Ian Bradford: What is causing the heat in the Northern Hemisphere? It’s definitely NOT Carbon Dioxide or Methane. Here is the reason.

I have written many times that climate change is caused by the sun, the clouds and the oceans. The hot weather experienced in the Northern Hemisphere is caused by the sun alone.

Let’s look at the Traditional view of the orbit of the earth around the sun: 

Firstly note that the orbit is egg shaped –elliptical. The sun sits approximately at one focus of the ellipse. It takes the earth a full year to complete an orbit. The earth spins about an axis in an anticlockwise direction. It completes a spin in 24 hours. The axis is always at an angle to the “vertical” of around 23 degrees. The ellipse is rather exaggerated because in fact, the orbit is close to a circle.

Centre of Mass:

The centre of mass is what some readers may call the centre of gravity. Suppose we take a length of timber say 100x50mm cross section and 4 metres long. The half way point at 2m is the centre of mass. In other words it is the balancing point. You should be able to balance the length of timber at the 2m point. It is easy to pick out the balance point i.e. the centre of mass for uniform objects but not so easy for irregular shapes. Now for a sphere, the term centre of mass is obvious. It will be at the centre of the sphere. There is an equal distribution of mass all around that centre. So for the earth and the sun and in fact all the planets the centre of mass of each is right at their centres. (They are close enough to spheres). So here is a picture of the earth and the sun with their centres of mass marked. 

The centres of mass are the small black dots. I have drawn a line connecting the two centres. Imagine this line is an unbreakable rod. Where do you think the balancing point, (ie the centre of mass) of the two objects would be? The mass of the sun is 333000 times the mass of the earth. You would expect it to be closer to the sun because it is so much heavier. In fact, it is actually inside the sun around 30,000km from it centre. Bear in mind that the radius of the sun is 695,700km. I marked the Centre of mass of the two body system with the red mark.

I’ll just digress for a moment and talk about a seesaw. Suppose we put a 50kg person on one end and a 100kg person the other end. Obviously it is not balanced. We would have to shift the 100kg person nearer the hinge (The fulcrum). In fact the distance of the 100kg person from the hinge would be half the distance of the 50kg person from the hinge. So the hinge now is the centre of mass because it is the balancing point. But there is another way we could solve the initial problem- we could shift the hinge. So if we shifted the hinge half way towards the 100 kg person we could also achieve balance. In shifting the hinge we are shifting the centre of mass. That’s exactly what happens with the sun- earth system. The centre of mass has shifted because of the smallish effect of the earth. The red dot is called the barycentre. It is the point about which the two bodies orbit.

It should be obvious that the centre of mass of the sun and earth lie on a line connecting the centres. This is always the case. Now the earth does not circle the original centre of mass of the sun but the new centre of mass- the barycentre. So what does the sun do? Well if the barycentre lies inside the sun then the sun merely appears to “wobble”. In fact, if there was only the earth and the sun, then the sun would move around a small circle in an anticlockwise direction. 

The diagram shows the earth’s rotation in an anticlockwise direction if viewed from the North pole of the earth.

So the centre of mass of the sun and earth still lie on a straight line which passes through the barycentre (The red dot). Both the sun and the earth rotate about the barycentre. However, the earth isn’t our only planet. There are 7 other planets plus a mini planet (Pluto), in our solar system. The four small planets have little effect on the sun but the four big planets especially Jupiter have a significant effect. 

This shows the position of the barycentre under the influence of the gravitation of Jupiter alone. Note it is now outside the sun.

Now if we take the sun and say the large planet Jupiter the barycentre now lies outside the sun. Although the sun is much more massive than Jupiter it is the large distance between them that is a factor. So if we refer back to the seesaw again, if we shift the lighter person way back from the “hinge” by extending the see saw on that side then we can achieve balance. If we shift the light person even further back then we move the balance point towards him or her.

To calculate the actual motion of the sun only the motions of the four giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune need be considered. The contributions of all other planets are negligible. If the four giant planets were all lined up on the same side of the sun, then the barycentre would be just over 810, 000 km above the suns surface.

All the four large planets influence the position of the barycentre. Now the barycentre can be thought of as the balance point for all the planets. Because the planets are constantly moving about, the barycentre moves too, and therefore so does the position of the sun. We see now that the sun does not sit at a focus of the ellipse but moves about. It rotates around the barycentre, which is constantly moving. Below is the path of the sun from 1944 to 2020. The black dots with the dates give the position of the centre of the sun. The yellow disc gives the average position of the sun.

The 1944 position is where the spirals start at the bottom and the 2020 position is at the top left. 

All the planets and the sun move around the barycentre. Because of the influence of the large planets the barycentre is now outside the surface of the sun. So contrary to what the IPCC tries to say i.e. that the sun does not move about, the sun does move about. Therefore the earth –sun distances change from the normal distances as the earth orbits an ellipse. Remember too that the normal orbit of the earth is almost a circle, so its normal distance from the sun is almost constant. But now we have the sun moving about so the earth- sun distance changes. 

Here’s a couple more terms: The aphelion is the longest distance of the earth from the sun and the perihelion is the shortest distance of the earth from the sun. 

If the sun is located at the focus of the ellipse then the difference in the two distances is about 4.8 million Km.

Now if the sun moves closer to the Spring equinox decreasing the Earth orbit eccentricity, i.e. making the path of the earth more like a circle, as has been happening in the current millennium beginning at the Maunder minimum in the Little Ice Age, then the distance at the aphelion will be shorter by about 149 million Km., during the summer in the Northern hemisphere and winter in the Southern hemisphere. Hence at this position of the sun the Earth receives more solar radiation and therefore heat in the Northern hemisphere summer and the Southern hemisphere winter. When the Earth moves to its perihelion the distance to the sun is longer and thus the solar radiation will be lower leading to colder winters in the Northern hemisphere and cooler summers in the Southern hemisphere. This is exactly what has been happening. Not so noticeable in the South but the Northern hemisphere has been experiencing hot summers and very cold winters.

The estimated rate of warming due to the movement of the sun is 0 .5 deg C per 100 years. So since the Industrial Revolution 170 years ago about half the warming is due to the sun’s movement and half to the earth coming out of the Little Ice Age. This gives the 1.5 deg C warming since then. The sun was at the closest distance to the perihelion (0n the right in the diagram), about 1,200 years ago at a time in the Little Ice Age when an intense period of cold called the Maunder Minimum, was present. It is now a bit over half way to its closest point to the aphelion. In another 600 years the temperature of the Earth will rise another 3 deg C. So it will get warmer due to the sun’s movement. However, there will be a cool period coming shortly.

The sun has a magnetic field as does the earth. The sun produces sunspots, which are areas of magnetic activity, seen on the surface as dark spots. They are dark simply because they are cooler than the surrounding area. The number of sunspots is a reflection of the activity of the sun.

This is what a sunspot looks like

Sunspot activity waxes and wanes with roughly an 11 year cycle. After 11 years the polarity of the magnetic field changes for another 11 years then it changes back again and so on. It was Edward Maunder who pointed out that there were very few sunspots between 1645 and 1715, and this period was later named the Maunder Minimum . It was a very intense period of cold within the Little Ice Age. The 11 year period is induced by what is called the electromagnetic solar dynamo mechanism. In more recent times another period of 330-380 years or Grand Solar Cycle has been found. There are two layers of the solar dynamo that produce the magnetic field and it is the wave interference from these two that produce the Grand Solar Cycle every 350 years or so. This Grand Solar Cycle is well recorded in past observations of solar activity in Grand Solar Minimums –the Maunder, Wolf, Oort, Homeric and others.

At present the sun is in cycle 25. The numbering of cycles began in 1755. Cycle 25 is stlll at a maximum based on the number of sunspots. In June 2023 the number of sunspots was 163. This was the highest recorded for the past 20 years. This is an indication of how much more solar radiation has reached the earth this year, and hence more warming. The number of sunspots will decrease as cycle 25 comes to an end. Based on past information-the 350 year Grand Solar Cycle, the sun will then enter into a period of reduced solar activity –the Grand Solar Minimum. This will occur between 2025 and 2055- a period of 30 years. It will not be noticed for another 5 years or so until cycle 25 ends. It is similar to the Maunder Minimum and could be called a Mini Ice Age. The Earth’s temperature is expected to drop by about 1 deg C. After that, the continued warming by the travelling sun will again dominate. The next Grand Solar Minimum will arrive in 2375-2415.

The present warm spell in the Northern Hemisphere is due to two factors

1. The movement of the sun towards the aphelion

2. Very high sunspot activity at present -the highest for 20 years, bearing in mind that the number of sunspots gives an indication of the sun’s activity and hence the warming effect on earth.

So it appears that despite constant pushing from the media that the high Northern Hemisphere temperatures are due to humans putting Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere causing global warming, it isn’t that at all.

Populations should prepare for a cold spell.

Acknowledgement: I would like to thank Professor Valentina Zharkova for providing me with several of her research papers.

Footnote: Professor Zharkova published her findings but the AGW proponents did not like them as they wished to continue the line that humans were causing global warming due to greenhouse gases. They couldn’t have the sun responsible for the warming so they put pressure on the publisher who later withdrew the publication. I have read this kind of thing countless times. Anyway she did manage thankfully, to get her findings published.

Ian Bradford, a science graduate, is a former teacher, lawyer, farmer and keen sportsman, who is writing a book about the fraud of anthropogenic climate change.