The VENT

posted: May 1, 2008

 MAYAN CONNECTION

There are many cultures that watched the stars and build monuments illustrating their knowledge of the movements of the heavens in relation to the Earth.

One of the more interesting mysteries is why the Mayan civilization failed and why their calender ends in 2012.  While investigating this angle I found material by a student of Mayan lore, Will Hart [10], who suggests the Mayans may have been observing cyclical climatic changes that corresponded to movements in the heavens and it is no accident their calender ends on peak of Solar Cycle 24, which as I discuss later is predicted to be the first of a series of solar cycles with low activity not unlike the Maunder Minimum that started in the mid 17th century.  It may be true the Maya observed ‘long cycle’ climatic changes and some suggest the demise of Mayan Civilization itself may have been due to climatic change.  Knowledge, it appears, is not always power.

Figure 1: Final Scene from Motion Picture ‘Sunshine’

As my investigation continued I came to understand that this period of upcoming cold that some were relating to Mayan legend and their astrological prowess was really about one man.  He too studied the stars and related the cycles of the heavens to many aspects of our existance here.  Mostly, he studied the sun and using his knowledge of Astrology, Cycles in Nature, and the Sun itself he came to predict a period of cold that many refer to as the Landscheidt Minimum.

LANDSCHEIDT MINIMUM 

Since the 1970’s, climatologist Dr. Theodor Landscheidt showed interest [1] in solar science. His interest came primarily from his study of cycle phenomena and as such became interested in solar cycles. [2] The sunspot cycle and solar flares were originally studied and even related to the baryocentric motion of the sun caused by the center of gravity changing over time due to the planets movement.

In 1999 Landscheidt looked at Paul Jose’s work , [3] from 1965 where the Jovian opposition was related to the baryocentric motion of the Sun. This 179 year cycle came to be known as the Jose Cycle. It was from this analysis that Landscheidt first hypothesized that the Sun would enter Maunder Minimum type conditions in the early 21st century.[4]

Figure 2: Last Two Jose Cycles
(taking us to beginning of sunspot activity record) [4]

In 2003, Landscheidt published his paper, ‘New Little Ice Age Instead of Global Warming’, [5] that refined his study of the sun’s baryocentric motion to the Gleissberg cycle which takes into account all the planets. It is here that he proposed the mechanism by which the motion of the planets affected Solar Activity. He calculated the change in torque on the sun caused by the planets over time and theorized this accelerated and decelerated the solar transport in the solar core which in turn affected the solar activity which manifested itself in sun spots. He theorized the process of braking would start in 1990 and that solar cycle 24 would be of Maunder Minimum character (<80 Wolf number) and a number of solar cycles after with the Deep Minimum occurring in 2030. At this time Climate Scientists which were becoming known as Global Warming Skeptics found the work compelling enough to propose this Minimum be called the Landscheidt Minimum[14].

Figure 3: Torque on Sun’s Core Related to Solar Minima [5]

Work following Landscheidt’s on the baryocentric motion of the sun and its influence on solar activity has been reinforced with work by other scientists [9] [12] including NASA scientist, Ching-Cheh Hung , in his paper “Apparent Relations Between Solar Activity and Solar Tides Caused by the Planets” [6] Here, it is proposed that Solar Cycle 24 will be extremely low as well. The connection to Earth’s Climate in Landscheidt’s “Planets => Sun => Earth” ‘physical model’ is the remaining controversy that is not generally accepted in the scientific community. Landscheidt did discuss this issue in a 1998 paper, “Solar Activity : A Dominant Factor in Climate Dynamics”[7], where he proposed reasons why Solar Irradiance and heat transfer vary with Solar Cycles and cause variation in the Earth’s Climate.

Despite this part of his physical model not being accepted, by using his understanding, he gained notoriety in forecasting ENSO events like El Nino’s and La Nina’s 3 years in advance [8] with greater rigor than the composite ’statistical regression’ and ‘ad hoc emprirical’ models used by NOAA which have difficulty forecasting 6 months into the future [11].

Figure 4: Torque on Sun’s Core calculated over 6000 years

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US

Figure 5: ‘Maunder Minimum’ Fun by ‘Hendrick Avercamp’

In his 1999 Paper, ‘Extrema’ [4], Theodor Landscheidt came to the following conclusion,

Partitions of 178.8-year intervals between instances of retrograde motion in the Sun’s oscillation about the center of mass of the solar system seem to provide synchronization points for the timing of minima and maxima in the 11 -year sunspot cycle. In the investigated period 1632-1990, the statistical significance of the relationship goes beyond the level P = 0.001. The extrapolation of the observed pattern points to sunspot maxima around 2000.6 and 2011.8. If a further connection with long-range variations in sunspot intensity proves reliable, four to five weak sunspot cycles (R < 80) are to be expected after cycle 23 with medium strength (R ~ 100).

In his later paper with the refining of his theory he came to the following conlusion in the ‘Little Ice Age’ [5] paper,

Analysis of the sun’s varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC’s speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8° C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected. It is shown that minima in the 80 to 90-year Gleissberg cycle of solar activity, coinciding with periods of cool climate on Earth, are consistently linked to an 83-year cycle in the change of the rotary force driving the sun’s oscillatory motion about the centre of mass of the solar system. As the future course of this cycle and its amplitudes can be computed, it can be seen that the Gleissberg minimum around 2030 and another one around 2200 will be of the Maunder minimum type accompanied by severe cooling on Earth. This forecast should prove skillful as other long-range forecasts of climate phenomena, based on cycles in the sun’s orbital motion, have turned out correct as for instance the prediction of the last three El Nino years before the respective event.

In both papers Landscheidt predicts that Solar Cycle 24 will be weak and there will be a series of weak cycles.  In addition he predicts following the strong 2007 El Nino, there will be a period accompanying this where there will be strong La Nina’s and weak El Nino’s.

This is not particularily good news for those of us who cherish the short summers in Northern climates and there are other long cycle movements of the Sun that are of concern.  These are the precessional movements (wobble) of the sun that have been related to Ice Ages by Milankovitch [11].  Oddly enough, this solar forcing of the Earth’s Climate is generally accepted.    Archibald in his paper, “Solar Cycle 24″, confirms that it appears we are entering into a period of reduced temperatures bottoming out in 2030.   On the discussion of potential Ice Ages, he discusses related Vostok interglacials (Figure 6), and it appears we have 3000 years left in the one we are in.  On that score, it appears that the cycle of the Earth observed by the ancients including the Maya will not be coming into play quickly.  Although, the calculations of where we are in the precessional cycle that brought us the discussion of an Ice Age in the 1970’s suggest we are getting close [13].

The good news is that it is not going to get ’even colder’, yet.

Figure 6: End of the Holocene Epoch
(3000 years to next Ice Age) [9]

CONCLUSION 

It is understandable, given our fascination with the stars and our obsession with the mystical forces proposed by our Astrology and other culture’s similar discourse, the approach of 2012 would tweak our fascination with the Mayan Calender.  It is curious that what appears to be the end of an age for the Maya as shown in their calender, is also a period where we will be entering into a new phase of solar activity.

I think it is more important that Landscheidt did not work alone in this endeavor to relate the climate to the Sun’s variation and to understand the cause of that variation.  As mentioned Chin-Cheh Hung, a NASA scientist confirmed the causal relationship for the Sun’s variability, and Archibald by other analysis comes to the same conclusion as Landscheidt about the consequences for the Earth’s Climate.  But there were others such as Timo Niroma who paralleled Landscheidts calculations during the same period concentrating on the single most massive object outside the Sun in the Solar System, Jupiter[12].  So while the Mayan connection is mostly coincidence, it is an interesting one.  It is a connection that I think Landscheidt with his interest in the mystical side of Astrology would have appreciated and that I’ve found shines a light on this corner of human enquiry that many have tried to marginalize.

It is ‘The End of the 5th Sun’ and beginning of the ‘Landscheidt Minimum’.

len

… dedicated to Theodore Landscheidt, 1927 to 2004
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REFERENCES

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1. Landscheidt, T. Gibt es einen Zusammenhang zwischen dem Alter kosmischer Körper und Systeme und ihrem spezifischen Volumen? - Abh. naturw. Verein Bremen, Seite 203-225, Bremen, 15 März 1970

2. Landscheidt, T. Swinging sun, 79-year cycle, and climatic change. J. interdiscipl. Cycle Res. 12, 3-19, 1981.[ http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/swinging.htm]
 
3. Jose, Paul D. Sun’s Motion and Sunspots (1965) The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 70, Number 3, April 1965; P. 193-200)
 
4. Landscheidt, T. Extrema in Sunspot Cycle Linked to Sun’s motion. - Solar Physics 189, 413 - 424, 1999.[ http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/extrema.htm]

5. Landscheidt, T. New Little Ice Age instead of global warming. Energy and Environment 14, 327-350. – 2003 … (Mirrored Original Presentation)
 
6. Hung, Ching-Cheh (2007) Apparent Relations Between Solar Activity and Solar Tides Caused by the Planets (NASA/TM—2007-214817) Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio July 2007

7. Landscheidt, T. (1998) Solar Activity : A Dominant Factor in Climate Dynamics. -1998
 
8. Landscheidt, T. Solar forcing of El Niño and La Niña. European Space Agency (ESA) Special Publication 463, 135-140, 2000

9. Archibald, David: Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States, International Conference on Climate Change (March, 2008) … (Mirrored Original Presentation)

10. Hart, Will: End of the 5th Sun,
http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/5thsun.htm

11. http://eobglossary.gsfc.nasa.gov//Library/Giants/
Milankovitch/milankovitch.html

12. Niroma, Timo (1998) One Possible Explanation for the Cyclicity in the Sun (link)

13. Harris, Peter (2008) An Urgent Signal for the Coming Ice Age (link)

14. Hughs, Warwick (2006) ‘The Royal Society and the ‘Dead Hand of Consensus’.

Figure 8: Final Scene from Motion Picture ’Sunshine’