Droughts and Floods vs. Jupiter-Saturn Cycle and Lunar Declination Cycle

 When the sunspot and lunar cycles coincide there are distinct rainfall peaks. The 18.6 year Lunar cycle created flood years in Central Victoria in 1954-56, 1973-75, 1992-93 and 2010-11. The 2010-11 floods in northern Australia reflected a peak lunar rain-enhancement cycle. This particular lunar cycle was strongly enhanced by the closely synchronised 19.86 year Jupiter-Saturn Synodic Cycle.

Planetary and lunar cycles play an important part in shaping the climate, and also Australia’s flood and drought cycles are influenced by these forces. The Central Victorian rainfall records reveal that the 18.6 year lunar declination cycle and the 19.86 year synodic cycle of Jupiter-Saturn can each enhance or diminish average rainfall over prolonged periods resulting in extreme flood and extreme drought cycles. When these two cycles are closely in-phase with each other and are supported by the El Nino or the La Nina cycle, extreme droughts and extreme floods are likely to occur. This was the case during the early months of 2011 and enhanced by a very strong La Nina cycle during the preceding 9 months. Another major drought period is scheduled to occur around the middle of this lunar cycle (2020). 
 
The above graph shows the long-term rainfall record for Bendigo in Central Victoria, Australia. The Central Victorian climate is particularly sensitive to any changes in average air movements (air tides). This is due to the generally flat terrain of the area, which means the effects of the cosmic cycles are more prominent than in most other places in the world. This can be seen to occur with about 80% reliability during the last 66 years. The dominating effects are most obvious when a four-year rolling average line is used (thick line). The spacing of the recent droughts to flood periods appears to closely follow the “9.3 year rule” (i.e. half of the 18.6 year moon cycle). Peaks and troughs relative to the Bendigo’s long-term average of 544 mm are:

1944         Severe drought (284 mm)        
1954-56   Typical three years of major floods (average 737 mm)
1967         Severe drought (278 mm)        
1973-75   Wettest ever three year flood period (average 861 mm).
1982         Driest year on record (206mm)
1992-93   Two years of flood period (averaging 729 mm per year
2002         After 9 years of declining average rainfall, 2002 delivered only 271mm
2010         Eleven consecutive months of above-average rainfall set a new Bendigo record of 1061 mm. 

 

Reference:
Kevin Long (2011) - Cosmic Cycles and Their Impact on Floods and Droughts in Eastern Australia.

Earthquakes, Moonquakes, Pandemics, and Solar Cycle | Benjamin Deniston

Benjamin Deniston et al. (2012) - Several studies have pointed to a correlation between earthquake activity and the 11 year solar cycle, e.g. in 2011 Jusoh Mohamad Huzaimy and Kiyohumi Yumoto, two researchers out of Kyushu University, Japan, took the 4,108 large, shallow earthquakes from 1963-2010, and compared them with the phases of the last four solar cycles. What they showed was that for each magnitude range there were consistently more earthquakes during the declining phase of the solar cycle through solar minimum, when compared with the ascending phase through the solar maximum. This discrepancy was most pronounced for the largest earthquakes. 

 Percentage of shallow earthquakes by magnitude occurring during the solar minimum and
descending half of the solar cycle, or during the solar maximum and ascending half of
the solar cycle. Analysis of the last 4 complete solar cycles from 1964-2008,
indicated by monthly average of sunspots.

The last decade, which contained the longest solar minimum of the century, also saw the most magnitude 8.0+ earthquakes and the greatest number of large volcanic eruptions for any decade over the past century. These relations should cause us to consider what types of similar activity might be occurring on other bodies of our solar system. Unfortunately, the best data we have is from the eight years during which we had operational seismometers on the Moon (1969-1977, left behind from some of the Apollo missions). During this operational window, out of the thousands of registered lunar seismic events, only 28 of them originated below the lunar surface (for example, not due to surface impacts by meteorites), and have been identified as “shallow moonquakes.” Their very existence is a mystery, as there are no active plate tectonics on the Moon. 

 The decade by decade totals of “great” earthquakes (magnitude 8.0 and above), and large
volcanic eruptions, measuring a VEI 4 or greater (VEI = Volcanic Explosivity Index).
Source USGS Earthquake Hazard Program, Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program.

What is remarkable is that 23 of thoe 28 moonquakes occurred during the half of the Moon’s orbit when the near side of the Moon (on which the seismometers were placed) was facing a specific direction relative to the fixed stars, indicating a relationship not even to solar activity, but, as Yosio Nakamura, a world expert on lunar seismic activity and the author of the study says, to something originating outside of our solar system.

 23 of the 28 moonquakes recorded from 1969 to 1977 occurred when the Moon occupied the half
of the lunar orbit in which the seismic network on the Moon’s near side faced towards a
certain direction in the fixed stars. This suggests a yet unknown influence coming from
outside the solar system.

There is also long-standing evidence showing that the incidence of diseases fluctuates with the Earth-Sun relationship. The most well known of these fluctuations is the seasonal flu pandemic. None of the conventional explanations for why influenza flares up during the northern hemisphere winter (environmental humidity, vitamin D deficiency, etc.) has yet been validated, yet the seasonal variations are very real. Further, this cycle of seasonal outbreaks is also a cycle of the evolution of the virus itself, a phenomenon which has not been explained by the standard models of mutation and selection. This seasonal variation would seem to imply a relationship between influenza outbreaks and the location of our planet with respect to the Sun. In fact, looking beyond the yearly variations, the major flu pandemics of the past century exhibit an interesting pattern: the dates were 1946, 1957, 1968, and 1977, which imply a period of roughly 11 years, provocatively matching the sunspot cycle over this period. Taking this back farther, if we map the major flu pandemics against the cycles of sunspot numbers for the last 300 years we get the following plot. 

 The 1946, 1957, 1968, and 1977 pandemics shown over the last 6 solar cycles.

Pandemics occur in clusters. If we connect the sunspot peaks, which indicate how solar activity changes from one cycle to the next, then we see that the pandemic clusters occur during periods of more active successive solar cycles. An initial hypothesis might be that such a correlation implies a relationship between some solar parameter, such as ultraviolet radiation, and influenza pandemics. Notable exceptions to this correlation — specifically, the cases where pandemics fall on years of sunspot minima — point to a causal agent on a grander scale. Researcher Yu Zhen-Dong has shown evidence that pandemics occurring during solar minima show a close coincidence with bright supernovae and other sources of ground-level cosmic radiation. This implies a galactic rather than solar driver of the phenomenon, with cosmic radiation influx from outside of our solar system as the main culprit, rather than incident solar UV radiation. That is, the changes associated with solar activity are likely rather caused by the Sun’s well-known role in moderating the influx of cosmic radiation into our solar system.

 Laith M. Karim and Marwa H. Abbas (2014):
The Relation between Influenza Pandemics and Solar Activity.

 

 Pandemic influenza mapped against sunspot number and nova occurrences
(mostly flare-ups of our near neighbor Nova η Carinae) for the past 300 years.

The Wheel of Time: Raymond H. Wheeler's Drought Clock | Peter Temple

Dr. Raymond H. Wheeler (1892-1961) developed a clock to forecast recurring droughts, which coincided with colder climates. He found that every 170 years, the climate would turn colder and dryer, social mood would turn negative, civil wars would proliferate, and the economy would suffer from financial collapse.

Although he completed his work during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, he was able to accurately forecast the second half of the 20th century, based upon the cycles that occurred over and over again like clockwork from 600 BC through today. The Drought Clock shows shorter 100 Year Cycles of cold and dry which are compounded by the larger degree 170 Year Cycle, when they happen at the same time. You can see that he forecast the start of a cold, dry 170 Year Cycle just before the year 2000. Cold dry periods in history have almost always led to droughts (limited access to food), civil wars, riots, and economic recessions or depressions [...] The 515 Year Climate Cycle is also a major Civilization Cycle where virtually everything around us changes (more details Here + HERE). 

 

Reference:

 Peter Temple (2017) -  Today’s Predictable Problems: A Cycle Top.

Solar and Economic Relationships | Carlos Garcia-Mata & Felix Ira Shaffner

It is common knowledge that people from all walks of life and every station of society participated in what is now generally agreed was - considering the number of persons and transactions involved - the greatest speculative mania of modern times. The bursting of this speculative bubble at the end of 1929 affords an excellent opportunity for something analogous to an experiment on the correlation of turning points in solar and speculative activity. Stock prices had experienced an extraordinary rise from a level of around 100 in 1924 to approximately 320 in the first half of 1929.

 

[…] With this in mind, we compared monthly data of speculation in 1929 with variations in solar phenomena for the same year […] In the upper part of the chart the solar-radiation curve is plotted upside down to help visualize the inverse correlation. Another comparison between business and solar data was made employing an index computed since August, 1924, by the Mount Wilson Observatory. This is an index of a part of the solar spectrum, the ultraviolet rays, which, it will be remembered, vary within a much wider range than the total solar radiation curve. This index was reduced to a 12-month moving average to make it comparable with the rest of the chart. Although the period is so short that nothing statistical can be deduced, the existence of a direct correlation with the business curve is apparent […] For an index of American speculative sentiment, we chose Professor W.L. Crum's index of industrial stock prices, known as “Barron's Averages, because they are constructed to portray the speculative movement of stock prices rather than the trend of investment prices.” 

[...] A glance at the chart will show a striking similarity in the date of the turning points. Furthermore, contrary to expectations, the behavior of the two curves during the whole year is similar. The lowest prices for common stocks in the New York and London Stock Exchanges were reached in the first half of July 1932 [...] The [third] chart shows the curious fact that the recession in the last quarter of 1932 is also visible in the solar curve. And it is interesting to note that the solar curve makes a second low in February, 1933, turning up again in the following months. Although this is a fact, too much should not be expected of comparisons for the year 1933 because, except for clear solar changes which are sudden and which can be associated with the turning points, it is too much to hope for an exact month-to-month correlation. In the years in which the speculative curves moved steadily up or down, such as in 1930-31 and previous to 1929, no clear moth-to-month relation has been found between solar and speculative short swings, except for the seasonal movements of the speculative curve in the down swing, which perhaps can be associated with the similar seasonal variations of the solar-terrestrial physical curves such as magnetic activity and aurora borealis.

 

Reference:
Carlos Garcia-Mata & Felix Ira Shaffner (1934) - Solar and Economic Relationships: A Preliminary Report. 

Solar Activity and Economic Recessions | Mikhail Gorbanev

Out of 22 recessions in the US economy identified by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in 1901-2008, in the years corresponding to solar cycles numbered by astronomers from 14 to 23, eleven recessions began in two years around and after maximum points of those cycles. Moreover, out of 13 of those recessions that began in 1933-2008 (solar cycles 17 to 23), eight – over 60 percent – began in two years around and after solar maximums.

Out of 36 recessions in G7 countries identified by NBER and The Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) in 1965-2008 (solar cycles 20 to 23), 21 – nearly 60 percent – began in 3 years around and after solar maximums.

Since 1933, US economy spent 1/3 of time in recession in about 3 years after solar maximums.

Each of eight solar maximums in 1929-2008 overlapped closely with low points in the US unemployment rate followed by its sharp increase.

Refugee inflows in the EU countries followed solar cycle pattern in 1985-2015. 

Economic conditions in the U.S. and G7 countries deteriorated in 2015-2016, consistent with the historical pattern. Composite Leading Indicators (CLIs) designed by the OECD to give early signals of turning points in the business cycle deteriorated for the U.S., for the G7 countries, and for the entire OECD. 

But no U.S. recession? A pattern observed for over 100 years suggested elevated chances of U.S. recession starting in 2014-15, which did not happen.

 

And no reversal in the U.S. unemployment trend? The historical pattern pointed to possibility that the declining trend in the U.S. unemployment rate would bottom out and reverse in 2014-15, which did not occur. 

In both cases, U.S. Fed’s highly accommodative monetary policy targeted at supporting economic recovery and boosting employment can explain the deviation from the historical pattern. Never before the U.S. Federal Funds rate remained virtually zero for so long even as the economy expanded and unemployment rate declined to its lowest level in many years. 

CLI indices for all G7 countries and the US generally reached their maximums before solar maximums and declined to their troughs in years after it.

For the entire OECD, the concordance between the CLI index and solar cycle looked even more regular. In 1962‐2012, all five solar maximums overlapped with dips in the CLI index, and the index reached its maximum values shortly before the sunspot maximums. When comparing the OECD CLI values across solar cycles, we discovered that standard deviations of the values for these cycles confirmed statistical significance of the indicator’s spike before and trough after the solar maximum. The EURO area CLI index followed broadly the same pattern, thus confirming the link with the solar cycle even when the US economy was excluded. 

Moreover, the dynamic of the CLI indices was broadly consistent among the largest OECD economies. We observed that in Japan, Germany, France, and UK, the CLI indices reached their maximums shortly before or around the solar maximum, and declined to the troughs in the years after it. The exact months of maximums and minimums varied between countries. Apparently, the statistical significance also varied, from the lowest for Japan and highest for Germany and France. 

 

The most important European revolutions of the XIX and XX century overlapped closely with the sunspot maximums. Remarkably, both the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire and the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, which could be considered the two most important revolutions of the XX century, both occurred exactly in the years of solar maximums. In France, all the greatest revolutions of the modern times including the Great French Revolution of 1789, the revolutions of 1830 and 1849, and “Paris Commune” in 1871 overlapped very closely with the solar maximums. In America, the secession of the 13 southern US states in 1861 that triggered the bloodiest civil war in the continent’s history occurred in the year of solar maximum. Most recently, the cyclical increase in the solar activity in the currently unfolding 24th solar cycle overlapped closely with the “Arab Spring”, a series of revolutions in the Arab countries in 2010-13, and with revolution in Ukraine in 2013-14.

 

Quoted from:
Mikhail Gorbanev (2016) - Solar Activity and Economic Recessions.

Sunspots and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations | Maurice Cotterell

There appears to be a correlation between the rise and fall of civilizations with the rise and fall of radiation from the sun. The graph shows a long-term envelope of sunspot activity derived from the center graph of Carbon 14. More carbon 14 is absorbed in the growth rings of tress during the sunspot minima. Sunspot minima also correlates with mini-ice ages and a winter severity index based on a mean for Paris and London - for the period shown. The Maya disappeared during a sunspot minimum (see also HERE + HERE + HERE)

Reference: 

Maurice Cotterell (2001) - The Tutankhamun Prophecies: The Sacred Secret of the Maya, Egyptians, and Freemasons. 

Are 97% Of Climate Scientists Complete Morons?

Looking e.g. at the open minded and innovative scientific findings in H.H. Clayton's excellent World Weather Records of 1923, perfectly illustrates
the intellectual degradation of nowadays mainstream climate sciences, deluded and obsessed by the fraudulent and absurd malthusian ideology
of man-made global warming and the genocidal cult of 'climate protection' (HERE + HERE)

Tony Heller (Oct 16, 2015) - Atmospheric CO2 has risen by 100 parts per million (one part per ten thousand) over the past century [...] Experts claim that this one molecule has heated the other 10,000 molecules up by more than one degree centigrade. In order for one molecule to heat up 10,000 other molecules by 1°C, the effective temperature of that one molecule would have to be 10,000°C – about twice the temperature of the surface of the Sun. Only a complete moron would believe something so ludicrous, which is why they [IPCC] say 97% of [climate] scientists agree on this utter nonsense.

If the name of a single person were to be identified with the birth of paleoclimatology, it would be Vladimir Peter Köppen (1846–1940),
a German-Russian geographer, meteorologist, climatologist and botanist. In 1924 he and his son-in-law Alfred Wegener published a paper
called 'Die Klimate der Geologischen Vorzeit' (The Climates Of The Geological Past) providing crucial support to the astronomical
theory on ice ages of Milutin Milanković (1879-1958).

Uranus and Neptune Responsible For Solar Grand Minima and Solar Cycle Modulation?

Solar system dynamics have been postulated as the main solar driver for
many decades. Paul D. Jose (1965) was the first to associate a recurring
solar system pattern of the 4 outer planets (179 years). Jose suggested
this pattern correlates with the modulation of the solar cycle. New
research via this study suggests that over the past 6000 years the 179
year cycle cannot be maintained and is closer to a 172 year cycle which
aligns with the synodic period of Uranus & Neptune (171.44 years).

Geoff J. Sharp (2013) - Detailed solar Angular Momentum (AM) graphs produced from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) DE405 ephemeris display cyclic perturbations that show a very strong correlation with prior solar activity slowdowns. These same AM perturbations also occur simultaneously with known solar path changes about the Solar System Barycentre. The AM perturbations can be measured and quantified allowing analysis of past solar cycle modulations along with the 11,500 year solar proxy records (14C & 10Be). 
The detailed AM information also displays a recurring wave of modulation that aligns very closely with the observed sunspot record since 1650. The AM perturbation and modulation is a direct product of the outer gas giants (Uranus and Neptune). This information gives the opportunity to predict future grand minima along with normal solar cycle strength with some confidence. A proposed mechanical link between solar activity and planetary influence via a discrepancy found in solar/planet AM along with current AM perturbations indicate solar cycle 24 & 25 will be heavily reduced in sunspot activity resembling a similar pattern to solar cycles 5 & 6 during the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830; see also HERE).

The path of the Sun shows the two distinct loops around the
Solar System Barycentre (centre point).

Typical planet positions demonstrating strong Types A & B perturbations.
The Type A example is taken from near the centre of the Sporer Minimum
(1472). Type B events coinciding with less reduction of solar activity
compared with Type A events of similar angle (reverse).

The 100 Year Cycle - Climate, Regime Change & War │ Raymond H. Wheeler

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.

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.

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.

 

See also:

Raymond H. Wheeler (1943) - The 500 Year Cycle.

Sunspots and Stocks - The Short-Term

Everything in the universe is constantly bathing in fluctuating electro-magnetic forces and fields that affect virtually every circuit in biological systems. Human physiological rhythms and global behaviors are not only synchronized with solar and geomagnetic activity, but disruptions in these fields can also create adverse effects on human health and behavior. Changes in geomagnetic activity are correlated with altered blood pressure, heart rate, melatonin levels, and increased occurrence of cancer, balance of hormonal system, reproductive system, cardiac and neurological disease, hospital admissions and mortality, as well as depression, fatigue, mental confusion, and traffic accidents. 

'Daily Sunspot Numbers' and 'F10.7 Flux' e.g. @ NASA's OMNIWeb

An important finding is that of all the bodily systems studied thus far, changes in solar activity and consequently geomagnetic conditions most strongly affect the rhythms of the heart. Of course electromagnetic fields generated by power supply systems, telecommunications, appliances, computers and other technology are extremely powerful and have similar effects on organisms.

In the late 1990s Jeffrey Owen Katz and Donna McCormick examined the effects of sunspots especially on the S&P 500 and Minnesota Wheat. They developed several profitable trading strategies generating entries and exits based on solar activity alone. However, they concluded: "We personally do not believe solar influences directly determine the market. We do suspect that they act as triggers for events that are predisposed to occur, or as synchronizers of already-present market rhythms with similar periodicities." Well ...

Sunspots, Climate, Agriculture, Financial Markets, and War | The Big Picture

Most people think the Sun rests at the center of the solar system, and
that the planets orbit it. This is almost correct, but not quite (HERE).

Historically, most cultures believed that their collective behavior was influenced by the Sun and extraterrestrial cycles. Since 1755, when continuous recording of solar sunspot activity began in the West, much research has focused on the possible impacts of the solar cycle on climate, weather, agriculture, and, consequently, on financial markets. In the broader social realm, increased violence, crime rates, upheaval, revolutions, military attacks, and the intensity of warfare have been linked to the solar cycle and the resulting disturbances in the geomagnetic field (HERE). 

The tidal and electromagnetic forces exerted on the Sun by the motions of the other planets—primarily Jupiter and Saturn—are the cause of cyclic solar activity. Outside of the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn combined contain 92% of the total planetary mass and 86% of the angular momentum. The Sun's radius is 0.0044 astronomical units, while Jupiter and Saturn can move the barycenter about 2.2 solar radii away from the center of the Sun. The total angular momentum in the Solar System is constant, while the angular momentum of each individual part of the system, referred to the Center of Mass, is variable. When Jupiter and Saturn are in conjunction with the Sun, the barycenter is far outside the Sun. But when both planets are on opposite sides, the barycenter is inside the Sun. Jupiter's magnetosphere extends well beyond Saturn's orbit. If it were not for the presence of the solar field itself, Jupiter's magnetosphere would reach the center of the solar system. Saturn also has a large magnetosphere, about one-fifth the size of Jupiter's. The variation in the Sun's motion about the Center of Mass is characterized by a periodicity of 178.770 years: Every 16 loops around the barycenter, the Sun repeats a very similar path. The slight time derivative or torque to this 178.770-year cycle, a time-dependent periodic function of +/- 1.05 years, is called the torque cycle. This is determined by nine subsequent synodic periods of Jupiter and Saturn (9 * 19.858 years = 178.720 years) and was used by Theodor Landscheidt to forecast sunspot cycles.

 

Probably, the earliest recorded hypothesis about the relation between solar and business activity was presented in a paper by German astronomer Wilhelm Herschel in 1801, who called attention to an apparent relationship between sunspot activity and the price of wheat. In 1875, British economist and statistician William Stanley Jevons suggested that there was a relationship between sunspots and business cycle crises. He reasoned that sunspots affect Earth's weather, which, in turn, influences crops and, therefore, the economy. In 1934, Argentinian Carlos Garcia-Mata and Felix I. Shaffner revisited the evidence about the links between solar activity and the business cycle in the US. They did not find support for Jevons’ theory about cyclical solar activity affecting crops. However, they uncovered a statistically significant correlation between fluctuations in non-agricultural business activity in the US and the solar cycle.

 

 

Solar maximums are good predictors of US recessions, effectively predicting at least 8 out of 13 recessions between 1935 and 2012. Recessions occurred in the months around and after the solar maximums much more often than in other periods. Out of 13 recessions during this period, 8 started within 2 years around solar maximums, counting from 3 months before until 20 months after them. What about the remaining 4 recessions that occurred between 1935 and 2012, including the Great Recession of 2008-09? The brief recession of 1945 was likely caused by a reduction in US government supply and military orders at the end of WWII. Similar causes likely triggered the recession of 1953-54 after the end of the Korean War (historically, recessions have often occurred after the end of major wars). The painful recession of 1974-75 was caused by the oil price shock. And the Great Recession of 2008-09 was triggered by the collapse of sub-prime lending in the US, which exposed massive overvaluation of the housing stock and flaws in mortgage lending and securitization practices.

 

In the 64 years from 1948 to 2012, all 6 periods of sunspot maximums overlapped with minimums of the US unemployment rate. Moreover, each time the dynamics of unemployment shifted from a declining trend to a rapid increase, with the unemployment rate peaking 2-3 years after the sunspot maximums.

 

Reference:

Theodor Landscheidt (1981) - The Swinging Sun, 79-Year Cycle, and Climatic Change. 

Rhodes W. Fairbridge & James H. Shirley (1987) - Prolonged minima and the 179-yr cycle of the solar inertial motion.

Carsten A. Arnholm (2008) - The Planets could be Modulating Solar Activity.

Mikhail Gorbanev (2012): Sunspots, unemployment, and recessions, or Can the solar activity cycle shape the business cycle?