Does Jupiter affect our climate???

Yet another theory about climate....I'm not saying this is the truth behind global warming, just posting it as a reminder that there are many opinions out there...

The alignment of the planets, and especially that of Jupiter and Saturn, control the climate on Earth.

So explained Rhodes Fairbridge of Columbia University, a giant in science over much of the last century whose accomplishments are perhaps unsurpassed for their breadth, depth, and volume. This one man authored or co-authored 100 scientific books and more than 1,000 scientific papers, he edited the Benchmarks in Geology series (more than 90 volumes in print) and was general editor of the Encyclopaedias of the Earth Sciences. He edited eight major encyclopedias of specialized scientific papers in the atmospheric sciences and astrogeology; geomorphology; geochemistry and the earth sciences; geology, sedimentology, paleontology, oceanography and, not least, climatology.

Changes in sunspots and other solar activity, scientists have realized for more than two centuries, correlate closely with the climate of Earth, explaining the ice ages and periods of great warming. But what, Dr. Fairbridge wondered, causes these changes in our sun?

The answer, he discovered with the help of NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, lies largely in the solar system's centre of gravity. At times, the sun is at the solar system's centre of gravity. Most often, this is not the case-- the orbit of the planets will align planets to one side or another of the sun. Jupiter, the planet with by far the largest mass, most influences the solar system's centre of gravity. When Uranus, Neptune and especially Saturn -- the next largest planet -- join Jupiter on one side of the solar system, the solar system's centre of gravity shifts well beyond the sun.

The sun's own orbit, he found, has eight characteristic patterns, all determined by Jupiter's position relative to Saturn, with the other planets playing much lesser roles. Some of these eight have orderly orbits, smooth and near-circular. During such orbits, solar activity is high and Earth heats up. Some of the eight orbits are chaotic, taking a loop-the-loop path. These orbits correspond to quiet times for the sun, and cool periods on Earth. Every 179 years or so, the sun embarks on a new cycle of orbits. One of the cooler periods in recent centuries was the Little Ice Age of the 17th century, when the Thames River in London froze over each winter. The next cool period, if the pattern holds, began in 1996, with the effects to be felt starting in 2010. Some predict three decades of severe cold.

Temperatures on Earth are but one consequence of these periodic and predictable celestial movements. Others, Dr. Fairbridge has shown, are seen everywhere on Earth: in the various and differing periodicities in rocks, glaciers, sand dunes and the circulation of the ocean; geomagnetic records; the records of the isotopes of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen in tree rings, ice cores, air and water. They are the periodicities of climate change.