Variations in Sun-Earth distance with a 2000-year cycle?

[Genava]

TL;DR Summary

Debate about Valentina Zharkova last publication in Scientific Reports

Hi,

I see that a newspaper is making a claim that Zharkova identified a 2000-year cycle causing some significant variations in Sun-Earth distance with a cycle of 2000 years, seemingly because of the perturbations caused by Jupiter making the Sun orbiting a barycentre slightly eccentric. This finding is hard to believe and I want to know the opinions of some peoples that are well-educated in the subject of celestial mechanics.

"Her latest work, published in Scientific Reports, concentrates on a 2000-year cycle that varies the distance between Earth and the sun."
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/science/earth-to-be-baked-by-natural-shift-of-the-sun/news-story/20a774956ca09300ae1a182cc90d00b7

Here the article, with open access:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45584-3
"Since the Sun moves around the solar system barycenter, it implies that it also shifts around the main focus of the Earth orbit being either closer to its perihelion or to its aphelion. If the Earth rotates around the Sun undisturbed by inertial motion, then the distances to its perihelion will be 1.47 × 10⁸ km and to it aphelion 1.52 × 10⁸ km. The solar inertial motion means for the Earth that the distance between the Sun and the Earth has to significantly change (up to 0.02 of a.u) at the extreme positions of SIM, and so does the average solar irradiance, which is inversely proportional to the squared distance between the Sun and Earth."
Genava

 

[willem2]

I can't find any calculation of distance of the earth. The Solar Inertial Motion is caused by attraction from the big planets, and the Earth is attracted by the same planets. Of course this isn't identical, but I think his will likely cancel most of the effects.
I can find no calculation of the Earth distance in this paper or the referenced
Charvatova, I. Can origin of the 2400-year cycle of solar activity be caused by solar inertial motion? AnnGeo 18, 399–405 (2000).
It should be easy to do with a computer.

 

[Genava]

I can't find any calculation of distance of the earth. The Solar Inertial Motion is caused by attraction from the big planets, and the Earth is attracted by the same planets. Of course this isn't identical, but I think his will likely cancel most of the effects.
I can find no calculation of the Earth distance in this paper or the referenced
Charvatova, I. Can origin of the 2400-year cycle of solar activity be caused by solar inertial motion? AnnGeo 18, 399–405 (2000).
It should be easy to do with a computer.

Thank you. Indeed, she is not calculating the orbits and she has simply misunderstood the findings from other scientists and she has interpreted the Solar Inertial Motion from the view that the Earth orbit is fixed and this is wrong. The paper will be probably retracted, notably for this reason.

Here some explanations about the issue:
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...study-claiming-sun-is-causing-global-warming/https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2019/07/07/nature-scientific-reports/

 

[willem2]

Thank you. Indeed, she is not calculating the orbits and she has simply misunderstood the findings from other scientists and she has interpreted the Solar Inertial Motion from the view that the Earth orbit is fixed and this is wrong. The paper will be probably retracted, notably for this reason.

Milankovic already calculated the influence of the big planets on the eccentricy of the Earth orbit over a hundred years ago. You'd think someone would have noticed the errprs by now.

 

[Vanadium 50]

The paper will be probably retracted, notably for this reason.

Almost certainly not, since that's only part of the paper. (IF I were the editor, I would have rejected it and told her to submit separate papers)

 

[Genava]

Almost certainly not, since that's only part of the paper. (IF I were the editor, I would have rejected it and told her to submit separate papers)

It would have been an option but it seems there are other issues (figure possibly stolen without credits, excessive conclusions etc.) according to the discussion in pubpeer. Moreover, Zharkova refuses to acknowledge the issue with her view about the Sun-Earth distance:
https://thegrandsolarminimum.com/valentina-zharkovas-critics-should-be-embarrassed/

 

[Vanadium 50]

Splitting the paper would have allowed the magnetic part and the celestial mechanical parts to be discussed separately. If one part is right (or wrong) it doesn't mean the other part is. That's why I would have rejected it and told them to submit separate papers.

 

[Genava]

Paper retracted:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61020-3
https://retractionwatch.com/2020/03...ming-the-sun-for-global-warming-is-retracted/

After publication, concerns were raised regarding the interpretation of how the Earth-Sun distance changes over time and that some of the assumptions on which analyses presented in the Article are based are incorrect.

The analyses presented in the section entitled “Effects of SIM on a temperature in the terrestrial hemispheres” are based on the assumption that the orbits of the Earth and the Sun about the Solar System barycenter are uncorrelated, so that the Earth-Sun distance changes by an amount comparable to the Sun-barycenter distance.

Post-publication peer review has shown that this assumption is inaccurate because the motions of the Earth and the Sun are primarily due to Jupiter and the other giant planets, which accelerate the Earth and the Sun in nearly the same direction, and thereby generate highly-correlated motions in the Earth and Sun. Current ephemeris calculations [1,2] show that the Earth-Sun distance varies over a timescale of a few centuries by substantially less than the amount reported in this article. As a result the Editors no longer have confidence in the conclusions presented.