SOLAR ACTIVITY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 148, 27 June 1929, Page 7

SOLAR ACTIVITY

KEY TO PROBLEMS

WEATHER AND EARTHQUAKES

The'Abbo Moreux, the astronomer of the Bourges Observatory in France, is well known in scientific circles ±'or his somewhat revolutionary theories about cycles in the world's weather. - His deductions are based upon observations of periods in solar activity, and, as earthquakes as well as weather are embraced, in- his predictions, his theories are not without interest at the present time.

Writing in the "Daily Mail" last February, when most of Europe had just experienced a remarkably severe spell of winter weather (predicted in the previous October by the Abbe), this French scientist says that those who have followed his 'scientific work will not have, been surprised by the fierce onslaught of winter.- We are, he points out, approaching the end of a cycle of about thirty-four years, which includes three solar periods. The present cycle comprises in its concluding period a series of years during which the rainfall will diminish. There were already signs of this, and the anticyclonic conditions were calculated to bring with them rigorous cold. Severe winters could be expected, therefore, from now onwards until 1937. The cold wave i_ the present year was destined to be all the more severe because the winter months (in the Korthern Hemisphere) coincided with a father rapid fall in solar activity. Each period of solar activity was roughly of eleven years' duration. The last maximum was reached in 1928, since when the curve of solar activity had fallen considerably.

The Abbe then explains the operation of the 34-year cycle, which he, with Sir Norman Lockyer, the eminent English astronomer, established. He opines that the world in general is about to enter upon a period in which the seasons will tend strongly to become more regular. We shall have warm and dry summers and colder and less damp winters until 1935 at least. Another interesting eharacteristie of the years to corao which can be deduced, says tho Abbe, from the precocious fall in solar activity is tho resumption next year, and perhaps before, of seismologieal manifestations. More frequent earthquakes could be expected until 1931. "I remember," writes the Abbe, "that when I first launched these ideas, which were novel at the time, in scientific circles my apparently audacious and revolutionary views provoked not a little adverse comment, but they were approved, and shared by not only Sir' Norman Lockyer, ■ who was one- of the greatest astronomers of his day, but also by Milne, the greatest authority on seismology the world has ever known." The key to the mystery of both weather and earthquakes concludes the Abbe, must be looked for in solar activity, and observatories were being built in all parts of the world to study this activity, not merely on the sun's surface, but in its very depths.