Topic category:  Climate/Climate Change/Weather

A peer-reviewed paper in pre-press review to be published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics has the potential to have a stunning impact on the climate change debate. The paper, "Multi-scale harmonic model for solar and climate cyclical variation throughout the Holocene based on Jupiter–Saturn tidal frequencies plus the 11-year solar dynamo cycle," provides evidence for highly accurate climate hindcasting with improved forecasting of future climate variations.

The paper's abstract, figures and tables can be viewed at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682612000648

A pdf of the full pre-press edition of the paper can be viewed/downloaded from http://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.4143v1.pdf

The paper provides a rebuttal "of the critique by Smythe and Eddy (1977)"

The paper concludes with:

In conclusion, the proposed solar/planetary harmonic model, whose equations are summarized in the Appendix, has well captured all major harmonic feature observed in numerous solar and climate records throughout the Holocene at multiple temporal scales. Therefore, it may be used for partial solar and climate forecast purpose too. This study has identified secular and millennial natural harmonics at 115, 130 and 983 years, which need to be added to the 9.1, 10-11, 20 and 60 year so- lar/planetary/lunar harmonics already identified in other studies (Scafetta, 2010, 2012a). Note that the 115- and the 983-year cycles were in their warming phase for most of the 20th century (see Figures 7 and 8) and, together with the 60-year modulation, could have significantly contributed to the observed warming secular trend and global surface temperature modulation of the 20th century. This result would be consistent with our previous empirical finding claiming that up to 70% of the observed post-1850 climate change and warming could be associated to multiple so- lar cycles poorly processed by current general circulation models Scafetta and West (2007); Scafetta (2009, 2012b).

Nicola Scafetta, PhD