Testing the link between terrestrial climate change and Galactic spiral arm transit

TL;DR

This study critically re-evaluates the proposed link between Earth's climate changes and the Sun's transit through the Milky Way's spiral arms, finding no supporting correlation with new data.

Contribution

It challenges previous claims by testing correlations against updated spiral structure data, showing the link is unsupported with more accurate measurements.

Findings

No correlation between spiral arm transits and climate changes with new data.

Previous fits based on simplified models do not hold with detailed CO data.

The proposed link cannot be supported for any reasonable pattern speed.

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.