In the 1940s, while at the University of Kansas, Professor Raymond Holder Wheeler undertook an immense project: he summarized all of recorded history. He compiled 2,500 years of records from which he derived many brilliant hypotheses. At one point, he employed as many as 200 scientists. He concluded that climate and human history were intimately related. He discovered many related cycles but declared the 100-Year Cycle to be the most important.
» The turning points between old and new civilizations
occur when cold-dry times reach their maximum severity. «
The climate of the Earth shifts between warmer and colder periods, often in rhythmic cycles. Throughout history, there has been a sequence of four seasons across many diverse time periods, including 1,000 years, 500 years, 100 years, 10 years, 1 year, and likely others. The Earth’s coldest periods were typically followed by excessive warmth. Such was the case when temperatures shifted from the Medieval Warm Period, between 900 and 1300 A.D., to the sudden ‘Little Ice Age,’ which peaked in the 17th century. Since 2,500 B.C., there have been at least 78 major climate changes worldwide, including two major shifts in just the past 40 years. History shows that nations are generally built during transitions from cold periods to warm, when human energy levels temporarily reach a maximum, while nations tend to crumble during shifts from warm to cold. International wars typically occur during warm periods, while civil wars tend to occur during cold ones. Each phase, whether warm or cold, begins wet and ends dry. Cold droughts and periods of civil war generally coincide. A major cold drought and civil war period occurs approximately every 510 years, with less severe ones generally occurring every 170 years (the 171-Year Neptune-Uranus Cycle). There are also shorter rhythms: The generally warmer period at the beginning of the 20th century ended during World War II. Totalitarianism is typical of late warm periods, while democracy tends to revive during cold times.
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Raymond H. Wheeler (1943): The Effect of Climate on Human Behavior in History. In: Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, Vol. 46. |
Wheeler’s cycle averages 100 years, although it can range from as short as seventy years to as long as 120 years. The cycle is divided into four phases, which are not precisely equal in duration, but in general, the cycle includes both a warm and a cold phase, with each phase having a wet and a dry period (18.6 Lunar Nodal Cycle).
(1) The Cold-Dry Period (early 1870s to early 1900s and early 1960s to late 1970s): This is a time of general individualism, marked by weak governments, migrations, and other mob actions such as race riots. Class struggles and civil wars, ranging from palace intrigues to revolutions, occur during the general anarchy of the cold-dry period. People tend to be cosmopolitan, borrowing culture and living by superficial and skeptical philosophies. As this phase nears its end and transitions into the next phase, leadership emerges and societies stabilize; new governments are formed, and nationalistic spirit revives. Wars take the form of expansion and imperialism. In the transition from the cold to the warm era, human energies operate at a high level (similar to the spring of the year). Learning is revived, genius emerges, industrial revolutions take place, crops thrive, and times are prosperous.
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Temperature fluctuations over the past 20,000 years show the abrupt cooling and warming events during the Younger Dryas. The late Pleistocene cold glacial climate, which built immense ice sheets, terminated suddenly about 14,500 years ago, causing glaciers to melt dramatically. About 12,800 years ago, after approximately 2,000 years of fluctuating climate, temperatures plunged suddenly and remained cool for 1,300 years. The mammoths disappeared around the same time, as did some Native American and Siberian cultures that had thrived by hunting them. About 11,500 years ago, the climate warmed suddenly again; the Younger Dryas ended, and the Holocene Interglacial Period began. Soils developed, and agriculture and permanent settlements became possible due to relatively high temperature levels over the past 10,000 years. Large parts of Northern Africa began to dry up and convert into desert during the Egyptian Warm Period, 3,300 years ago. Animals and humans moved to the Mediterranean, the Nile Valley, and the Sahel (Arabic for 'shore'), the southern edge of the Sahara Desert.
(2) The Warm-Wet Period (early 1900s to early 1920s and late 1970s to late 1990s): This period marks the climax of the trends initiated in the previous transition, with achievement becoming more organized and an emphasis placed on cooperation and the integration of views and efforts rather than individual accomplishment. Interest shifts toward the state rather than the individual, and governments become more rigid and centralized.
(3) The Warm-Dry Period (early 1920s to mid-1940s and late 1990s to early 2020s): As the climate shifts from a general warm-wet phase to a warm-dry phase, the rigid governments of the previous period become despotic, and police states emerge. Personal freedom declines, and behavior patterns become more introverted. In art, surrealistic, impressionistic, and nihilistic patterns develop, while in business, aggressiveness and self-confidence decline, leading to subsequent depressions and the collapse of economic systems. During the transition to the next cold period, wars reflect the culmination of the decadence of the previous period, becoming the cruelest type of struggle, with entire populations slaughtered or enslaved. However, as temperatures fall and rainfall increases, activity picks up, crops improve, and a general revival begins.
(4) The Cold-Wet Period (mid 1940s to early 1960s and mid 2020s to late 2040s): This phase sees the reemergence of individualistic philosophy, with decentralizing and reorganizing trends in government and business. It is a period of emancipation and natural behavior; art becomes straightforward and simple, and scholarship follows mechanistic lines. These trends continue to grow until they reach a climax of general anarchy during the cold-dry period that follows. In 1949, Wheeler indicated that the U.S. was passing through a cold-wet period and heading for a cold-dry period.
Dr. Wheeler with one of his "Big Books".
Within these 20-30 year periods or ‘seasons,’ there are smaller ‘seasons’—in the same sequence—that account for variations within each larger ‘season.’ Once this 100-Year Cycle is complete, it blends into a larger cycle. We are currently witnessing the conclusion of a 500-Year Cycle and the breakdown of global 'Western' hegemony—similar to the early 16th century in Europe (491-Year Neptune-Pluto Cycle or 3 Neptune-Uranus Cycles). The early 1500s were characterized by technological innovation, population growth and migration, productive and capitalistic expansion, religious secessionism and wars, regime changes and breakdowns, as well as the emergence of new empires and global players. Today, we are clearly in another warm period that began in the mid-1970s and peaked around 2000.