.M. Smith had a couple of interesting posts.

    This one gets into just how complicated the earth/sun/moon orbits are Lunar Cycles, more than one… Of interest is the Saros Cycle, “… It takes between 1226 and 1550 years for the members of a saros series to traverse the Earth’s surface from north to south (or vice-versa)….” as in Bond or D/O Events maybe?

    {NOTE: The saros is a period of 223 synodic months (approximately 6585.3213 days, or nearly 18 years 11 days), that can be used to predict eclipses of the Sun and Moon. One saros after an eclipse, the Sun, Earth, and Moon return to approximately the same relative geometry, and a nearly identical eclipse will occur, in what is referred to as an eclipse cycle. A sar is one half of a saros.}

    I am glad someone is finally taking the time to actually look at the possible effects of the moon on the earths climate.

    Some of the other interesting moon influences EM dug up:

    …John Jeavons, author of “How to grow more vegetables…” adds the influence of the increasing or decreasing moonlight on the growth of plants. When the moon is in it’s waxing phases the ” increasing amount of moonlight stimulates leaf growth”, and ” as the moonlight decreases the above ground leaf growth slows down. The root is stimulated again.” (3)

    Further tests have been conducted, most notably by Frau Dr. Kolisko in Germany in 1939, and by Maria Thun in 1956. They primarily experimented with root crops, showing the effect of lunar phases on seed germination. They found maximum germination on the days before the Full moon. Crop yields were reported by weight….
    http://www.gardeningbythemoon.com/lunarfacts.html

    Seems there is some science behind that:

    http://www.ehow.com/facts_5731145_do-phases-affect-plant-germination_.html

    Ground-Water Effect

    During both the full and new moons there is higher moisture content in the soil. The seeds absorb the higher water content, which causes germination to occur more rapidly.

    University Study

    At Northwestern University, Dr. Frank Brown conducted a 10-year study showing that during a full moon, plants absorb more water. The study was conducted in a laboratory setting, and even though the plants were out of sight of the moon, its gravitational pull still influenced the plant’s absorptive qualities.

    Root-Crop Studies

    Further studies regarding the effects of the moon’s phases on plant germination involved root crops–one conducted by Lili Kolisko in 1939 and another by Maria Thun in 1956. Both showed that root crops achieved maximum germination in the days just prior to a full moon…

    So if the moon can influence ground water and plant growth, it is not a far stretch to consider the possibility it effects the climate too.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Oh, Good Grief!

      Greenie hand-flutterers, and their, “Like, we didn’t know, man. I mean, fifty degrees seems really hot when you wash your hands, and washing hands kills germs, right?”

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      • #
        Backslider

        I like my sauna at least 80C (don’t wear jewellery!).

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      • #
        Gee Aye

        You’ll find that the reality is actually as you’d expect. Money comes before environment and before thought. Money through reduction of scaldings and consequent payouts, and the cost of producing hotter water. No green agenda at all, those saying this are thinking wishfully.

        You’d think a hospital would have thought of the implications of warm water sitting in pipes.

        05

        • #
          Dave

          Gee Aye

          “reduction of scalding” SHOULD only be done by utilising Tempering Valves at the water outlet by mixing hot & cold to restrict it to 50 degrees. It should never be done at the source. The only reason for the Wesley turning down the temperature at the water heaters – WAS to save power. Water in pipes should be at minimum of 65 degrees plus to the outlet, THEN regulated or tempered for safety. Tempering valves have been available for 15 to 20 years, the only reason heaters are turned down to 50 degrees is for power saving. Danger of scalding is not possible if plumbing regulations are implemented properly.

          This is from Tasmania Health – They ARE recommending heaters be turned down to 50 degrees, they should be advising the tempering valve at all outlets, NOT this way.

          Regulate the temperature of your hot water service
          Many hot water services deliver domestic hot water with an average temperature of 70ºC. However, the ideal temperature for domestic hot water is 50ºC. It’s best at 50ºC because:

          At 60ºC it takes one second for hot water to cause third degree burns

          At 55ºC it takes 10 seconds

          At 50ºC it takes five minutes

          It’s unfortunate that these departments don’t talk to each other, the plumbing can be done cheaply to prevent any scalding or burns from hot water, without reducing temperature in the feed lines.

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        • #
          Dave

          Gee Aye,

          Forgot to add this: The Vic plumbing (also rest of Australia)

          Hot Water systems should never be below 60 degrees. Also it gives a good diagram of the set up.

          Why would any Health or Energy department give instructions to turn down a hot water heater below 60 degrees when the plumbers know that:

          To protect against the growth of Legionella bacteria it
          is a legal requirement that any stored heated water be
          kept at a minimum temperature of 60°C.

          They are now talking of a 65 degree minimum becoming the legal minimum temperature.

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        • #
          Backslider

          See below Gee Aye – the news article is no longer the original, which was about a green energy program being behind the decision to turn down the water temp.

          40

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      Dave

      Backslider

      Looks like Fairfax have changed their articles, none are on a Fairfax site anymore – no longer referring to the engineer that said it was because of the Qld dept of Climate Change. But still on the other networks.

      Can’t have any adverse findings against Climate Change Alarmists.

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      • #
        Backslider

        Wow! That’s amazing, the story has changed completely. Originally it was about how a “Green Energy Program” was behind turning down the water temp.

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      • #
        Backslider

        But a Brisbane electrician who worked for the State Government’s now defunct Climate Smart Program says anyone who used that service would have had their hot water system temperatures reduced to 50C to save energy.

        However long this one lasts

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          Dave

          Backslider:

          Climate Smart Home Service Queensland just uploaded this on their website:

          Hot Water System Update

          If you received a ClimateSmart Home Service, you may have chosen to have the temperature of your Hot Water storage tank adjusted by the qualified ClimateSmart electrician in order to help reduce your power use.

          All adjustments performed by ClimateSmart electricians set the temperature of the hot water storage tank to 60°c or above.

          ClimateSmart Home Service adopted Standard AS/NZ3500 of the plumbing code recommended/developed by the Master Plumber and Mechanical Services Association of Australia (MPMSAA) that 60 degrees Celsius is a safe temperature for hot water storage tanks for health reasons (such as the elimination of bacteria including legionella).

          The Climate Change Dept in QLD was dismantled by the LNP, and since a lot of garbage is coming out on what they did. But why is Fairfax deleting this part off all their websites etc?

          Cover up in progress, amazing the ABC still has it on their site. Be gone by morning.

          It’s amazing that they even state: you may have chosen to have the temperature of your Hot Water storage tank adjusted which is bullshit, as it states this is part of their service on another page. Nobody chose what aspects these people did, they opted for the whole service. I think it was Anna Bligh’s husband in charge of the Climate Change Department at the time.

          This whole GREEN SMART garbage has got to go, it’s reminds me of PINK Batts and now NBN.
          When you get fanatics overriding stuff like Australian Standards, Building codes etc, it’s time to chop them out of the equation totally. The only thing that should be switched off is the GREEN SHlT coming out of the alarmists mouths.

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            Dave

            Sorry,

            But this is grating on me now,

            They state here:

            adjusted by the qualified ClimateSmart electrician in order to help reduce your power use.

            To reduce your power usage, nothing else, Climate Smart Electricians have no authority nor licence to adjust an electric, gas or solar hot water system without a licensed plumber present. The electrician has no idea of the type of pipework involved that can withstand different temperatures. The plumbing code requires this, based on ASA and the building code.

            Again, this is another example of government incompetence being dictated solely by GREEN ideals and power savings only.

            What the FUUK is a CLIMATE SMART Electrician????????

            When politicians and CAGW Alarmists get involved, it ALWAYS ends up WRONG and dangerous.

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    crosspatch

    Not really buying it and I will tell you why. While I do believe that under certain circumstances we could be in a configuration where the moon influence can be seen, at other times it can not be. For example, if you very precisely balance 10 ton block of rock, you might be able to influence it with a touch of a finger but if that block is sitting on the ground on one side, all your pushing with all your might won’t budge it one bit.

    During the last glacial period, there is evidence that we remained in a persistent La Nina condition with very strong trade winds and strong upwelling along the Pacific coast of South America. And I mean La Nina condition for centuries, not just several years. In that situation, any influence of the moon would be completely swamped out.

    So what I am saying is that while I believe that lunar influences might, indeed, be seen in the current configuration, I am deeply suspicious that it is the “cause” of them. La Nina and El Nino are more about balancing heat energy. If heat is nearly balanced, sure, we can sit on the edge of Nina/Nino and lunar influences might nudge it back and forth between. But if heat becomes imbalanced by enough, it won’t make enough difference and the trades will either howl or slacken (or blow the other way).

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    • #
      Ian Wilson

      star comment
      crosspatch,

      Couldn’t agree with you more, however, we are only claiming a lunar influence upon the El Nino/La Nina cycle in the most recent Holocene, no more and no less.

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    crosspatch

    We also need to remember that periods such as interglacials are small portions of time. They account for around 10% of the time of the past few million years. The “normal” condition of Earth is during the glacial periods. Interglacials are fairly ephemeral and everything we know about climate goes right down the crapper as soon as this interglacial ends.

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      gai

      Too bad the Climastrologists haven’t figured that out.

      Warming is the least of our climate worries. Things like

      1. Is the climate bi-stable?
      2. If the climate is bi-stable, does the climate swing wildly as it gets near the solar insolation value that triggers glaciation?
      3. What IS that transition solar insolation value and how close are we to that value?
      4. How much longer will the earth remain in the stable zone?

      Those are the questions that scientists should be looking at. Looking at CAGW at the tail end of the Holocene is beyond silly.

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      Ian Wilson

      star comment
      I the near future I will be presenting some data that shows that synchronization between the Lunar orbit and the seasons may be responsible for D-O and Bond events. While they may not be responsible for glacial/inter-glacial cycles they are important climate events.

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    Bruce of Newcastle

    ENSO also has a ~60 year cyclic signal. Rarely is this mentioned by anyone, even sceptics.

    So does the PDO.

    So does the AMO.

    So does HadCRUT.

    The effect on temperature in HadCRUT is about 38% of the temperature rise last century.

    The ~60 year cycle is persistent over millenia and may be linked to the thermohaline cycle, which I might add seems to have a period of about 90-100 years.

    I don’t know what exactly causes the ~60 year cycle, perhaps its a solar phenomenon (3 x the double solar cycle), perhaps the lunar (2/3rds the 93 year cycle), or maybe a resonance of both.

    But climate models do not include it and that is willfully ignoring the empirical data.

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      Ian Wilson

      Bruce of Newcastle,

      We suggest in our paper that it is linked to the 31/62/93 lunar tidal cycle.

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        Bruce of Newcastle

        Ian – Nic Scafetta has hypothesised the solar barycentre cycles (he also mentions the lunar cycle), but I am interested that the solar half cycle is 10.66 years on average. Resonances would then be 32/64/96 years. Knight et al 2005, which I linked, describes the AMO as long term ‘quasi periodic’. Which could be expected of a beat pattern of two nearly identical periodicities.

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          Ian Wilson

          Bruce,

          Nicola Scafetta’s 2010 hypothesis was predated by my own research on this topic in 2008. The paper that I wrote on this topic was finished more than a year before Nicola published “his hypothesis” in 2010. My paper can be found at:

          Wilson, I.R.G., 2011, Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation
          Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate?
          The General Science Journal, Dec 2011, 3811.

          http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Essays/View/3811

          I would be interested to hear how you calculated the 32/64/96 year resonances.

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            Bruce of Newcastle

            Ian – The solar cycle is known to average 10.66 years in length. The arithmetic is simple 3 x 10.66 = 32 and etc.

            If the lunar resonances are 31/62/93 and the solar cycle is very close to being an integer ratio, is this coincidence or an unknown effect on the lunar orbit? I don’t know.

            But since planetary orbits and the orbits of moons are so often in resonance ratios it would be no surprise if there was a resonance forcing of the AMO or the thermohaline cycle. These two would be modulated by geography – for example the AMO cycle seems stronger than the PDO one, and the AMO is geographically connected to the Arctic whereas the Pacific is blocked from the Arctic by the Aleutians. A datum which would favour solar resonance is that Arctic temperatures track solar TSI+UV closely. If the Arctic ice is modulated by a ~60 year solar cyclic forcing then you would expect it to force the AMO.

            Personally I’m not really interested in the mechanisms, whether solar or lunar, or both. What I have been interested in is that the ~60 year cycle very clearly caused about 0.3 C of the 0.74 C temperature ‘rise’ that the IPCC gets their knickers in a twist about. And another 0.35 C or so is due to the Sun via another indirect mechanism. Put those together and CAGW is totally falsified, and the whole carbon tax/RET/global warming hysteria is a lie.

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              Ian Wilson

              Bruce,

              Thanks for the clarification on the resonances – I would have used the harmonics but no big deal.

              I think that you are spot on claiming that some combination of the lunar and solar influence is acting upon climate systems such as the AMO to influence world temperature. It seems much more likely that most of the recent warming has been caused by externally driven natural changes like these than by by CO2.

              I believe that the there is a strong case for the further investigation of the idea that long-term tidal effects upon the Earth are synchronized with with long-term changes in solar activity.

              Thank you for your interesting comments. It sounds as though you might have one excellent blog posts that you could contribute on the influence of solar variations on the Earth’s climate systems.

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    Josik

    A Norwegian scientist has published several articles about the Lunar effect on climate.
    http://ansatte.hials.no/hy/climate/defaultEng.htm
    Probably not that well known, but may be more important than we acnowledge by now?

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      Ian Wilson

      Josik,

      Thank you for highlighting the Norwegian research. I am aware of this research but your link helps me keep track of their latest publications.

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    Ross

    Sorry this is completely off topic but you have watch this short video.
    These people want to make major policy decisions that effect us all –look how “convincing” they are esp. the Greenpeace guy.
    If nothing else it is a good Friday laugh.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/06/humor-u-n-climate-delegates-unaware-of-the-pause-in-global-warming/#more-87751

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      You are correct. It is totally off-topic, and completely out of line.

      The lack of warming for the last 16 years has not been authorised by the UN, nor is it sanctioned by the Members of the Conference of the Parties. The lack of warming must therefore cease forthwith. If it does not cease, the IPCC will be forced to arrange a massive release of Carbon Dioxide in order to bring the climate back into alignment with the sanctioned computer models.

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        Tim

        There are laws in place to prevent the doping of racehorses or athletes, corporate cartels fixing prices, rigging stock markets or elections…

        Where is the oversight on cleverly rigged computer models that lead to policies that promote biofuel crops leading to widespread starvation, sanction unaffordable energy leading to pensioners and the underprivileged to die from Hypothermia?

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          The laws against doping is an expression of government power and control. The lack of oversight over the computer models supports the power and control agenda of the government. The prime directive is that government power and control shall always be increased. The freedoms, productivity, and the lives of its citizens, thought of by the government as subjects, are irrelevant in face of that prime directive. That this practice is not sustainable is also held to be irrelevant because government asserts the power to control what it permits to be sustainable.

          The government thinks it holds a two headed coin and can require you to choose tails so they win and you lose every time. You are supposed to accept this situation quietly and without complaint or resistance.

          My question is, why do so many people accept this situation as acceptable?

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            Because the government has men with guns and claims a monopoly on the use of force.

            One of the great successes of western governments is to get the population to believe that they (the people) have some sort of control over and indeed responsibility for the government. The other bit of cool-aid drinking is for the government to say that it is there “for the people and by the people” for so many decades that just about everyone believes it, in a way that the little red book or Pravda was probably never believed.

            A person would need to be prepared to give up everything they own and all their time and energy to make political changes against this government and there would be no assurance that they could achieve any reduction in governance (eg Peter Spenser’s case). We live in a totalitarian regime and don’t believe it.

            It is not the “peoples” fault that this situation is unacceptable? – that is blaming the victim. That question you ask evidences a great victory by the state that you would critique them well, then ask it. What could a person do to change the governments climate policies and what would they have to be prepared to sacrifice ?

            The answer is probably: nothing, and everything (except we probably would not get shot, that would give the game away and ruin the propaganda).

            I find it more comforting to believe we live in a totalitarian state. That way I dont have to get so outraged daily at the things the government does – I can just expect it. It is more comforting to get positive daily feedback on ones theory.

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    Yonniestone

    Thank you Jo for another fascinating post,
    One of the best outcomes of this AGW debacle would be a greater understanding and new discoveries of earths climate, this is another major piece of the puzzle and makes for great reading.
    After talking to many old farmers for years it’s clear they understand cycles in weather in their district very well, I once asked a farmer why the weather changes his response was “Could be the sun the moon, gravity or God, why is best left to a bloke in a white coat in a lab”

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    handjive

    Ahhh. The Moon.

    It was the moon that gave us mathematics, engineering, the pyramids and everything today.

    As the ancients watched the skies, the only constant in those dark hours before the life giving sun god returned, it was the reconciliation of the phases of the moon with the solar phases that dictated the changing seasons (climate change) that inspired them to count.

    see: Possible Moon Phases Engraved on Bone– This sketch of the markings found on a Cro-Magnon bone tool, c. 28,000 BCE, may indicate one of the earliest forms of notation.
    see: Could counting be even older?

    The lunar calendar became the basis of the calendars of the ancient Chinese, Babylonians, Greeks, and Jews

    “During antiquity the lunar calendar that best approximated a solar-year calendar was based on a 19-year period, with 7 of these 19 years having 13 months.
    In all, the period contained 235 months.
    Still using the lunation value of 291/2 days, this made a total of 6,9321/2 days, while 19 solar years added up to 6,939.7 days, a difference of just one week per period and about five weeks per century.”
    .
    There are those same numbers popping up again. Even the ancients knew of them.
    They built them into their monuments, like the pyramids.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    The moon … gave us mathematics, engineering, the pyramids and everything today.

    It has also lead to more than a few pregnancies. The correlation is there, and we are still working on the causation … oh wait …?

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    RoHa

    So how do we tax the moon? There was a time when we could have used an indirect tax on songwriters, but I’m pretty sure that modern songs do not include anything but screams and wails.

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    D Cotton

    The article talks about thirty years of cooling followed by thirty years of warming. In other words, the 60 year natural cycle that I and many others have been talking about for years is a reality, and fully explains why we are now in a thirty year period of slight net cooling. The underlying ~1,000 year cycle is still rising at between 0.05 and 0.04 C degree per decade, but it will top out in less than 200 years and be followed by 500 years of cooling.

    Carbon dioxide has nothing to do with it all. In fact I calculate from the “new paradigm” that it has a net cooling effect of about 0.002 C degree. Big deal!

    The “old paradigm” of radiative forcing and greenhouse conjectures will eventually yield to the truth of the “new paradigm” which is all about non-radiative processes as described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.” Anyone interested in learning what I’m talking about may read “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.

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    Manfred

    As I keep saying, and we all appreciate, the C/AGW hypothesis is unfalsifiable. The complexity of climate with the gradual exposure of its chaotic nuances will simply not depose the a political consensus. The U.N. Climate delegates in Bonn (Ross #25) appear demonstrably unaware of ‘the pause’ in global warming and could it seems, care less. They resemble no less the jackboot clad, goose stepping strut of the North Korean army on parade, though they look admittedly better fed.

    It took politics to get us in this absurd mess and it will take politics to extract us. Leadership is probably the key. I think the Progressive MSM will face a fate of embarrassing alienation assured by their glaring ignorance of the science and evolving knowledge. There is, moon or not, a sense of the tide turning!

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    The sooner we get over the mechanistic/console approach to climate the better. Mostly it’s been warmists, but it seems others are into the game as well.

    Our worst drought (1902-3) was during a weak El Nino. Our second worst was during a very strong El Nino (1982-3). The only decade free of an El Nino was the 1930s – and you don’t think we had severe heat and drought in that decade? 1998 was a super El Nino, yet it was quite benign in Australia, while the weak El Nino of 1902-3 was savage in its effect. The drenching of the early fifties preceded a long, nasty drought which many of us forget. And how do you fit the wet, storming seventies into a “pattern” with the nineties?

    Look, ENSO, PDO etc are very handy if very rough observation sets, worth having and worth improving. They are observation sets, not mechanisms. And ease up on “It’s the CO2, stupid”, “It’s the sun, stupid”, “It’s the moon, stupid” “It’s the SO2, stupid” etc. We’re only stupid when we pretend to know and explain stuff we can’t possibly know and explain. And could we stop talking about mechanisms and forcings as if climate was a computer game developed by a teenaged Asperger’s sufferer?

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    Like a Sine Wave, our universe has four magnetic polarities and it is these four polarities that determines the seasonal changes we experience. The supportive diagrams up front:fig 1a, is indeed very sound and should be given top priority to what we are experiencing here on Earth with the magnetic emissions from Earth.

    Yes!, the Sun is also putting out magnetic influences too, which allows the Earth to react to these four sectors of magnetic polarity sectors, for the Earth is reacting to these four polarity sectors which changes the seasons by the fact that the tilt of Earth is also reacting to these four polarities, and constantly changes the cycle of seasons, as it orbits the Sun. The spiral effect as shown above is also true for the orbital path of our Sun. In astronomical terms, this is called its wobble. In the case of the Sun’s wobble is the effect of the generalized value of the averaged term: the “Swarbe” cycle of 11 years and this can is associated as being approximately half of the 18.6 year natural cycle.

    What is not generally accepted in science is that the Moon ‘Full Moon Phase” is always within the Northern Hemisphere, and never in the Southern Hemisphere. This is because of its cycle reaction to the Earth’s magnetic emissions from its Magnetosphere.

    Ps: I lived in Wagga Wagga rain swamping in 1956, Chaston Street, wading through flood water which eventually drained away.

    You may wish to review my blog: http://www.ttsw.bigblog.com.au.

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    malcolm

    Trial by Jury was written in 1875 by Gilbert and Sullivan.
    There is a line in one of the songs which goes like this:
    “The moon in her phases is found the time, and the wind and the weather…”

    It took me ages to grasp what was being said because of the obscure gramma but I always like this phrase for its quaint description of how the moon affects the earth.

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    Dennis

    I was not long ago referred to websites found at Google: ancient gold mines of africa, some here might be interested in having a look there. Civilisation spanning back 200,000 years about. Electricity and gold mines.

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    Lunar effects on atmospheric pressure is well known by anyone looking at weather, e.g. BOM. Have alook at graphs of pressure at any weather station, but especially those far from the sea (so there is no suggestion of high/ low marine tides affecting pressure). E.g. Alice Springs Airport-

    http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/watl/weather/obs.jsp?graph=all_obs&station=15590

    Notice the twice daily “tides” in atmospheric pressure. Check where the moon is in the sky at these times. (New moon is on the 9th.) Of course pressure changes for other reasons too which is why the cycle is not completely regular but lunar influences are obvious.

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    janama

    Oh, gentlemen, listen, I pray,
    Though I own that my heart has been ranging,
    Of nature the laws I obey,
    For nature is constantly changing.
    The moon in her phases is found,
    The time and the wind and the weather,
    The months in succession come round,
    And you don’t find two Mondays together.

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    inedible hyperbowl

    Can the Moon change our climate?

    Silly question. The only thing that can change our climate is a Carbon tax. Everybody knows that.

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    Niff

    Jo, Many thanks for the article based on actual science…..how refreshing.

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    Susan Fraser

    Thanks for your huge effort to explain this paper which I tried to read on astroclimateconnection, (following interesting discussions on planetary tidal forces on tallbloke) all above my head but so grippingly interesting. I’m inspired to keep reading on the effects of the solar system on earth’s climate

    http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/a-confirmation-of-vej-tidal-torquing.html

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      Ian Wilson

      Thank you Susan for showing an interest in our paper and some of the postings at the astro-climate-connection blog site. I hope your inquisitive nature will lead you to a better understanding of the subject at hand.

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        John F. Hultquist

        I have been an instructor in beginning Earth science classes (first semester college level) in the US. Somewhere prior to college, students have seen a diagram of the moon making a full circle around Earth. Like this one:
        http://astrobob.areavoices.com/astrobob/images/Moon_orbiGOODt.jpg

        Maybe their 9th grade science class had one of these:
        http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4833655976952802&pid=1.7&w=259&h=185&c=7&rs=1

        Once an idea is into a young mind that image is nearly impossible to dislodge. So this is what one starts with. This has to be shown to be false before progress can be made. This gives teachers headaches.

        Thanks, Ian & co-author, Jo, and Susan, and all others trying to make sense of all this.
        My location provides a tactile up close and personal relationship to the atmosphere. 22 hours ago the atmosphere was calm. Then it jumped to an average of 20 mph wind speed with gusts into the mid-30s. Just now there was a gust of 43 mph. If it rained, the weather service would have to give it a formal name. Wind is forecast to continue like this for another 30 hours or so causing blowing dust and perhaps road closures. Those new to the Valley will ask if the wind always blows like this. The standard answer is: “NO! It often blows harder.”

        Okay, now for the reading of the actual paper. Again, thanks.

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    inedible hyperbowl
    The Moon itself is not the controlling factor of climate, it is the combined magnetic effective reaction between the Earth’s Magnetosphere with our Sun’s Negative polarity Heliosphere that controls our Climate.
    Our Moon has total control of tidal effects and IO agree that in some aspects of the Moon’s activity when at Full Moon status, there is an acceptable affect that changes the days of this cycle with added effects of clear skies, that may have an effect to barometric pressure systems throughout the world.
    Carbon Dioxide has no affect to Climate Change For starters, its atomic weight is 44, so how is this supposed to rise up to cloud level if the atmosphere is an average value of 29?

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    Here in NZ the “Moon Man” who is Ken Ring has made long range forecasts for winter which diverge from that which the the NZ Met people have which I find quite interesting. It sort of gives us a fair contest with definitive comparisons to make in Spring. Mr Rings’ methods are not mainstream and the NZ met office have a political imperative so we have a two horse race of outsiders where odds have no real meaning. I am not a climatologist and the more this thing drags on I wonder if there is such a person. That is quite possibly an unfair slur and perhaps all objective scientific pursuit can be subjectively distorted if it’s not subject to a rational and dispassionate method. I’m just glad there are people like those who come here who put objective truth above their own egos. For the record, Ken Ring seems to be predicting a colder winter with snowfalls to low levels and the other lot are saying normal (?) to above average temps. Might as well consult a bookie.

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    Just Thinkin'

    Great report. Who moved Christmas Island……or is there two of them?

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    Peter S

    All this simply demonstrates is how little we understand, and as a consequence how impoverished the models are.

    The fundamental problem in this debate is that all the proposed actions by the climate lobby are dependent upon inadequate models.

    One of the downsides of computer technology is that it is enabling lazy scientists to conduct “experiments” based on mathematical models. But the code for these models is never published so it can’t be challenged. This is the antithesis of what science is really about. Models can be elegant, they can even be pretty, but if they fail to predict correctly they are simply spaghetti code. The modellers now accept their models have exaggerated any potential increase in temperature due to CO2 emissions. But instead of accepting their models are wrong, and inquiring into this, they are saying the mistake buys us time to fix the “problem”.

    Can you believe it!

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    Kevin Lohse

    Completely, utterly and totally OT.
    http://www.thegwpf.org/climate-ngo-quits-australia-green-politics-turn-sour/

    it’s the Break-Through, boys and girls. All your diligence, effort, pain, despair, public humiliation and Aussie grit is paying off at last. Now you are on the front foot and can pursue the Green enemies of Humanity until they are impotent. Very well done Jo, and all your unflinching support on this blog.

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    Manfred

    OT as well, but thanks Kevin –

    “This decision has been made in the light of the increasingly challenging political environment for action on climate change in Australia, despite the exceptional efforts of our local representatives,”

    You see, nothing to do with the science is it? It’s all about the ‘exceptional efforts’ (political) of the local rep.

    And now they’re off to have a shot at imposing their ideology on South Africa, where a labour led government is more sympathetic to their ambitions.

    Climate NGO Quits Australia As Green Politics Turn Sour
    Date: 07/06/13 Giles Parkinson, New Economy, GWPF

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    Joe V.

    We have the Warmists, the D word, the Alarmists and the Slayers, but now we have those who consider that the Moon did it, the Lunartics.

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    JohnB

    I’ve been speculating on this for 20 years

    An amateur meteoroligist friend of mine pooh-poohed the idea.

    (At least he was a luke-warmist – I think)

    In Minnesota/Wisconsin (USA), i KNOW, the coldest nights of January/February seem to coincide with Full moon (maybe lagging a bit)

    JohnB

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  • #
    Ted O'Brien.

    And here was I all these years believing that the prime movers of our weather, our climate and our tides were the daily sun cycle and the moon.

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    May I venture to say that Figure 14 and 15, above are indicating the shift polarity of the magnetic field emissions from the Sun’s Heliosphere, that is being received by the Earth as it passes through its combined oscillational spiral orbit to the Sun.

    The Earth is reacting to this magnetic emissions, with a reaction angle of around 7 degrees behind the Sun.

    When these pointed spikes hit the Earth, with my understanding and interpretation, they are switching the magnetic polarities reactions of the Earth’s magnetosphere as we observed after the 15th. February 2001 switch, when this was observed by NASA (USA) occurred, our seasons began to dramatically change, and concluded the end of our last seasonal change on the 22 December 2012 with a 131 day advancement to our seasons.

    It is my understanding that these cycles range from 9.1 to 12.4 years cycles, so these charts are to me, very real indeed.

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    Anton

    The moon is responsible for the Nino/Nina pattern, which changed around 1970? So what happened to the moon around 1970?

    At last, proof to convince the conspiratorialists that the moon landings were real!

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      Joe V.

      So it’s that reflector the left up there that was warming the Earth ever since was it?

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    • #
      Ian Wilson

      YEAR____MONTH_____DAY______LUNAR_DISTANCE____________PHASE_________INCREMENT__

      1939______JAN________06___________357102__________________F+13h_______________START
      1939______DEC________29___________365764__________________F+2d22h
      1943______JAN________06___________356656__________________N-0h_________________4
      1943______DEC________29___________362202__________________N+1d22h
      1947______JAN________06___________357359__________________F-15h________________4
      1947______DEC________28___________358776__________________F+1d2h
      1951______JAN________06___________359652__________________N-1d7h
      1951______DEC________28___________357092__________________N+11h_______________5
      1954______JAN________10___________369765__________________N+5d7h
      1955______JAN________06___________363009__________________F-2d3h
      1955______DEC________29___________356582__________________F-3h________________4
      1958______JAN________08___________366324__________________F+3d3h
      1959______JAN________05___________366999__________________N-3d8h
      1959______DEC________29___________357713__________________N-17h_______________4
      1962______JAN________08___________362718__________________N+2d1h
      1963______JAN________04___________369951__________________F-5d14h
      1963______DEC________29___________360184__________________F-1d10h_____________4
      1966______JAN________08___________359151__________________F+1d5h______________2
      1967______JAN________01___________369212__________________F+4d15h
      1967______DEC________28___________363847__________________N-2d8h
      1970______JAN________08___________357282__________________N+13h____________4__START
      1970______DEC________31___________365830__________________N+2d22h
      1971______DEC________28___________367508__________________F-3d15h
      1974______JAN________08___________356545__________________F-1h_________________4
      1974______DEC________31___________361754__________________F+1d20h
      1978______JAN________08___________357463__________________N-15h________________4
      1978______DEC________30___________358855__________________N+1d2h
      1982______JAN________08___________359759__________________F-1d8h
      1982______DEC________30___________356957__________________F+10h_______________5
      1985______JAN________12___________369600__________________F+5d1h
      1986______JAN________08___________363300__________________N-2d4h
      1986______DEC________30___________356616__________________N-3h________________4
      1989______JAN________10___________366383__________________N+3d3h
      1990______JAN________07___________366980__________________F-3d9h
      1990______DEC________30___________357752__________________F-18h_______________4
      1993______JAN________10___________362264__________________F+1d23h
      1994______JAN________06___________370136__________________F-5d21h
      1994______DEC________30___________360486__________________N-1d11h_____________4
      1997______JAN________10___________359232__________________N+1d4h______________2
      1998______JAN________03___________369236__________________N+4d15h
      1998______DEC________30___________363786__________________F-2d8h
      2001______JAN________10___________357131__________________F+12h____________4__START
      2002______JAN________02___________365411__________________F+2d20h
      2002______DEC________30___________367903__________________N-3d19h
      2005______JAN________10___________356571__________________N-1h_________________4
      2006______JAN________01___________361749__________________N+1d19h
      2006______DEC________28___________370320__________________F-6d12h
      2009______JAN________10___________357500__________________F-16h________________4
      2010______JAN________01___________358682__________________F+1d1h
      2010______DEC________25___________368462__________________F+4d4h
      2013______JAN________10___________360047__________________N-1d9h
      2014______JAN________01___________356921__________________N+9h________________4

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        What you are seeing is the magnetic drag of the Moon in association to the magnetic drag of the Earth as it orbits the Sun.

        There will always be a variation within the orbit of the Moon,because of the variable magnetic emissions from the Sun as we orbit it, as these will vary with the position in space of the Moon as it is experiencing its reactive oscillation orbit of the Earth.

        As you have beautifully shown, I would appreciate the values of the equinox period if you have the time to deliver. I feel that there may be a minuscule variation in height there. If there is, then my theory will be confirmed.

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        From Ian Williams table:
        Years 2005 back to 1939 Moon Phase = (356,571km – 356,656km) 85km/66years = 1.28787878*/365.24 = .003526116493 km per day or 3.526 meters per day where the Moon has been pushed towards the Earth over this period when closest distance to Earth. This is because the Sun was orbiting within a Negative Magnetic field during this 9.1 year cycle, now the situation has changed since the accepted value of the 15 February 2001 was announced by NASA (USA)that the Sun switched its polarity. What this tale shows is that during this phase, the Sun passed through a Negative Magnetic phase, opposing the Moon’s far side and pushing it towards the attracted Northern Hemisphere which has a Negative Magnetic potential.

        This to me concludes the why reason for our seasons have change, and during this revised period of our season change beginning in the year 2001 to 2012 Moon Phase = 357,131 – 360047 = 2916km/9.1years = 320.4395604km/365.24days = 0.877338722km per day or 877.339722meters per day increase since 2001.

        This last period is when the Sun passed through the Milky Way Galaxy on the 22 December 2012, therefore, the Sun has an increased influence to the Moon’s Rear face: being a negative magnetic face, causing its oscillation orbit of Earth, is influenced by the new Sun’s Positive Heliosphere interaction we are currently orbiting through. With these affects, the dramatic changes to our Barometric Pressure systems in both hemispheres will dramatically change again in the coming years.

        In Australia during this month of June we are having very high readings of Barometric Pressures of 1032mb which is strange for this time of year and I noticed in Canada last week where there was a 1036mb reading, so there is indeed a similar situation happening throughout the world is being initiated by the Sun’s magnetic influence, that is changing our seasons. CO2 cannot change or influence this from happening.

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    Ian Wilson

    Anton,

    The above table shows the times that Moon reaches Perigee (its closest point to the Earth in its orbit) between December 28th and January 10th.

    * A close inspection of the table shows that a Full Moon occurred close to Perigee on January 6th 1939.

    * 31.00 years later a New Moon occurred close to Perigee on January 08th 1970.

    * Finally, 62.00 years later another Full Moon occurred near Perigee on January 10th 2001

    * This is the 31.00/62.00 year sequence of Perigean Spring Tides that we call the Perigee-Syzygy Cycle.

    * Immersed within the Perigee-Syzygy Cycle is a sequence of Perigean Spring Tides that re-occur
    around Perihelion (January 3rd) roughly once every four years.

    * The average spacing between these Perigean Spring Tides is about 4.425 years.

    * These are the tides associated with the 4.4253 Year Half Cycle of Lunar Perigee.

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    Ian Wilson

    Anton,

    In our paper we said:

    The pivotal point in the evolution of the global structure of the Earth’s atmosphere during the latter part of 20th Century. For the thirty year period prior to 1970 (i.e. 1940 to 1970), the Earth’s atmosphere was characterized by a meridional circulation pattern (as measured by the Vangengeim-Girs or Atmospheric Circulation Index – ACI) and decreasing mean world temperatures. This was followed by a thirty year period after 1970 (i.e. 1970 and 2000), where the Earth’s atmosphere was characterized by a zonal circulation pattern (as measured by the ACI) and increasing mean world temperatures (Gris [13], Sidorenkov and Svirenko [14],Sidorenkov [15]).

    Note the 31 year lunar period in the above table that appears to match this pattern within the Earth’s atmosphere.

    1939 JAN 06th to 1970 JAN 08th

    &

    1970 JAN 08th to 2001 JAN 10th

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      Anton

      Ian,

      I’m a serious scientist but my comment wasn’t entirely serious. I’ll ponder your theory with interest.

      20

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    Roy Hogue

    What’s the problem? It’s obvious that air, being fluid like water, responds exactly like water does. If the ocean has tides so does the atmosphere. So the question isn’t whether there are atmospheric tides but what effect do they have? Since air has only a tiny fraction of the mass of water it isn’t obvious that it’s happening but it must be happening.

    I’m no expert but it must be difficult to tell the difference between atmospheric tidal movement and the more common air movement from convection and coriolis acceleration.

    10

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      Ian Wilson

      Roy,

      It certainly is difficult to tell the difference. It took me three years, 14,000 words and umpteen graphs just to be able to convince some people that the phenomenon might possibly exist.

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        Roy Hogue

        Only umpteen graphs? Who were you trying to convince?

        But I can easily understand the problem. Your average man on the street is so totally ignorant of basic physics that you could drive a Nimitz class aircraft carrier through the void without danger of hitting anything.

        I don’t mean that as a put-down, it’s simply a fact. And it leaves even well educated people vulnerable to all sorts of wrong ideas and theories.

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    Ian Wilson

    Jo,

    Your readers may be interested in the following German blog site [use the Google translate button]:

    http://www.scilogs.de/wblogs/blog/klimalounge/mechanismen/2013-06-06/extremwetter-durch-planetare-wellen

    They shows that instabilities (i.e. kinks) in mid-latitude Rossby waves are responsible for the recent weather extremes:
    [The great animation is worth the visit]

    Coumou D, Rahmstorf S (2012) A decade of extreme weather. Nature Climate Change 2 (7) pp. 491-496

    The question is, why do the Rossby wave instabilities seem to develop roughly every 9.3 (= 18.6/2) years?

    10

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    Ian Wilson

    Jo,

    Be careful, the article at the scilogs.de web site is by Stefan Ramhstorf. He appears to be
    completely blinded by his religious faith in catastrophic global warming and so it would pay to
    watch your p’s and q’s if you make contact with him.

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    bananabender

    It’s an epic effort of 14,000 words and a gallery of graphs.

    I’ll stick with Occam’s Razor. Any hypothesis that requires this much intellectual contortion is probably totally incorrect.

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    • #

      I trust that you have achieved the same attitude to what science is all about. It is seeing what is there with NO corrections to make the answer to what you may wish it to be.

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      Ian Wilson

      I understand that the topic is complex for someone with has little or no astronomical training, however most astronomers, would find that the explanation we have given in our paper is indeed the simplest. Hence, it actually would be supported by Occam’s Razor.

      The level of complexity mainly comes from fact that Nikolay and I are giving the first contorted explanation of what really is a very simple idea. Jo has performed miracles in translating this difficult topic into a form that can be discussed on this forum, however, even she cannot do what amounts to the near impossible.

      The nub of our argument is that climatologist have dismissed the influence of lunar-tides upon the atmosphere because they have been looking at the changes in the absolute strength of these tides. We believe that when they look at the tidal cycles that precisely synchronize with the seasons then the lunar atmospheric tidal influence becomes obvious.

      We are arguing that we need to adjust the way that we look at the problem and its probably fair to say that we have not done the best job in the world in stating our case (despite the wonderful efforts at translation by Jo Nova).

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    bananabender

    I understand that the topic is complex for someone with has little or no astronomical training, however most astronomers, would find that the explanation we have given in our paper is indeed the simplest. Hence, it actually would be supported by Occam’s Razor.

    If you look long enough and hard enough at a large data set you will invariably find meaningful patterns.

    The fact that certain climate events roughly coincide with certain astronmical event may be nothing more than a coincidence.

    A simpler alternative hypothesis is that the ENSO is simply an artefact of a chaotic non-linear fluid dynamic system that alternately dumps rain on the east and west coasts of the Pacfic Ocean with apparent regularity. This hypothesis doesn’t provide an explanatory mechanism for the ENSO but it is as equally (in)valid as Atmospheric Tides.

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    Ian Wilson

    bananabender,

    You have been presented with statistically significant evidence that there are large (continental) size anomalies in mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) and sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies that are circumnavigating the Southern Hemisphere roughly every 18 years. In addition, evidence has been presented to show that between 1947 and 1994, these variations in MSLP and SST anomalies are in-phase with the 18.6 year lunar draconic tidal cycle. Prof Sidorenkov and I have presented what we believe is the most likely explanation of the observations we have found. In addition, we have POSTULATED that the phenomenon that we are observing MAY tilt the odds in favor or against the onset of El Nino and La Nina events.

    It is one thing to disagree with the explanations we give for our observations but quite another to disagree with the pieces of observational evidence that we have presented. If you DO NOT accept that our observational analysis is correct then it is up to you to show the fault(s) in our analysis and then publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal. If you do not agree with our explanation for the observations then you are more than welcome to come up with one of your own and then publish it as well.

    I look forward to your peer-reviewed publication concerning this topic.

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      John Westman

      Hi Ian,

      I wouldn’t bother too much with bananabender as bending his/her mind beyond the daily comic strips is probably a difficult and futile exercise.

      As you say; it is up to him/her to show how your research and conclusions are wrong. Is this not how the peer review process is supposed to work?

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    Hi JoNova.
    Have not received your answer to my question, as of today
    Thomas

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    Richard Hanson

    Those interested in climate change via tides should look at two important papers on the subject that were penned by none other than Charles D. Keeling. Yes…that Keeling who implemented the modern and continuous carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii. Both papers are available as indicated below:

    “Possible forcing of global temperature by the oceanic tides”
    Charles D. Keeling and Timothy P. Whorf
    1997, The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

    http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8321.abstract?ijkey=d5a8328bbba80dd63469c1a465bf4e3a1c30c5d2&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

    The 1,800-year oceanic tidal cycle: A possible cause of rapid climate change Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2000 97 (8) 3814-3819

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      Ian Wilson

      Richard,

      Keeling and Whorf [1997] looks at the variation in the absolute strength of the lunar
      tides. This varies on scale of 3, 6, 9, and 18 years as well as the long-term 1832 year cycle.

      The paper the we have presented deals with the variation in the strength of the component of
      the lunar tides that are synchronized with the seasons. These either vary on the 31/62/93/186 year
      Perigee-Syzygy-Perihelion cycle or the 9.3/93 year Draconic lunar tidal cycle.

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    Hi JoNova, this is what I have asked to be included, and with no reply, I’m asking you OK to show this on your site.
    Thomas.

    Press Release
    Thomas T. S. Watson Named the 2012, VIP Member of Worldwide Who’s Who
    for Excellence in Research

    Victoria, Australia, August 8, 2012, Thomas T. S. Watson, a retired director for Omega Motor Corporation Pty., Ltd., and design draftsman was recently named a VIP member of Worldwide Who’s Who. This special distinction honors individuals who have shown exceptional commitment to achieving personal and professional success.

    Mr Watson’s experience in research, established proof that climate is changing naturally, and shows that the earth’s spiraling orbital position within the Sun’s Heliosphere determines the seasonal changes we are currently experiencing here on Earth. He shows that our earth entered the Sun’s Positive Heliosphere on Feb. 15, 2001 — since then, there has been a dramatic change to barometric pressures due to modified cloud heights that are associated to this new environmental position and supports this statement with detailed graphics showing how climate change is occuring, naturally. He has advanced this to be again changing when the Sun passed through on the 22nd December 2012, the central portion of the Milky Way Galaxy, completiong its 25,920 year Pressional Cycle.

    He has developed the understanding of how the Earth changes its seasons, by the fact that it is associated to his new understanding of magnetism, that there are four phases being emitted from the Sun’s Heliosphere, and applying this new understanding, associated it to answer the scare tactics from associated governments and science personalities who do not, and will not, associate that the Sun controls climate. With supportive diagrams designed for easy understanding to learn, is supported with a PowerPoint presentations that provides the visual aspect to his new approach to show how nature is changing our climate.

    He is co-author with Dr. Alberto Boretti pr4sentation of “Is New Zealand Globally Warming? (2011)” by InderScience Publishers and “The Inconvenient Truth, Oceans are not accelerating in Australia or in the World” by Energy & Environment Journal UK (2012). These two papers shows conclusively that our Oceans are not accelerating as claimed by many science personalities. How Watson shows this is by the relative application of Tectonic Plate movement showing how they are falling below the waves, not Ocean levels rising. Watson has contributed to questioning science papers that are accepting Ocean having an accelerating effects over a 30 year period, but when correctly researched, these cycles are but a half of the natural cycle of ocean variation that has not been accurately assessed as a 60 years period. What they have shown is half of the sine wave cycle, he says, and they are saying that the Oceans are rapidly rising. These accurate answers are available on request from Dr Alberto Boretti. In 2011, Mr Watson was invited and appointed as an official reviewer of the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (IPCC) paper to be released in 2013 and after reviewing this paper, he decided not to be involved because they were biased to comments being made by others, who had different knowledge to what, where and how they wanted to show the world.

    Mr Watson developed an accurate method to establish existing acceptable gravity values, applying a simple geometry construction that gave accurate value to the sixth decimal place to any site location, by applying two factors, latitude and altitude above the average sea level values. By applying this application to computer programmers, the possibilities here are tremendous, for the principle can be applied to give results within the time taken to put the relevant two numbers into the associated program. His book; “Climate Change-Explained by Magnetism,” ISBN9780646477220, (2009) on pages 73 to 109. details this effect, as well as his first book, “A Fresh Approach to Magnetism,” ISBN0-646-46737-9 (2006) which has his original statements of how he saw the magnetic field emissions developing, and now his blog: http://www.ttsw.bigblog.com.au is indeed worthy of a look, for here, he is initiating a fresh approach to the understanding of the phases of the Moon.

    Mr. Watson feels his greatest career achievement was to be accepted, at the age of 83, by Worldwide Who’s Who. He attributes his success to his self drive attitude who has the capacity to have continuous learning, survival skills, striving to be the best, conducting his own research, and not being satisfied until it is proven without doubt.

    For further information, please visit: http://www.worldwidewhoswho.com.
    ####

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    Christopher Game

    Brilliant presentation by Jo of magnificent work by Ian and Nikolai. Thank you, chaps.

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    Greg Goodman

    Ian Wilson: “Keeling and Whorf [1997] looks at the variation in the absolute strength of the lunar
    tides. This varies on scale of 3, 6, 9, and 18 years as well as the long-term 1832 year cycle.”

    Yes Keeling was almost appologetic about suggesting it but to his credit gets it published.

    I found 4.43 years modulated by about 28.6y in the trade wind data:
    http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=283

    The article mentions the line of aspides but does not seem to mention that it too moves with the point of closest approach : perigee moving through a cycle in 8.85 years.

    Now the diffence between closest and farthest distance of the moon is enought to 15% variaiton in the tidal force. Plenty to produce some notable effects.

    Tidal effects produce a high tide wave with wave number 2 (eg 12h tides from the 24h force of the moon.) In the same way we can expect the 8.85 year apsides cycle to produce 4.45 year tides in oceans and atmosphere.

    The trade wind data would seem to be proof of that. The frequency splitting caused by the 28.6y cycle produces roughly 3 and 5 years. This is the classic description of ENSO.

    This seems to suggest that ENSO is a long term tidal effect driven by the moon.

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    Greg Goodman

    BTW the average frequency of 8.85y and 9.3 periods gives 9.05 years.

    Both N. Scafetta and BEST land surface data have found cycles of 9.1 +/-0.1

    It may be that they are simply failing to resolve the two close peaks in the very noisy data.

    Scafetta’s papers have proved that 9.1 year peak is due the presence of the moon.

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