Zharkova et al 2019, A Science Disaster.

Professor Valentina Zharkova (University of Northumbria UK) first hit the spotlight for me when she and her colleagues released a paper in 2015 describing a new Solar Double Dynamo discovery that enabled her team to predict future solar cycles. She collected solar magnetic data from the last few solar cycles and extrapolated some form of double wave dynamo flow that exists inside the Sun. The theory goes on to explain that when these waves come into sync or occur at the same time they cancel one another out and the result is a solar grand minimum. Her predictions from this theory state that we are about to head into a Maunder style minimum with the world plunging into a mini ice age with all the full blown ramifications that the Youtube crowd thrive on.

Zharkova used this small amount of data to create a history of the Double Dynamo wave back over several hundred years, the major problem being that some of the Little Ice Age Grand Minima didn't align with her Hind cast. Although she stated that her model was 97% accurate, when looking back over a few solar cycles, now she is claiming Grand Minima like the Sporer Minimum that lasted 90 years, didn't happen. She is now saying it is just an artefact in the C14 solar proxy record created by a Supernova. Obviously a red flag is flying at this point but the Doomsday crowd ignored the weak science and still promote her work all over the internet. Zharkova has ridden the wave enjoying all sorts of attention from around the world.

Then in 2019 Zharkova et al published a new paper in an off shoot of the prestigious Nature Journal that she happens to be on the Editorial Board. The same double dynamo theory was at its base but now for the first time the team introduced a Planetary component to supplement her Model. The new model now goes backward 120,000 years and is facilitated by ancient SIM (Solar Inertial Motion) theory where she has picked up aspects from old papers produced by Charvatova, Fairbridge etc. Its like plugging in new pieces of data into your model as a way of further extrapolating the model back in time using the then known SIM patterns as a reference. SIM theory is based on the movement of the Sun around the centre of gravity of the Solar System (SSB), which is governed by the 4 outer planets. SIM principle is solid science and the position of the Sun and Planets is available from the NASA JPL Horizons database that span many thousands of years. Charvatova noticed that patterns in the SIM correlated with times of Solar grand Minima, and described these phases as the Disordered Phase. Back in 1965 Jose thought the outer 4 planets repeated their positions in relationship to each other every 178 years, and Charvatova split the 178 year pattern into 2 segments, an ordered phase of around 60 years and the balance the Disordered Phase with this phase containing Solar Grand Minima. This observation has been proved to be correct as verified by McCracken et al 2014, but Charvatova couldn't predict where in the Disordered Phase the Grand Minima would occur. This led Charvatova to incorrectly predict a large solar cycle 24.

Another part of her theory that comes under serious question is if the SIM is the basis of her Double Dynamo wave going back 120,00 years, we should see a 4627 year pattern in her wave. The 4 outer planets repeat their positions in relationship to each other every 4627 years.

So that aspect (as above) was inserted into the Zharkova model of which I think she has no understanding, but was a tool that suited her needs. The next component inserted will be the death nail of their paper which is now exploding over the internet and even main stream media. The older papers wrongly suggested that the Earth had the SSB as its orbit focal point, this has long since been rectified by modern data and measuring systems, but Zharkova makes the greatest error imaginable and states in her paper that the Earth orbits the SSB and the Solar distance varies by a much greater value than reality. This distance change she suggests controls climate change.

How did this paper get past the reviewers?

Not long after publication Ken Rice questioned the science on his blog and on the Pubpeer website which is a portal for public review of published papers. Tallblokes Talkshop blog also ran an article on her paper where I initially questioned the merits of her paper and then I was led to the Pubpeer and Ken Rice platforms and added further comment...but much more was about to be uncovered.

Many hundreds of comments were directed at Zharkova, but she refused to take any criticism on board, her vanity more important than the truth. Calls were made to her to produce proof of her claims and in particular a graph of the Earth/Sun distances based on the JPL data. Back in 2010 I produced such a graph/plot which also included the Earth/SSB distances, I posted this plot (the plot at the head of this post) on the Tallbloke blog (and had done many times previously) while waiting for the Pubpeer team to approve my registration request. When I finally logged into the Pubpeer platform to my surprise Zharkova had just produced with the help of her team the required plot, BUT the plot was MY plot from 2010.

Recently I questioned Zharkova re stealing my plot and she stated it was just a coincidence and an artefact of her plot building software (the colors matched etc) which is clearly impossible. Zharkova blatantly latched onto something she found on the internet and then passed it off as her own work, the sad extra is that the said plot actually refutes her argument but she refuses to see it.

Zharkova writes:

I am personally shocked that science can be reduced to this level, its just a game for some who are only interested in fame, notoriety and clickbait. She is not interested in the pursuit of science. I am hoping the Journal takes down her paper; they are reviewing it as I type.

There is a positive outcome to this sorry tale, for me at least, as the Planet/Sun theory is once again in the spotlight. Charvatova discovered the Disordered Phase and now we know how to predict Solar Grand Minima within this phase along with individual solar cycle modulation of both phases. AMP theory is the next phase of SIM science that adds to Charvatova's work, read all about it in my paper and in this blog www.landscheidt.info

More to come..

UPDATE: December 24 2019

Dr. Zharkova and her Colleges (one has disappeared?) have prepared an erratum supposedly correcting the errors in this paper. But instead of realising their error they have doubled down and remain in the position that the Earth's orbit focal point is the SSB. They initially stated that the Solar/Earth distance varied by 0.02 AU due to the "SIM" effect (which could occur in 10 years if the Earth orbited the SSB) but soon discovered that the JPL data said otherwise.

The Sun/Earth distance is relatively stable as the Earth orbits the Earth/Sun barycentre but it does vary over 100,000 years as the orbit gradually goes from circular to elliptical and then back again. Small perturbations mainly from the outer planets are responsible for this phenomenon and the orbit change is believed to be the root cause of the recurring ice ages that cover a large proportion of our planet for about 90% of the time.

So a mountain of evidence is standing in the way of this paper, how it got past the reviewers is astonishing, but now it gets worse. The erratum now says they made a mistake with the 0.02AU variation and now state the distance variation is 0.0025AU over 1000 years. How they arrived at this value can only be described as "Valentina's Trick"

The team in some sort of attempt to regain prestige looked into the JPL data perhaps desperate to find some variation in the Sun/Earth distance, and this is where they come up with "Valentina's Trick". The Earths orbit is gradually moving to a circular shape before once again moving to a more elliptical shape. When the orbit is elliptical the Sun sits over to one side thus generating a longer (Aphelion) distance at around July 4 and a shorter distance (Perihelion) around January 4. As the orbit becomes more round the Aphelion shortens and the Perihelion lengthens, this is where the "Trick" happens.

Zharkova et al in their erratum have plotted the future Aphelion distances stating that this value represents the average Sun/Earth distance going forward. As I already showed them in the pubpeer forum if you plot the Perihelion distance the Sun/Earth distance INCREASES going forward. Taken as a whole the Sun/Earth distance is not declining and there is certainly no "SIM" effect on our orbit.

So the Sun/Earth distance is not declining 0.0025AU every 1000 years going forward, and there is no change at 2600AD as suggested by the team. The reputation of this once prestigious Journal is in the balance, hopefully they redeem themselves and reject the original paper along with the erratum.

UPDATE: January 13 2020

Zharkova et al have posted the Erratum comments from the Editor and 2 reviewers along with a response from Zharkova et al. (h/t Everett F Sargent).

The reviewers comments directly refute Zharkova's claim that the Earth has the SSB as its orbit focal point and also dismiss any SIM affect that could alter the Sun/Earth distance, BUT they do not dismiss Zharkova's  Earth/Sun distance graph (JPL data) that only plots the Aphelion distance over time and purports to resemble the average declining Earth/Sun distance.

In Zharkova's response she uses this graph to support her argument, so this issue must be addressed, a faulty graph cannot remain unchallenged.