2025-2027 Oil Price Decline Linked to Solar Cycle Activity | Vladimir Belkin

This study of solar-terrestrial relationships compares the years of the solar cycle based on Wolf sunspot numbers and the arithmetic averages of crude oil prices from 1970 to 2023 (solar cycles 20-25), all presented in a single chart. Mean annual Wolf numbers were sourced from the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC), while Brent crude oil price data (adjusted to 2021 dollars) was obtained from BP and the Federal Reserve Economic Data website for 2022-2023.

Order of years in solar cycles and crude oil prices for the period 1970-2023.

Very strong correlation (coefficient 0.9908)

 

Using this data, the above diagram was created to illustrate the very strong correlation (coefficient 0.9908) between crude oil prices and the ordinal years of the solar cycles for the period 1970-2023.

 

 Polynomial function of oil price and year number in solar cycle for 1861–2019.

Very strong correlation (coefficient 0.9897)

Since 2024 marks the fifth year of the current Solar Cycle #25, it corresponds to an average forecast Brent oil price of $74.18 per barrel. In 2025, the sixth year of the cycle, the projected price is $56.04. In 2026, the seventh year of the cycle, the forecast is $43.84, while the anticipated price for 2027 is $42.84.

 

Reference: 

Vladimir Belkin (October 1, 2024) - Oil Price Decline in 2025-2027. 

 

See also:
Vladimir Belkin (2020) - Oil Prices and Solar Activity: Evidence of Strong Ties (1861–2019). 

Lu Qiyuan (2024) - Scott Bessent's Covert MAGA Strategy for Trump 2.0.

Mikhail Gorbanev (2017) - Solar Activity and Economic Recessions. 

Sunspot Number 2018 into 2032 (NASA, updated December 5, 2024).

 

 SIDC 12-month ahead predictions of the monthly smoothed Sunspot Number.

Sunspots, Lunar Cycles and Weather Cycles | Louis M. Thompson

The occurrence of an 18- to 20-year cycle in weather in the U.S. Midwest is no longer controversial. The controversial issue is the cause. This article will present both sides of the issue, and will indicate why we will know more about the cause after the 1990s.

[...] The sunspot cycle has been associated with the “20-year drought cycle” in the western U.S. since about 1909, when A.E. Douglass started publishing his tree-ring studies. This scientist became so well known that he was able to establish the Laboratory for Tree Ring Research in Tuscon, Arizona, in 1938. 

 

[...] The sunspot cycle has averaged about 11 years since 1800. As the sun rotates on its axis, it makes a complete turn in about 27 days. Large and persistent spots appear to move from left to right for about two weeks, disappear, and return after about two weeks. The leading edges of spots or clusters of spots have a negative charge in one 11-year cycle and a positive charge in the next cycle. Hence, the term “double sunspot cycle.”

The conventional wisdom is that the drought cycle of about 20 years occurs near the end of the negative cycle and at the time of low solar activity. The drought periods of the 1910s, 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s occurred at the end of the negative cycle. The drought periods did not consistently follow that pattern from 1800 to 1900, although the severe droughts of the 1820s and 1840s occurred at the end of the negative cycle.

Quoted from:
Louis M. Thompson (1989) - Sunspots and Lunar Cycles: Their Possible Relation to Weather Cycles.
In: Cycles, September/October 1989, Foundation for the Study of Cycles.
 
See also:
William Stanley Jevons (1875) - Sunspots and the Price of Corn and Wheat.

Raymond H. Wheeler (1943) - The 100 Year Cycle - Climate, Regime Change and War.

 Donald A. Bradley (1950) - Cycles Write World History.

Michael G. Zahorchak (1983) - Climate, the Key to Understanding Business Cycles: With a Forecast of Trends Into the 21st Century.
Jasper Kirkby (1998) - Sunspot Cycle Length vs Temperature Anomaly.
Henrik Svensmark (2007) - The Cloud Mystery.
Tom McClellan (2012) - Sunspots - The Real Cause of Higher Grain Prices.
TPR (2016) - Inigo Owen Jones. The Weather Prophet.
Valentina V. Zharkova et al. (2017) - The Heartbeat of the Sun.

 Peter Temple (2017) - The Wheel of Time: Raymond H. Wheeler's Drought Clock.

Peter Temple (2019) - An Introduction to Climate Cycles.

The Poetry of Logical Ideas | M.A. Vukcevic

» Mathematics is the poetry of logical ideas, it is the silent language of reason. «

M.A. Vukcevic

 2012

Physical Factors of the Historical Process | Alexander Chizhevsky

In 1924 Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky advanced a theory claiming that the solar activity cycles affected all of human history. He drew insight from the striking observation that two Russian revolutions of the early XX century (in 1905-07 and 1917) and several major European revolutions of the XIX century (in 1830, 1848, and 1871) occurred in the years of maximum solar activity. 

 

To justify his conviction, Chizhevsky scrutinized the available sunspot records and solar observations comparing them to riots, revolutions, battles and wars in Russia and 71 other countries for the period from 500 B.C. to 1922 A.D. He proposed to divide the eleven-year solar cycle into four phases:

1. 3-year period of minimum activity (around the solar minimum) characterized by passivity and “autocratic rule”;
2. 2-year period during which people “begin to organize” under new leaders and “one theme”;
3. 3-year period (around the solar maximum) of “maximum excitability,” revolutions and wars;
4. 3-year period of gradual decrease in “excitability,” until people are “apathetic.”

Chizhevsky found that a significant percent of revolutions and what he classified as “the most important historical events” involving “large numbers of people” occurred in the 3-year period around sunspot maximums. Through his further studies, Chizhevsky came to believe that correlations with the solar cycles could be found for a very diverse set of natural phenomena and human activities. In his book, he compiled a list of as many as 27 of them that supposedly fluctuated with the solar cycle, ranging from crop harvests to epidemic diseases to mortality rates. According to his studies, the periods of maximum solar activity were generally associated with negative effects such as lower harvests, intensification of diseases (including psychological ones), and higher mortality rates. However, Subsequent studies generally did not confirm the strength and scope of all the links between solar activity and various physical and social processes claimed by Chizhevsky.

Even as the link between solar activity and revolutions was not as strong as originally claimed by Chizhevsky, it appeared to be able to withstand a statistical test. In 1992 Russian scientist Putilov analyzed large samples of historical events mentioned in the chronology sections of two of the largest Soviet historical encyclopedias (numbering nearly 13,000 events in one book and 4,600 in another). He classified the events into four groups on the dimensions of “tolerance” (e.g., riot-reform) and “polarity” (e.g., civil war-external war). Putilov found that frequency and “polarity” of historical events increased in the year of the maximum of the sunspot cycle and in the next year after it, particularly when compared with the year of the minimum and the year before the minimum. The probability of revolution (the most polar and intolerant of historical events) was the highest during the maximum and the lowest in the year before a minimum of solar activity, with very high statistical significance. The results suggested that solar activity does impact historic events, particularly in the years of sunspot maximums. 

 

In Chizhevsky’s own words (translated):

Alexander Chizhevsky (1922) - The principles of modern natural science have urged me to investigate whether or not there is a correlation between the more important phenomena of nature and events in the social-historical life of mankind. In this direction, beginning in the year 1915, I have performed a number of researches, but at present I am submitting to the public only those which are directed towards determining the connection between the periodical sun-spot activity and (1) the behavior of organized human masses and (2) the universal historical process. The following facts are based upon statistics gathered by me while submitting to a minute scrutiny the history of all the peoples and states known to science, beginning with the V century B. C. and ending with the present day.

1. As soon as the sun-spot activity approaches its maximum, the number of important mass historical events, taken as a whole, increases, approaching its maximum during the sun-spot maximum and decreasing to its minimum during the epochs of the sun-spot minimum.

2. In each century the rise of the synchronic universal military and political activity on the whole of the Earth's territory is observed exactly 9 times. This circumstance enables us to reckon that a cycle of universal human activity embraces 11 years (in the arithmetical mean). The fluctuation's mean curves of the universal historical process on all the surface of the Earth during the period from V century B.C. till XX century A.D. (along the abscissa axis are marked the years, along the ordinate axis – the quantity of important historical events. Dots mark the pretelescopic and later – astronomical data of the sun-spot maximum. Hyphens mark its minimum):

 

Parallelism of the curves of sun-spot activity (below) and the universal human military-political activity (above) from 1749 till 1922:

 

3. Each cycle according to its historical psychological signs is divided into 4 parts (periods):

I. Minimum of excitability: 3 years;
II. Growth of excitability: 2 years;
III. Maximum of excitability: 3 years;
IV. Decline of excitability: 3 years;

 

The number of historical events in each cycle is distributed approximately according to the data for 500 years (XV—XX cent.) in the following manner (in the mean):

I  period: 5%;
II  period: 20%;
III  period: 60%;
IV  period: 15%.

Schematic Summary of Properties of a Complete Historiometric Cycle:

4. The course and development of each lengthy historical event is subject to fluctuations (periods of activity and inactivity) in direct dependence upon the periodical fluctuations occurring in the sun's activity. Formula: the state of predisposition of collective bodies towards action is a function of the sun-spot periodical activity.

5. Episodic leaps or rises in the sun's activity, given the existence in human societies of politico-economical and other exciting factors, are capable of calling forth a synchronic rising in human collective bodies. Formula: the rising of the sun-spot activity transforms the people's potential energy into kinetic energy.

My studies in the sphere of synthesizing historical material have enabled me to determine the following morphological law of the historical process:

6. The course of the universal historical process is composed of an uninterrupted row of cycles, occupying a period equaling in the arithmetical mean 11 years and synchronizing in the degree of its military-political activity with the sun-spot activity. Each cycle possesses the following historio-psychological peculiarities:

a. In the middle points of the cycle's course the mass activity of humanity all over the surface of the Earth, given the presence in human societies of economical, political or military exciting factors, reaches the maximum tension, manifesting itself in psycomotoric pandemics:  revolutions, insurrections, expeditions, migrations etc., creating new formations in the existence of separate states and new historical epochs in the life of humanity. It is accompanied by an integration of the masses, a full expression of their activity and a form of government consisting of a majority.
b. In the extreme points of the cycle's course the tension of the all-human military-political activity falls to the minimum, ceding the way to creative activity and is accompanied by a general decrease of military or political enthusiasm, by peace and peaceful creative work in the sphere of state organizations, international relations, science and art, with a pronounced tendency towards absolutism in the governing powers and a disintegration of the masses.

7. In correlation with the sun-spot maximum stand:

a. The dissemination of different doctrines political, religious etc., the spreading of heresies, religious riots, pilgrimages etc.
b. The appearance of social, military and religious leaders, reformists etc.
c. The formation of political, military, religious and commercial corporations, associations, unions, leagues, sects, companies etc.

8. It is impossible to overlook the fact that pathological epidemics also coincide very frequently with the sun-spot maximum periods.

9. Thus the existence of dependence between the sun-spot activity and the behavior of humanity should be considered established.

One cycle of all-human activity is taken by me for the first measuring unit of the historical process. The science concerned with investigating the historical phenomena from the above point of view I have named historiometria.

At present I am working on a plan of organizing scientific institutes for determining the influence of cosmic and geophysical factors upon the condition of the psychics of individuals and collective bodies, and devising a working method for them.

A. Chizhevsky
November, 1922; 10 Ivanovskaia st., Kaluga, Russia.

Translation:
Sergey Smelyakov (2006) - Chizhevsky's Disclosure: How the Solar Cycles Modulate the History.

 

This article was adopted from:

Mikhail Gorbanev (2015) - Alexander Chizhevsky (1897-1964) - Russian interdisciplinary scientist.

Reference:
Alexander Chizhevsky (1924) - Physical Factors of the Historical Process.
Original in Russian: А.Чижевский (1924) - Физические факторы исторического процесса.

See also:
Alexander Chizhevsky (1938) - Les Epidemies et les perturbations electro-magnetiques du milieu exterieur.
Alexander Chizhevsky (1936) - The Terrestrial Echo of Solar Storms.
Original in Russian: А.Л.Чижевский (1936) - Земное эхо солнечных бурь.

Carlos Garcia-Mata & Felix I. Shaffner (1934) - Solar and Economic Relationships: A Preliminary Report.
A.A. Putilov (1992) - Unevenness of distribution of historical events throughout an 11-year solar cycle.
Original in Russian: А.А. Путилов (1992) - Неравномерность распределения исторических событий в пределах 11-летнего солнечного цикла.

Miroslav Mikulecký (2007) - Solar activity, revolutions and cultural prime in the history of mankind.

L. Gumarova et al. (2012) - Geographically selective assortment of cycles in pandemics: meta-analysis of data collected by Chizhevsky.

Mikhail Gorbanev (2015): Can solar activity influence the occurrence of economic recessions?

The Sun and Market Movements | George Bayer (1939)

This is another pick from the wide spectrum of George Bayer's work and interests, written years before the ascend of modern space technology and space physics. It was not until the 19th century, some 200 years after Galileo's invention of the telescope and discovery of sunspots, that the systematic scientific study of the Sun began. During the second half of the 20th century, correlations reported between solar activity (as manifested in the changing sunspot number and in flares), disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field, and auroral activity clearly suggested the existence of a physical connection between the Sun’s activity and terrestrial magnetic and upper atmospheric phenomena. 

The nature of this connection — one of the central themes of space physics — became the subject of intense study and controversy during the first half of the 20th century. By mid-century, the prevailing theory involved ionized “corpuscular streams” from the Sun that traveled at speeds of 1,000 to 1,600 kilometers per second and within which the geomagnetic field formed a cavity. This picture was changed dramatically in the late 1950s when it was shown theoretically that the outer solar corona could not be static but must be continually expanding outward. The model of individual corpuscular streams was replaced by the modern concept of a continuous solar wind. Of fundamental importance for the field of solar-terrestrial research were the prediction and discovery during the first decade of the space age of a link between geomagnetic activity and the orientation of the magnetic field embedded in the solar wind (the IMF). During the ensuing decades, space physicists made significant progress in understanding this link, which involves the merging of the interplanetary and terrestrial magnetic fields and the consequent transfer of energy, mass, and momentum from the solar wind into the magnetosphere, often resulting in major disturbances of Earth’s space environment. See also HERE

Source:
George Bayer (1939): Preview of Markets for January 1940 (Vol. 1, No. 8); Carmel, California.

SPX vs Solar Activity | 10.7 cm Flux | Sunspots | Ap Index

SPX vs Solar Activity | Sunspots + 10.7 cm Flux | Forecast for March 2017

Mar 01 (Wed) and Mar 05 (Sun) are the upcoming SoLunar Turn Days (HERE);
Mar 05 (Sun) and Mar 07 (Tue) the upcoming Cosmic Cluster Days (HERE)

Earthquakes, Moonquakes, Pandemics, and the Solar Cycle

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.

Sunspots and the Price of Corn and Wheat | William Stanley Jevons

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882)

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) was a British economist and philosopher who foreshadowed several developments of the 20th century. He is one of the main contributors to the ‘marginal revolution’, which revolutionized economic theory and shifted classical to neoclassical economics. He was the first economist to construct index numbers, and he had a tremendous influence on the development of empirical methods and the use of statistics and econometrics in the social sciences. Jevons also analyzed business cycles, proposing that crises in the economy might not be random events, but might be based on discernible prior causes. To clarify the concept, he presented a statistical study relating business cycles with sunspots.

Daniel Kuester & Charles R. Britton (2000) - William Stanley Jevons summarized his thoughts on the effects of weather on economic activity in three chapters of his book Investigations in Currency and Finance (1909). An in-depth examination of these essays reveals some very interesting conclusions. In the first essay entitled “The Solar Period and the Price of Corn” (1875) he first investigates the striking similarity between the length of many historical business cycles and the length of the average length of the sunspot cycle. Jevons finds that the prices of most agricultural products vary dramatically over an eleven year cycle. He cites English agricultural price data from the years 1259-1400. The prices of wheat, barley, oats, beans, peas, and rye reach a relative minimum in the second year of the cycle, an absolute maximum in the fourth year of the cycle and an absolute minimum in the tenth year of the cycle before recovering in the final year of the cycle and the first year of the new cycle. There does appear to be a rather obvious and consistent trend in prices over these eleven year periods. Jevons discovers that the data (English wheat prices from 1595-1761) available to him in the Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) confirm similar although less marked trends in agricultural prices.

Jevons does not discount other significant factors that might cause the rather predictable nature of these business cycles. Technological advancements, wars, and other factors independent of agricultural and weather cycles can and do exhibit great influence over the economic well being of a nation. Also consumer confidence or a lack thereof could cause significant variations in spending and employment. However, Jevons believes that these consumer attitudes may also be related to the sunspot theory and the corresponding droughts and bumper crops which may result. “If, then the English money market is naturally fitted to swing or roll in periods of ten or eleven years, comparatively slight variations in the goodness of harvests repeated at like intervals would suffice to produce those alterations of depression, activity, excitement and collapse which undoubtedly recur in well- marked succession.” Jevons believes that if it were possible to accurately predict the sunspot cycle and the corresponding bumper crops and droughts then it would also be possible to predict impending economic crises.

In the second essay “The Periodicity of Commercial Crisis and Its Physical Explanation” (1878) with “Postscript” (1882) W.S. Jevons continues his study. In this essay he attempts to find empirical evidence to support his claim that business cycles follow predictable patterns which can be tied to the length of the sunspot cycles. Jevons claims that the relationship between weather patterns and business activity display a stronger relationship in primarily agrarian societies such as India and Africa. This claim makes this subject more meaningful in studying the relationship between weather patterns and economic activity in arid and semi- arid lands.

One piece of empirical evidence which W.S. Jevons believed would strengthen his sunspot business cycle theory actually has weakened this theory somewhat in retrospect. “There is more or less evidence that trade reached a maximum of activity in or about the years 1701, 1711, 1721, 1732, 1742, 1753, 1763, 1772, 1783, 1793, 1805, 1815, 1825, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1866. These years marked by the bursting of a commercial panic or not, are as nearly as I can judge, corresponding years, and the intervals, vary only form nine to twelve years. There being in all an interval of one hundred and sixty five years, broken into sixteen periods, the average length of the period is about 10.3 years.” Jevons points out that it is reasonable for the business cycles to vary somewhat in duration as it is reasonable to expect that there will be different lags between droughts and economic downturns based on inventories available and on the variations in trade patterns and ability to obtain imports quickly.

Potentially the most troubling conclusion that Jevons reached was that a sunspot cycle and the corresponding changes in agricultural yield and national productivity would follow a predictable pattern of approximately 10.3 years. Most astronomers now believe that the sunspot cycle does indeed last approximately 11.11 years which is somewhat troubling and is something that Jevons’ son attempts to address. This potential difference in sunspot duration is a primary reason this subject has not been studied as much as might be expected. However the findings of García-Mata and Shaffner provide some credence to Jevons’ theory. “Summing up, we can say that from a statistical point of view there appears to be a clear correlation between the major cycles of non-agricultural business activity in the United States and the solar cycle of 11+ years.” These authors also claim that it is reasonable that there could be some variation in the duration between sunspot cycles and that there is evidence that these cycles do correspond with business activity.

Christopher Scheiner's 1626 representation of the changes in sunspots over time (1630, recordings
from 1611). Scheiner, a Jesuit astronomer, eventually published the definitive work of the 17th
century on sunspots, in which he accepted Galileo’s argument that sunspots "move like ships" on
the surface of the Sun. Scheiner and Galileo agreed that sunspots counted against the Aristotelian
doctrine of celestial incorruptibility. Earlier Jesuits had been open on this point. Clavius argued
for the corruptibility of the heavens after the nova of 1572. Scheiner here publicized the fact that
the Jesuit theologian Robert Bellarmine had argued for the igneous nature of the stars and the
corruptibility of the heavens even before 1572 on the basis of biblical exegesis and the tradition
of the Church Fathers. Cardinal Orsini paid for the printing of this lavish work (Rosa Ursina - The
Rose of Orsini, 1630).

The third essay on sunspots and the business cycle was entitled “Commercial Crisis and Sun-Spots Part I” (1878) and “Part II” (1879) completed W. S. Jevons thoughts on the relationship of weather and business activity. In this essay he continues to discuss the existence of a solar cycle of 10.45 years as being wholly consistent with his findings and being a better predictor of economic variables than the now widely used duration of 11.11 years. Despite this potentially unfortunate conclusion Jevons elaborates on the potential relationship between solar and weather cycles and economic activity. He concludes that solar patterns should be studied to determine if a causal relationship does indeed exist between solar patterns and economic activity. If so, then policies should be enacted to reduce the magnitude of the contraction/recession parts of the business cycle. Jevons further elaborates on the importance of the solar cycle on consumer confidence and spending. “From that sun which is truly ‘of this great world both eye and soul’ we derive our strength and our weakness, our success and our failure, our elation in commercial mania, and our despondency and ruin in commercial collapse.” Jevons also finds more empirical evidence that corn prices in Delhi reach maximum and minimum in a similar eleven year pattern which has been exhibited in Europe. Once more this theory seems much more applicably to arid and semi-arid regions such as India.

Sunspot illustration from Scheiner's Rosa Ursina, 1630.

William Stanley Jevons’ son H. Stanley Jevons continued his work on sunspots and published “Changes at the Sun’s Heat as the Cause of Fluctuations of the Activity of Trade and of Unemployment” in Contemporary Review in 1909. He reissued it in a monograph entitled The Sun’s Heat and Trade Activity (1910) in which he further examined and elaborated on the subject. H. S. Jevons believed that his father had some excellent ideas in relating the sunspot theory to the length of business cycles although he does acknowledge some of the criticisms which have been leveled at the work W.S. Jevons did. He states that the sun’s activity has some effect on economic outcomes and while it is not the only variable which should be considered when formulating economic policy it is worth considering when formulating economic policy.

H.S. Jevons acknowledges that his father was in error when he claimed that he solar cycle would only last approximately 10.45 years. He claims that W.S. Jevons attempted to oversimplify his findings and he ignored some events which created economic booms and busts which had nothing to do with arid land’s agricultural productivity. This is what led him to the false 10.45 year business cycle predictor. However he found that wheat production in the United States displayed significant variation during the nineteenth century and reached its peak approximately every 11.11 years. He found a direct relationship between solar activity and wheat production in the United States. H.S. Jevons believes that the eleven year sunspot cycle is actually a combination of three shorter sunspot cycles which were just over three years in duration. There would be a period of drought approximately every 3.5 years and a period of cold damp weather approximately every 3.5 years. This great harvest would precipitate a trade boom according to Jevons. He finds data that suggest the production of pig iron and agricultural produce in the United States were closely related and followed the sunspot cycle closely. He also states that on occasion the business cycle will only correspond with two of these shorter sunspot cycles explaining the variation in business cycles between seven and eleven years. This can explain the error that W.S. Jevons did not understand about the variation in the length of business cycles. H.S. Jevons provides several suggestions as to how this information about solar activity can be useful. He believes that if output and therefore trade can be expected to decline in the near future that there should be wage cuts to attempt to ensure full employment. This suggestion is not reasonable today but if we are going to engage in interventionary fiscal and monetary policy the potential to predict shortfalls in productivity and potentially consumer confidence can have meaningful implications for expansionary monetary policies being enacted. This is particularly useful if there are actual psychological ties between solar activity and consumer’s attitudes which sounds far fetched but may occur. Jevons also recommends less domestic reliance on crops would reduce the variation in economic prosperity. While crop production is still important in many arid and semi-arid lands, this is not as meaningful to the economy as it was when Jevons wrote.

Sunspots - The Real Cause of Higher Grain Prices | Tom McClellan

Tom McClellan (Jul 27, 2012) - Sunspots are a big driver for wheat prices. Various pundits are putting out stories blaming the drought in the plains states on global warming [...] A better explanation for the drought, and the ensuing spike in grain prices, is that this is all part of the normal 11-year sunspot cycle. But to find that relationship in the data is what the story is about. The first point to understand is that sunspot activity has now been scientifically linked to changes in cloud formation. When the sun is more active, the charge particles streaming out from sunspot activity help to sweep away cosmic rays that might otherwise hit earth's atmosphere, where they play a role in cloud formation [... | HERE + HERE] Once you get past that more difficult scientific hurdle of understanding that cosmic rays and clouds are related, it is pretty easy to understand that less cloud formation is related to less precipitation, and thus poorer growing conditions for rain-irrigated crops. That is what we are seeing with this year's drought, and it has been pushing up grain prices accordingly. Looking across the last hundred years of price data on wheat, it can be difficult to see the relationship between the sunspot number and wheat prices. Part of this comes from the fact that there are other factors which sometimes act upon crop yields and thus grain pricing. But a big factor is that the units we use to measure wheat prices, i.e. US dollars, can vary themselves, causing the relationship with sunspots to sometimes be disguised by what the dollar itself is doing. 



If we look at the history of these two sets of data before the modern era of floating currency exchange rates, we can better see how they were correlated. This chart shows raw wheat prices, un-adjusted for the value of the dollar. The sunspot number data is shifted forward by 2 years to reveal that bottoms and tops in the sunspot number tend to be followed a couple of years later by bottoms and tops in wheat prices. This relationship got into some trouble in the middle part of the chart, when President Roosevelt's New Deal price fixing artificially inflated wheat prices. The intention in the 1930s was to benefit farmers by keeping wheat prices up. That effort switched during WWII to the government putting a cap on all prices, including wheat, to support the war effort. Rationing of food, fuel, and other items took over for market forces. Additional trouble came in the 1970s, when the Arab Oil Embargo pushed up oil prices in 1973-74, reducing acreage under cultivation. Then later in that decade, the rising value in the dollar pushed down the dollar price of most commodities compared to prices in other currencies. So using dollars to see the normal cyclical relationship in price data became problematic.

All of this explanation brings us (finally!) back to the lead chart above. In [the above] chart, I have adjusted the dollar price of wheat, multiplying it by the US Dollar Index, which was created back in 1971. This mathematical step produces a unit-less measure of the value of wheat by factoring out the dollar's movements. Doing this allows us to better see how the peaks and troughs in wheat prices have been related to the sunspot cycle. I want to emphasize again that the sunspot number is shifted forward in that chart by 2 years, to reveal its leading indication for how wheat prices will behave. The conclusion from this is that the upward move in the value of wheat right now is just following the swoop upward in the sunspot number that began in 2009. We should expect to see generally rising prices for wheat and other grains until about 2 years after the sunspot cycle has peaked, a peak which has not even happened yet.