Most of the effect would be from Jupiter and Saturn, and so any cycle would be less than 20 years long (Jupiter takes almost 12 earth years for one revolution around the sun, and Saturn takes 29.5 years...it's been a long time since I took algebra or I would work out how long it takes for Jupiter to lap Saturn, but I'd guess somewhere on the order of 18 years).
‘In short, I don’t buy the theory that having several of these planets lined up on the same side of the sun is going to make much of a difference. ‘
having not seen the math the article refers to to support this i can only speculate on what he actualy wrote, but if we are talking about a total change of global temperature range of a very small number of degrees celsius avg temperature (5?) between, say, the present and a recent cool period (say the referenced 17th cetury cold period), that isn’t much of a difference either.
because of the very narrow temperature range our species and many species we depend on need to survive, and the proximity to the freezing point of water, we notice it, but really its more of a rounding error in a cosmic view
just tossing this out there, but maybe very small variations in the gravity triangle of the sun and the larger planets would have very small impact on the sunspot activity referenced and thus a very small impact on earth temperatures.
also would offer that this man was apparently absolutely brilliant, and i would far sooner doubt the author of the article if something is in question before doubting the scientist’s actual work (which i have not seen).
The sum of many periodic equations yields very, very odd results depending on what periodicities you start with: you can get a square wave (a result with a flat top, very rapid changes to the opposite sign, then another flat period) simply by adding simple-appearing sine and cosine waves, or get a long periodicity, or an amplified shorter wave.
The math is nasty (last time I had was in control theory classes with Fourier series and Fourier Transforms, Laplace equations, etc.) but - you’ll have to trust me on this one - periodic waves can definitely add up to the 1500 year global cooling/warming cycles we see world-wide.
Particularly if you add that cycle to the earth’s much longer 25,000 year rotational cycles.
(It’s just that Gore, the UN, and the Euro-socialists can’t tax gravity waves for 4 trillion dollars. Yet.)
You have taken a much too simplistic view of this theory. It is the combination of the orbits and the time that they spend together in system imbalance that causes the predicted phenomenon. When the orbits do coincide they remain on the same side of the solar system for several passes until their proximity lengthens again. You must think beyond just the time frame of one orbit.
If all the planets were aligned on the same side of the sun, the barycenter would be 500,000 km above the sun's surface ... 1.719 solar radii from the center of the sun. If all of the other planets were located on the opposite side of the sun from Jupiter, the barycenter would lie within the sun at about 0.417 solar radii.
The movement of the barycenter would most definitely alter the tidal forces affecting the sun.
I have no idea if this affects the Earth's climate.