The Sunspot Theory

Someone sends me an article in Nikkei Shimbun ‘Sun Remains Inactive, Quietest in 50 Years, Possibility of Lower Temperatures on Earth’ today.

Solar activity is in an extremely dormant state, telecommunications interference reduces when sun is inactive, and some observers believe that there is a significant relationship between solar activity, earth’s temperature and even human economic activity.

This started with the 19^th Century English economist Stanley Jevons, who proposed the sunspot theory. Jevons believes that cyclical changes in human activity, which resulting in changes in the economic environment can be affected by cyclical changes in the sun’s energy. He points out that the sunspot cycle as the ultimate cause of the 10 to 11 year economic cycles seen in the UK then. Fluctuations in sunspots alter the weather, which affects grain production in agricultural areas like India, in turn helps or hurts export markets of industrial countries such as the UK.

Perhaps this is a pure coincidence with the current financial crisis as the former FRB Chairman Alan Greenspan dubbed this as the worst in 50 or 100 years.

The previous low point of sunspots was in May 1996 with the next 12 years of high activity. One notes that economic bubble follows another during those 12 years – firstly the global IT bubble, then a series of housing bubbles in different countries, resource bubbles.

Perhaps owing to the sun’s quietest period in 50 years, we are going to see economic bubble to be deflated in a chain reaction. A Kyoto University Professor Yosuke Kamide says that at this inactive sunspot has yet lasted long enough to be called abnormal and certainly that it means for all to guess how deep and long this economic downturn to be?