Solar activity: periodicities beyond 11 years are consistent with random forcing

Power spectra of solar activity based on historical records of sunspot numbers and on cosmogenic isotopes show peaks with enhanced power apart from the dominant 11-year solar cycle, such as the 90-year Gleissberg cycle or the 210-year de Vries cycle. In a previous paper we have shown that the overall shape of the power spectrum is well represented by the results of the generic normal form model for a noisy and weakly nonlinear limit cycle, with parameters all determined by observations. Using this model as a null case, we show here that all local peaks with enhanced power, apart from the 11-year band, are consistent with realization noise. Even a 3 sigma peak is expected to occur with a probability of about 0.25 at least once among the 216 period bins resolved by the cosmogenic isotope data. This casts doubt upon interpretations of such peaks in terms of intrinsic periodicities of the solar dynamo process.