Long time observer, first time poster

I've been observing the Sun for a few years now and I have a question.

Can solar activity cause Earth's core to "wobble?"

I've noticed some tectonic activity that seems to correlate with solar activity. I'm not sure to what extent but I have a theory:

I think solar events somehow interact with Earth's magnetic core to a more dramatic degree than we realize.

Take a ball and drop it in a pool of water. The ball floats and once the waves fully resonate the surface of the pool becomes stable and you have a ball sitting calmly on the surface of the pool.

Now give the ball a push in the water.

What happens? You get waves.

Now take a magnet and put it inside a foam ball and drop it into the pool. Wait for the ball the stabilize.

Now take another magnet and use the field to interact with the foam ball in the water.

Now we have a magnetic ball being "wobbled" within a lighter liquid in a larger closed sphere. What I believe, is that the metric to observe for this phenomena is the violence in shift of polarity the CME causes. Think of the Earth like a solar sail to some extent. How much wind you catch determines how much this wobble propagates outward. The more completely and suddenly the change, the higher chance the wave will propagate all the way to the Earth's crust in the same sense of how hard you push the ball in the water determines how large your waves will be.

Now, what happens when you modulate a signal in a rhythmic pattern? You get a frequency right?

So now push the ball down in a rhythmic pattern. What happens to the waves?

They start interfering with each other right?

Frequency, vibration, interference, all happening within a closed sphere surrounded by a thin solid crust. Sounds like earthquake fuel to me.

What say you?

@Loose Electron Interesting question. I don’t even know who of the participants will be able to connect to this topic. Perhaps @Philalethes can comment, he is a walking encyclopedia. The first thing that came to my mind is that possibly enhanced CME effects on the Earth’s core may depend on the phases of the Moon.

Or, it is more accurate to say that CMEs can amplify the tidal effects of the Moon on the Earth’s core.

3 hours ago, Loose Electron said:

What say you?

Not to be too dismissive, but I think there are a lot of issues here, and that usually when one attempts to chain together so many different things that are only somewhat plausible or partially applicable you often end up with something that might be a bit too fantastical. There's e.g. nothing to suggest that a large shift in the Bz (i.e. a large shift in reconnection) causes the core itself to move at all. Furthermore the energies required for something like that, and for any such waves to propagate through the thick and viscous outer core and the more solid/extremely viscous mantle, are likely not even in the ballpark, though I suppose you could try to quantify it somehow and see (but there are always a lot of pitfalls there when it comes to selecting a plausible physical model too).

In general the evidence so far shows that any link between solar activity and seismic activity, should it exist at all, is very tenuous, and likely only crops up statistically in large datasets. One of the more realistic proposed mechanisms I've seen is based on the reverse piezoelectric effect and mostly has to do with currents in the crust itself, and doesn't involve the deeper layers at all, let alone the core; even so that's still speculative, and it's not proven at all that that does happen or that there is a connection at all.

When you say you've "noticed some tectonic activity that seems to correlate with solar activity" this is the kind of thing that is very prone to various observational biases, like e.g. occasional bouts of seismic activity happening near certain strong solar events being very salient and drowning out all the much higher amount of times there was no relation at all. There's been a lot of work done on trying to show a connection between the two, and so far the results are overall lacking, but with some slight evidence claiming to find a minor effect; before attempting to find a physical mechanism it might be a better idea to make sure there is any connection at all, and for that you've certainly got your work cut out for you.

All in all it should also be noted that this kind of stuff goes under the "unproven theories" category; not only does the solar-seismic connection fall under that, but even more so for highly speculative mechanisms like this. Ultimately it was decided by the admins/mods that this kind of stuff should preferably be taken to other forums in order to keep this one for the more solid facts pertaining to space weather and solar activity. I'm sure there are plenty of forums out there where people are happy to entertain such hypotheses.

9 hours ago, Loose Electron said:

Long time observer, first time poster

I've been observing the Sun for a few years now and I have a question.

Can solar activity cause Earth's core to "wobble?"

I've noticed some tectonic activity that seems to correlate with solar activity. I'm not sure to what extent but I have a theory:

I think solar events somehow interact with Earth's magnetic core to a more dramatic degree than we realize.

Take a ball and drop it in a pool of water. The ball floats and once the waves fully resonate the surface of the pool becomes stable and you have a ball sitting calmly on the surface of the pool.

Now give the ball a push in the water......

Some thoughts on your analogies...

A ball and water have qualities like buoyancy, which is not applicable to orbital bodies, since gravity has already overcome fluid pressures. Hydrostatic equilibrium - Wikipedia This means the Earth is not suspended or has buoyancy. There is also the Magnetosphere which is generated by the Earth's core, this likely prevents any magnetic wide-field-buoyancy mechanics from forming. The Earth has a rudder/bow/wave-guide to prevent the kind of magnetic interaction your analogy is describing.

If the solar activity interactives more dramatically, how would you know this? What would suggest the core is acting more dramatically?

There are similar mechanisms in orbital/plasma/solar mechanics with your analogies, but outcome sensitivity is not clear. The Earth's core might have zero influence from larger orbital systems.

Also, welcome to the forum! I have used analogies to describe things as well, and have learned that analogies do not always suffice for the complexity of systems involved.

Edited June 21Jun 21 by Archmonoth

Forgive the crude example. Obviously the physics play out differently on a cosmic scale and a denser object would have no buoyancy in a lighter medium.

The example was to illustrate wave propagation. I just used the ball in a pool reference to remove a dimension of thought. Three-dimensional concepts are usually easier to display in a two-dimensional format, at least in this medium of discussion. Perhaps I should give another example.

Lets take a peach and replace it's pit with a tiny speaker. The speaker is completely surrounded by the flesh of the peach. There are no gaps. If you start playing music through the speaker can you make the peach move? With enough power, harmonics, and resonance you should be able to. Using the Doppler Effect as prescience for justification, sound travels father in a denser medium.

Just like sonar pings travel farther in the ocean, denser mediums allow harmonics to travel farther.

Just as you described in your response there are similar mechanisms in solar mechanics. As tiny subtle fluctuations of the Sun's magnetically charged core propagate outward they alter the Sun's surface via Sunspots and Solar Flares.

I figure if the Sun can have changes in it's core that propagate out to the surface, then so can Earth.

Also, I don't see an "unproven theories" category. Perhaps that response was meant to be more dismissive than initially indicated...

Edited June 21Jun 21 by Loose Electron

12 minutes ago, Loose Electron said:

Lets take a peach and replace it's pit with a tiny speaker. The speaker is completely surrounded by the flesh of the peach. There are no gaps. If you start playing music through the speaker can you make the peach move? With enough power...

Scaling that up the mass of Earth and the motions involved I seriously doubt normal solar activity (ie anything short of going super nova) could cause the Earth's core to move. That is, alter its current motion such that it causes surface effects. The energy required would need to be on another scale compared to something as feeble as a CME impact.

While I have no numbers to support that assertion, someone smarter than myself maybe able to run some rough numbers. Speculating with analogies is all well and good but it is possible to get some idea of the energy required.

29 minutes ago, Loose Electron said:

Also, I don't see an "unproven theories" category. Perhaps that response was meant to be more dismissive than initially indicated

That thread is locked now and in depth discussions of unproven theories are no longer allowed

Thought that post above was real... got me... That's what it's been like on the internet lately though. People really shut down discussion for the pettiest things. It's hard to communicate sometimes on a platform that was designed to literally connect people.

I'm touchy. Don't mean to be but it's tough out there for an individual on the internet in a sea of organizations while not being a part of one yourself.

45 minutes ago, astroHoward said:

Scaling that up the mass of Earth and the motions involved I seriously doubt normal solar activity (ie anything short of going super nova) could cause the Earth's core to move. That is, alter its current motion such that it causes surface effects. The energy required would need to be on another scale compared to something as feeble as a CME impact.

While I have no numbers to support that assertion, someone smarter than myself maybe able to run some rough numbers. Speculating with analogies is all well and good but it is possible to get some idea of the energy required.

It was my understanding that the core is already in motion due to the Earth's rotation.
https://www.nsf.gov/news/earths-core-spins-faster-earth

Think of it more like "vibration" than movement per-say.

Even large ships will experience turbulence in rough seas. Big boats create big wakes.

Edited June 21Jun 21 by Loose Electron
Got Punk'd

1 hour ago, Parabolic said:

That thread is locked now and in depth discussions of unproven theories are no longer allowed

Correct, and this falls into that category. Thank you for understanding. If you wish to continue discussions on these topics, a different platform would be a better fit.
Thanks.