I have come up with a direct relationship that I have never read about any where before. I calculated the distances between the Sun and Jupiter with Alcyone Ephemeris 3.2. and exported the data to a spreadsheet. I used a step setting of 30d 10:30 for those of you that have this software. This gave me records that were approximately 1 month apart.

Then I added the monthly sunspot numbers data from 1749 to the present to the distances raw data spreadsheet. I have 3110 records. Everything was then sorted by Jupiter’s distance from the Sun. Next I calculated the average number of sunspots per 8 month period—steps of .028281 in distance. This is what I came up with. What do you think?

I’m posting this here because I understand that Jupiter influencing sunspots is definitely against the mainstream thinking. However, this is an amazingly high r^2.

No it aint ATM. Just on the 120 or so year cycle, it dosent change things much. (the 120 year cycle is the time it takes for Jupiter to return to the same spot at the same part of the solar cycle.)

This is a known effect. It is just hard to find

When I looked at the sunspot cycles compared to Jupiter’s distance from the Sun, I possibly see a 178 year Gleissberg Cycle.

My understanding is that the mainstream thinking is that Jupiter is too small and too far from the Sun to influence the Sun in any way.

If Jupiter is influencing sun spots then Jupiter also influences our climate.

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This is one of the reasons I found this graph significant.

Below is another way of looking at the data.



How do I get the name to show up in the quote?

Like this:

[quote=JimP;1186501]How do I get the name to show up in the quote?[/quote]

The optional ";1186501" refers to that article number and yields a link back to article 1186501. This happens automatically (presuming the right editing modes selected in your user profile), with the quote button.

See Information about vB code (from FAQ).

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Everything I can find about the Gleissberg cycle puts it closer to 80 years, about half the period you attribute to it.

I did some quick sketches of hypothetical cycles and I can see how your original graph would have emerged from it, if the amplitudes of the 11-year cycles vary with a period somewhere near a century. I would wish to test it by extrapolating it over many centuries, preferably several millenia. If it holds up, then I might wish to contemplate some sort of causality. If it breaks down, I would conclude that the results over the past 260 years are coincidental.

Unfortunately we have no direct observations of sunspots before Galileo's time. Is there any forensic radioisotope evidence that can be attributed to past sunspot cycles with any certainty?

try:

C / 2004 (37) October 28th, 2004


The Sun is More Active Now than Over the Last 8000 Years


An international team of scientists has reconstructed the Sun's activity over the last 11 millennia and forecasts decreased activity within a few decades

The activity of the Sun over the last 11,400 years, i.e., back to the end of the last ice age on Earth, has now for the first time been reconstructed quantitatively by an international group of researchers...

full paper here (pdf file)

pete

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I suspect this is an artifact, but happy to be proved wrong. Jupiter orbits the sun every 12 years, close to the sunspot 11 year cycle. It is possible that the examined records cover a stage of both cycles in which the elliptic orientation of Jupiter (ie points of perihelion and aphelion) mapped on to the sunspot cycle, so there were less sunspots when Jupiter was closer. Could the precession of the Jupiter perihelion contribute to such an artifact?

I found a comparable artifact by mapping the apparent position of Saturn against the lunar nodes. Both have a roughly similar period (29yrs vs 21yrs), and because Saturn's apparent retrograde speed is very close to the speed of movement of the lunar node, if you do a time series over fifty years or so you will see that some angles are much more common than others. I initially thought this was interesting in terms of earth cycles but it is just an artifact. I am not trying to open discussion here on this except to illustrate that Jupiter perihelion and sunspot peaks would naturally be aligned for a long time, distorting the statistical evidence.

Here is another graph I have been working.



I would like to have people look at my spreadsheet and tell me whether or not I have made any mistakes. Sometimes I overlook the obvious. But I have gone over this and over this and can’t find any errors in my logic. It’s pretty simple and straight forward.

If I haven’t made any mistakes, then I would like someone explain why these graphs (mainly the 1st one) do “not” show a relationship between Jupiter and sunspots.

Here is my Excel spreadsheet. If this does not work, send me a private message with your email and I will send you a copy of the file.

Thank you,

Jim

I just think you are overlooking that correlation is not causation. Jupiter's orbital period and sunspot cycles are both about 12 years so they naturally correlate over periods up to several hundred years. You show that Jupiter gets to aphelion at sunspot peaks, using data from 40 cycles. The two cycles obviously line up for much of this time, but this data period is far too short to suggest any causal effect. I imagine that if we had sunspot data from say 5000 years ago we might well find the peak was at Jupiter's perihelion for 500 years or so. I could not find on the internet the rate of precession of Jupiter's orbit, but this would help indicate whether your result is of more interest.

Today I took the large graph from the Graphics tab and made a copy of it. On the copy I added a data series of the monthly sunspots. As I look at the graph of Jupiter’s 11.826 year cycle compared to the monthly sunspot numbers, I see the 2 cycles being sometimes in phase, sometimes out of phase and sometimes transitioning phase. Jupiter’s orbit is constant. The sunspots vary in length from 9 to 13.8 and vary in amplitude from 0 to 250. Looking at the 2 data series side by side I would guess that the monthly averages would have come out random or somewhat flat. But they didn’t. The trend line for the 12 month averaging has an r^2 of .98. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for random or chaotic behavior.

I would post the graph but it is too large and if I shrink it down the detail is lost.

Thank you for your input. I’ll have to think more about what you have said.

Hi Jim P!
Like you, I did my own bit of research on this quite a number of years ago. At that time I had to obtain the information I needed on the orbit of Jupiter from the BAA (no internet then!) to make my calculations. I did not unfortunately reach any satisfactory conclusions but still believe there is something in it. I too latched on to the similarity between the 11 year sunspot cycle and the period of Jupiter'sorbit around the sun. Since all planets interact with the sun, as indeed all objects interact with each other gravitationally, I see no reason why such a massive planet as Jupiter should not contribute to disturbances on the Sun and even draw out matter from it. Sometimes, astronomers believe what they want to believe even despite great holes in our knowledge of the bigger picture.
Anyway, as you know, the sun has been completely devoid of spots now for some length of time, which is causing some consternation to say the least!
Nice to make a contribution to your cause! Keep looking!

I see no reason why Jupiter's gravity would draw any matter out of the Sun. All substances at any given distance from Jupiter would gravitate toward it at the same rate. The only effect on the Sun is a slight tidal elongation into a prolate spheroid. I would not expect this to have any appreciable effect on sunspot activity, but we have been surprised before. As I said before, I would wish to see statistics over many millenia before seriously considering the possibility of some sort of causality.

I sorted my database by the number of sunspots. Out of the top 29 months with sunspot averages ranging from 253.8 down to 183.3 all of them showed Jupiter being 5.3 AU or greater except for 2. They had 5.08 and 5.23. Jupiter’s perihelion is approximately 5.4565155. This is out of 3,110 records. That is a lot of coincidence. I’m trying to imagine how this strong correlation could exist along with the other the other correlations and coincidences and there not be a connection between the Sun and Jupiter.




Hornblower—I’m not suggesting that I have any explanation for the physics of the phenomenon, just the very strong correlation. And yes, I agree the correlation is not causation. However, a very strong correlation does not rule out a connection to causation.

Alan—Thanks

JimP,
A couple of questions. Your first graph; is that a Line graph (with the x axis values sorted) or an XY graph? If it is a Line graph, how did you get the Jupiter distance to be even increments of 0.03? And if it is a Line graph, and your distance data is not absolutely equal increments, you have to really doubt the values of your linear regression. Redo it as a true XY and see what kind of regression you get.
And why did you group the numbers? Why not just graph the 3110 records?

As far as your last graph (post #15), again, why did you bunch them in 10 sunspot increments? Why not just graph all the individual values, instead of grouping them?

But lets say all of this is true and there are statistical correlations? You have to remember that correlation doesn't prove cause and effect, you have to find a mechanism that explains it. I could just as easily say that the number of sunspots changes the distance between the sun and Jupiter.

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It is a line graph.

“Next I calculated the average number of sunspots per 4 month period—steps of .028281 in distance.”

Please define absolute. The actual step was 0.028280894444445.

The same.



It would have been a big blur.

I already agreed to that point in my previous post.

No, “I” don’t.

I believe there is a Latin expression that defines this logical argument.

Many things are still not understood about sunspots and what causes them. If sunspot cycles were well understood, 99% of the astrophysicists making predictions about the minimum date of cycle 24 would not have been wrong. If you know of any predictions made before 2004 that that still have the possibility of being correct, please let me know. I have only read of one. So when all of the experts are wrong, then it is time for a different approach.

Hi Jim,
My first thought when I looked at your chart of Jupiter’s distance from the sun compared to the number of sunspots was similar to Swift’s that correlation does not mean causation. And since Jupiter’s time to orbit is approximately the same as the length of a solar cycle it could be a coincidence.

What makes me believe there could be a definable cause is your data shows the minimum is at the perihelion of Jupiter’s orbit. Since Jupiter’s angular momentum is about 60 percent of the total solar system (including the sun) the change in its angular momentum around the sun could be causing an effect on the sun, (similar to the moon’s effect on tides).

A quick check to see if it is angular momentum would be to calculate Saturn’s orbit and combine Saturn and Jupiter to get a combined effect. To do this you would need to make Saturn’s effect only 40% of Jupiter’s (Saturn’s angular momentum is 24 percent of the total so 24/60 = 40 percent). Also as I think about it I would use the distance from the planets aphelion as a measurement (I could be wrong on this though).

If the R^2 number increases you would definitely get my attention.

Also you may have missed the start of cycle 24:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...larcycle24.htm

Jim

I just did a rough and dirty estimate of Jupiter's tidal elongation of the Sun, and I get roughly one centimeter. As is the case with any object undergoing purely gravitational acceleration, that tiny tidal deformation is all the sun will "feel". If you think that could affect the sunspot activity, please enlighten us with some technical details about a possible mechanism.

I stand by my opinions as previously posted.