cosmicraysandearthquakes/paper/main.toc
root fc859d5dff Editorial revision: precision, framing, and internal consistency (4a–4k)
4a  Moderate principal conclusion: 'no statistically credible evidence'
    replaced with 'no statistically robust evidence within tested frameworks'
    plus clause acknowledging untested mechanisms (threshold effects,
    nonlinear triggering, extreme-event coupling).

4b  Fix independence-assumption framing: 'physically invalid seismic metric'
    → 'physically inappropriate'; separate claim about naive p-values now
    reads 'statistically invalid under the violated serial-independence
    assumption (autocorrelation inflates nominal sample size by 3–5×)'.

4c  3.9σ detrended peak no longer called 'marginal': figure caption and
    nearby text now read 'nominally significant but sensitive to Neff
    estimation, at a lag inconsistent with the claimed mechanism'.

4d  CR terminology standardised: 'global CR index' defined precisely at
    first use in Data section (dimensionless, station mean ≡ 1, ≥3 stations
    per bin); 'CR flux' retained only for the physical quantity.

4e  Geographic conclusion reframed: 'no local mechanism' replaced with
    'inconsistent with simple wave-propagation or diffusion models, but does
    not rule out instantaneous global coupling mechanisms (e.g. atmospheric
    electric field modulation)'.

4f  Bayes factor qualified: parenthetical after BF=0.75 notes the restricted
    two-hypothesis model space and cites Kass & Raftery (1995).

4g  OOS limitations expanded: explicit paragraph noting the 5-yr window
    with no complete solar cycle, limited statistical power, and that
    p_global=0.100 is consistent with—rather than strong evidence against
    —the claim; OOS failure downweighted vs 44-yr in-sample analysis.

4h  Confirmatory vs exploratory scope table added (Table tab:prereg_scope)
    listing pre-specified parameters and which analyses were confirmatory
    vs post-hoc exploratory.

4i  Alternative solar-cycle confounds acknowledged in Discussion: geomagnetic
    activity cycles and long-term seismic clustering added as alternative
    explanations for the shared 10-year periodicity.

4j  Fixed: 'Out-of-sample poos from script 08' removed from Limitations;
    GitHub URL removed from abstract (kept in Data Availability only);
    Discussion run-on sentences broken up.

4k  Abstract rewritten to ≤250 words in five-part structure: prior claim,
    data/methods (two sentences), key quantitative results, scoped
    interpretation, one-sentence limitation. Causal language qualified.

Also adds KassRaftery1995 to refs.bib. PDF: 36 pages.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-04-24 21:23:57 +02:00

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TeX

\contentsline {section}{\numberline {1}Introduction}{5}{section.1}%
\contentsline {section}{\numberline {2}Data}{6}{section.2}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {2.1}Cosmic-Ray Flux: NMDB Neutron Monitors}{6}{subsection.2.1}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {2.2}Seismic Activity: USGS Earthquake Catalogue}{6}{subsection.2.2}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {2.3}Solar Activity: SIDC Sunspot Number}{7}{subsection.2.3}%
\contentsline {section}{\numberline {3}Methods}{7}{section.3}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.1}Cross-Correlation at Lag $\tau $}{7}{subsection.3.1}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.2}Effective Degrees of Freedom}{7}{subsection.3.2}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.3}Surrogate Significance Tests}{8}{subsection.3.3}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {3.3.1}Phase Randomisation}{8}{subsubsection.3.3.1}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {3.3.2}IAAFT Surrogates}{8}{subsubsection.3.3.2}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {3.3.3}Block-Bootstrap Surrogates}{8}{subsubsection.3.3.3}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {3.3.4}Global $p$-Value}{8}{subsubsection.3.3.4}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {3.3.5}GPU Acceleration}{9}{subsubsection.3.3.5}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.4}Solar-Cycle Detrending}{9}{subsection.3.4}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.5}Partial Correlation Analysis}{10}{subsection.3.5}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.6}Nonlinear Dependence Tests}{10}{subsection.3.6}%
\contentsline {paragraph}{Spectral coherence.}{10}{section*.2}%
\contentsline {paragraph}{Mutual information.}{10}{section*.3}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.7}Geographic Localisation Scan}{10}{subsection.3.7}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.8}Pre-Registered Out-of-Sample Validation}{11}{subsection.3.8}%
\contentsline {paragraph}{Confirmatory versus exploratory analyses.}{11}{section*.4}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {3.9}Combined Timeseries: Sinusoidal Envelope Fit}{11}{subsection.3.9}%
\contentsline {section}{\numberline {4}Results}{12}{section.4}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.1}Raw Pairwise Correlations Between CR, Seismic, and Sunspot Data}{12}{subsection.4.1}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {4.1.1}CR index: station distribution}{13}{subsubsection.4.1.1}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {4.1.2}Seismic energy metric}{13}{subsubsection.4.1.2}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {4.1.3}Sunspot number}{13}{subsubsection.4.1.3}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {4.1.4}Correlation results}{13}{subsubsection.4.1.4}%
\contentsline {paragraph}{CR vs.\ seismicity.}{13}{section*.6}%
\contentsline {paragraph}{CR vs.\ sunspot number.}{14}{section*.7}%
\contentsline {paragraph}{Sunspot vs.\ seismicity.}{14}{section*.8}%
\contentsline {subsubsection}{\numberline {4.1.5}Interpretation: a confounding triangle}{14}{subsubsection.4.1.5}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.2}In-Sample Replication (1976--2019)}{17}{subsection.4.2}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.3}IAAFT Surrogate Test}{18}{subsection.4.3}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.4}Effect of Solar-Cycle Detrending}{19}{subsection.4.4}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.5}Detrending Robustness}{19}{subsection.4.5}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.6}Comparison of $N_\text {eff}$ Estimators}{19}{subsection.4.6}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.7}Magnitude Threshold Sensitivity}{21}{subsection.4.7}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.8}Block-Bootstrap Surrogate Comparison}{21}{subsection.4.8}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.9}Partial Correlation: Controlling for Sunspot Number}{22}{subsection.4.9}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.10}Spectral Coherence and Mutual Information}{22}{subsection.4.10}%
\contentsline {paragraph}{Coherence.}{22}{section*.22}%
\contentsline {paragraph}{Mutual information.}{23}{section*.23}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.11}Missing-Data Sensitivity}{23}{subsection.4.11}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.12}Bin-Size Sensitivity}{25}{subsection.4.12}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.13}Earthquake Declustering (Gardner--Knopoff)}{25}{subsection.4.13}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.14}Sub-Period Analysis by Solar Cycle}{26}{subsection.4.14}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.15}Geographic Localisation}{26}{subsection.4.15}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.16}Pre-Registered Out-of-Sample Validation (2020--2025)}{29}{subsection.4.16}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {4.17}Combined 1976--2025 Analysis: Sinusoidal Modulation}{30}{subsection.4.17}%
\contentsline {section}{\numberline {5}Discussion}{31}{section.5}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {5.1}Why Does the Raw Correlation Appear So Strong?}{31}{subsection.5.1}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {5.2}Physical Plausibility of the Claimed Mechanism}{32}{subsection.5.2}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {5.3}Comparison with Prior Replication Attempts}{32}{subsection.5.3}%
\contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {5.4}Limitations}{32}{subsection.5.4}%
\contentsline {section}{\numberline {6}Conclusions}{33}{section.6}%