Word: sunspots
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...mechanical calculator) which he invented to co-ordinate chaotic masses of data, he delved into the temperature and precipitation records of Bismarck, N. Dak., far back into the last century. In them he looked for cycles of 22 years, because that length of time represents two eleven-year sunspot cycles, or one complete magnetic cycle. He found something like the weather cycle he was seeking, but quickly saw that it was of 23 years, not 22. He perceived that a number of periodicities in solar variation which he had discovered years ago were all sub-multiples of 276, the number...
...flaw which Dr. Abbot regretted was an occasional unexpected lag in expected variations, ascribed to irregularity in sunspot development. With long-range weather forecasting as his great goal, he is now preparing temperature & precipitation predictions "for numerous stations in all parts of the world for many years in advance...
...There is some effect on vegetation, evidenced by the record of sunspot cycles in tree-rings...
More dubious are the theories that sunspots affect the habits and numbers of animals, cause droughts, tidal waves, earthquakes, tornadoes. The withering drought of 1929 was close to a sunspot peak, but there were other drought causes-light snows, early thaws-the preceding winter. California's Father Jerome Sixtus Ricard, S. J., "Padre of the Rains," had astonishing success in predicting weather by sunspots, but Father Jerome is dead now and his secret seems to have died with...
...Absurd!" says science to notions that sunspot activity brings influenza epidemics, wars, business prosperity. Prosperity undeniably reigned in 1928, the last sunspot maximum; the depression and the post-War slump were undeniably not far from sunspot minima. Carried further back, the correspondence collapses...