Testing the link between terrestrial climate change and Galactic spiral arm transit
Astrophysics of Galaxies
2011-02-11 v2 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Geophysics
Populations and Evolution
Abstract
We re-examine past suggestions of a close link between terrestrial climate change and the Sun's transit of spiral arms in its path through the Milky Way galaxy. These links produced concrete fits, deriving the unknown spiral pattern speed from terrestrial climate correlations. We test these fits against new data on spiral structure based on CO data that does not make simplifying assumptions about symmetry and circular rotation. If we compare the times of these transits to changes in the climate of Earth, not only do the claimed correlations disappear, but also we find that they cannot be resurrected for any reasonable pattern speed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0906.2777,
title = {Testing the link between terrestrial climate change and Galactic spiral arm transit},
author = {Andrew C. Overholt and Adrian L. Melott and Martin K. Pohl},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.2777},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. Moderate revisions with clarification, no change in conclusions