A letter that was recently published in the UK Daily Mail about the work of Raymond H Wheeler prompted me to find out more:
Professor Raymond H. Wheeler (University of Kansas) compiled 20 centuries of historical records, and concluded from his studies that there exists a most important 100-year-cycle of climatic changes that influences human affairs in a profound manner.
The cycle occurs in four distinct phases, which are descriptive of worldwide conditions rather than specific areas. The four phases are disturbed by secondary leads and delays — as much as 10 years — in isolated and widely separated areas. Prof Wheeler stated:
“The climatic curve is intended to represent — as far as one curve can — the weather trend in the world as a whole at any one time. The curve has no absolute significance. The meaning of the curve at any one time is relative to the pattern of the 100-year old cycle as a whole.”
The 100-year weather cycle and its phases are not of precisely equal duration. The cycle can contract to 70 years or expand to 120. The cycle is divided into a warm and a cold phase, each of which has a wet and dry period. Because people are affected by weather, the cycles of weather produce similar patterns of behaviour and events in history during the same phases of the century-long weather cycle. The phases are: (1) Cold-Dry, (2) Warm-Wet, (3) Warm-Dry, and (4) Cold-Wet. We are now in a cold-dry phase, which will prevail until about 2000 A.D.
Dr. Wheeler extended his research to reveal a continuous, universal cultural pattern of “mechanism” alternating with “humanism” that occurs throughout history synchronously with the 100-year weather cycle……………….
I find this phrase uncannily representative of the modern warm period:
“Second, the decline, onset of decadence, the growing excesses of centralized government, the emergence of dictators, tyranny, fanaticism, communism, and socialism, as the warm epoch continued, and as temperatures and dryness increased.”
Most of the material that we have about Wheeler is found in the book Climate: The Key To Understanding Business Cycles by Raymond Wheeler, (Revised & Edited by Michael Zahorchak). This volume summarizes Raymond H. Wheeler’s extensive research with long climatic cycles and their relationship to the business cycle. In the 1930’s Wheeler began a lifetime study that analysed world climate and cultural activities back to the dawn of recorded civilization.
Wheeler was also the creator of a huge volume known as “The Big Book” which was housed at the Foundation for the Study of Cycles until the late 1990s.
Cycles Research Institute: Raymond H Wheeler
Letter published in the UK Daily Mail:
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
the earth is dying. in x number of years the earth will be a cold dead dry rock. it will be like mars. why? because the sun will start to cool and no matter what any human being does the earth will die. unless of course god says it will not.
“The 100-year weather cycle and its phases are not of precisely equal duration. The cycle can contract to 70 years or expand to 120.” – or perhaps there are no cycles?
“We are now in a cold-dry phase, which will prevail until about 2000 A.D.” – we were?
“Second, the decline, onset of decadence, the growing excesses of centralized government, the emergence of dictators, tyranny, fanaticism, communism, and socialism, as the warm epoch continued, and as temperatures and dryness increased.” – or perhaps the decline of the Maya or 100 similar periods of history?
As someone said recently – the apparent presence of cycles in the climate system doesn’t mean those cycles are really there.
Where’s the hindcast cross validation stats !
So we have 100yr global climate cycles, but they can be up to 120yrs or as short as 70yrs. they have four phases each, but they can have lags or leads of up to 10yrs.
There is basically nothing that cant be explained with rubbish like that – it’s about as convincing as Nostradamus.
Until about the last 150yrs there is also no way of detirmining what the climate was with sufficient accuracy to validate all these “cycles” anyway.
People who prattle interminably about “cycles”, that no one else can see, are invariably nuts. Even if they are Professors.
To jmorrison c/o Le Pere Lachaise
The Earth will not end as a cold dark rock. As the sun gets older it will expand greatly and the earth will be consumed. If anything, it will be a very hot luninated ball of iron before consumption.
I’m rather tired of having this discussion. Whenever somebody mentions Global Warming or Climate Change by way of explaining anything anthroprogenic I know I’m talking to either an idiot or a supernationalist or possibly a Ponzi schemer. Here’s a simple exercise for the slow on the uptake or for those quicker to hop bandwagons than they are to approach ideas with critical thinking; look up on the internet the term +”ice age”, pick a page, any page and read it. Continue reading even so far as to reach the terms “glacial periods” and “intergalacial periods.” Go ahead and stop. Wouldn’t want to overtax your simple reading selves. Then ask yourself, what do you imagine occurred between those periods of coldness and overbearing ice sheets? If you manage to arrive at anything other than warming periods then you’re truly hopeless and no amount of reason will ever penetrate the thickness of your skull. Carry on, then, best you can.
Looks as though Wheeler had more staff than Penny Wong – 200 to 124 and rising.
Colour me shocked; Wheeler looked at a great long stretch of time and concluded that weather and climate are cyclical. I had no idea!
**remove tongue from cheek**
Beano, your comment is bang-on. While I don’t discount the notion that human activity might contribute to the rate and nature of climate change, I think that the degree to which we contribute is barely measurable. And given that, I think it’s incredibly arrogant of the Environmentalist community to assert that mankind is a significant agent of climate change.