When I examine historical events, I try to unravel the underpinning "general principles and mechanisms" that Turchin mentioned. I do this with the desire to use them to build mathematical models (for tracking the evolution of risk factors in frontier market economies).
Recently, I went through a paper which was published in Issue 1.1 of the Journal of Cliodynamics. The paper bears the title: Synthezing Secular, Demographic-Structural, Climate and Leadership Long Cycles: Moving Toward Explaining Domestic and World Politics in the Last Millennium. In the paper, William Thompson, the author, expositioned the link between longterm sunspot activity, climate, diseases and population dymamics.
This got me curious, and motivated me to delve deeper into the topics of sunspot activity, climate, diseases and population dynamics.
In this post, I will share what I discovered, and, I will use Nasa's projections of sunspot activity to establish the timing of future disruptions that may occur in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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...Sunspots and Solar Cycles
According to Nasa, sunspots "appear as dark spots on the surface of the Sun.
Temperatures in the dark centers of sunspots drop to about 3700 K (compared to
5700 K for the surrounding photosphere). They typically last for several days,
although very large ones may live for several weeks. Sunspots are magnetic
regions on the Sun with magnetic field strengths thousands of times stronger
than the Earth's magnetic field. Sunspots usually come in groups with two sets
of spots. One set will have positive or north magnetic field while the other
set will have negative or south magnetic field. The field is strongest in the
darker parts of the sunspots - the umbra. The field is weaker and more
horizontal in the lighter part - the penumbra."
By and large, sunspot activity occurs in cycles that range from nine to eleven years. Each cycle has got a period in which solar activity increases, peaks and dips. Illustration 1, below, shows the 24 cycles of sunspot activity that occurred from 1700 to 2012:
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| Illustration 1 (click on illustration to zoom in) |
In Illustration 1:
- The peaks that are adjoined by the black line are called solar maxima. They are points when sunspot activity is highest (within a sunspot cycle).
- The dips that are adjoined by the green line are called solar minima. They are points when sunspot activity is the lowest (within a sunspot cycle).
Generally, solar maxima have a warming effect on the earth's atmosphere and solar minima have a cooling effect on the earth's atmosphere. According to theories that were propounded by the scientific community, sunspot activity bears a relationship to the following:
- Magnetic storms.
- Aurora borealis.
- Cloud formations.
- Atmospheric halos.
- Thunderstorms and fluctuations of "atmospheric electricity".
- Polar iceberg formation.
- Earthquakes.
...Solar Cycles and Social Unrest
Just after World War 1 started, a Russian professor of Astronomy and Biological Physics named Tchijevsky noticed that the most intense military battles ensued the periods of highest sunspot activity. Thus, he hypothesized that sunspot activity had a causative relationship to incidents of mass unrest.
To test this hypothesis, Tchijevsky:
- Constructed an Index of Human Mass Excitability which covers the period from 500 BC to AD 1922;
- Researched the histories of 72 countries, with a particular focus on signs of human unrest like wars, revolutions, riots, expeditions, migrations (and the number of people who were involved).
His findings can be abbreviated in Illustration 2 below:
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| Illustration 2 (click on illustration to zoom in) |
As Illustration 2 shows, Tchijevsky found that 80% of the significant incidents occurred between the years of maximum solar activity, i.e. from year 3 to year 8 in Illustration 2. This lends credence to his hypothesis: there is indeed a link between maximum solar activity and events of unrest (like wars, revolutions, riots, expeditions, migrations).
According to Tchijevsky, maximum solar activity causes changes in the earth's magnetism and these magnetic changes alter, in turn, people's brainwaves and hormonal levels: It is these hormonal and brainwave pattern changes that make people restless and spawn mass unrest. (click this link for more).
While Tchijevsky's line of reasoning is indeed plausible, it has not received much "follow-up" attention from the scientific community. Thus, it would be difficult to use it to formulate a compelling, evidence-based discussion. Hence, I will not develop it further in this post.
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In an article which is titled Do Variations in the Solar Cycle Affect our Climate System, David Rind from Nasa, wrote:
"Our experiments show that the solar cycle influences tropospheric rainfall patterns in a manner consistent with some observations, with increased solar activity favoring precipitation north of the equator (for example, the South Asian monsoon) and decreased precipitation both near the equator and at northern mid-latitudes. The word "favoring" is used advisedly; in the experiments it is a "weighting of the dice", an increase in the likelihood of these effects while accounting for less than one standard deviation of the variability (a result found in observations as well). Locally it can account for 15-20% of rainfall totals. The influence also seems to have been modified by global warming, and so its effectiveness may change with time. The impact of the solar cycle on precipitation in the model experiments arises from two different mechanisms, the first involving UV changes, the second total solar irradiance."
Hence, one can argue that in an equatorial agrarian society, solar maxima are associated with the following chain of causation:
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| Illustration 3 (click on illustration to zoom in) |
Illustration 3 refers to the elements of human nature in Table 1 below. They were derived from Will and Ariel Durant's text which is titled Lessons of History:
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| Table 1 (click on table to zoom in) Adapted from: Durant 1968 |
Note: Illustration 3 and Table 1 are to be treated as a whole - they do not make much sense if they are read in isolation.
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...The DRC an Equatorial Country
Illustration 4 below, depicts four solar cycles; 21, 22, 23 and 24, and, the wars, waves of ebola outbreaks and war-related disease outbreaks that occured in the recent history of the DRC:
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| Illustration 4 (click on illustration to zoom in) Adapted from Solen.info |
Illustration 4 demonstrates that: 31.25% of the most recent incidents of suffering in the DRC occurred in Period 1 of the solar cycles; 12.5% of the incidents occurred in Period 2 of the solar cycles; 43.75% of the incidents occurred in Period 3 of the solar cycles, and; 12.5% of the incidents occurred in Period 4 of the solar cycles (refer back to illustration 2 for a description of the periods).
While Illustration 4 is based on a very small data set (which represents a very short time period), it does support Tchijevsky's hypothesis; the majority (56.25%) of the incidents of suffering in the DRC occurred in periods of maximum solar activity.
If we postulate that the pattern of incidents of future unrest in the DRC will resemble the pattern that is exhibited in Illustration 4, we can make the prediction in Illustration 5 below:
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| Illustration 5 (click on illustration to zoom in) Adapted from: Nasa data |
According to Illustration 5, incidents of suffering may occur in the DRC:
- In the middle of 2013, i.e. when solar cycle 24 peaks.
- At the end of 2018, i.e. when solar cycle 24 reaches its minimum.
Food for thought!
