Armstrong Economics Blog/Nature Re-Posted Dec 1, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

We are now in Solar Cycle 25 with peak sunspot activity expected in 2025. Solar Cycle 24 which ended in December 2019, was of average in length, at 11 years. However, it was the 4th-smallest intensity since regular record keeping began with Solar Cycle 1 in 1755. We’re now in Solar Cycle 25 and we are still in Solar Minimum conditions at this time. Solar Maximum is predicted to occur midway through this cycle which may come as soon as November 2024 but no later than March 2026, with this ideal peak reaching most likely by July 2025.

Right now, the solar wave is conforming more to our model than that of NASA. The Sun has become far more active than NASA has forecast or expected. NASA is beginning to worry that this Solar Cycle 25 could become the Strongest Cycle Since Records Began. Effectively, in terms of our model terminology, Solar Cycle 25 may be a Panic Cycle. In other words, we appear to be headed into the strongest cycle on record following the weakest cycle. That is high volatility in cycle terminology.

So what does this mean for Markets?

Since this Solar Minimum may continue into 2024, that appears to be a very major turning point on our global food index. Most of our models on markets are showing Panic Cycles in the 2027-2028 time period. That appears to be more war than nature.

I warned that Socrates, which monitors everything around the world, noticed a distinct correlation that more volcanos erupt during Solar Minimum. There have been many studies on the impact of UV and gamma radiation during solar changes and events. Gamma-rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation, as are radio waves, infrared radiation, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and microwaves. Gamma-rays can be used to treat cancer, and gamma-ray bursts are studied by astronomers.

I have also reported that our correlation models also show that solar minimums correspond to increased volcanic activity. Volcanic winters take place during solar minimums. It certainly seems that gamma-rays may be the reason volcanoes erupt more during these periods. This certainly also reduces food production and increases disease, presumably because of a rise in malnutrition. However, since gamma-rays are also used to treat cancer, there is at least a basis to warrant further investigation if the increase in gamma-rays during solar minimums impact certain susceptible people or those with particular DNA sequences.

We tend to ignore volcanos since they are not in our backyard. The deadly aspect of these volcanic eruptions is not the loudness of the boom, but how much ash it throws up into the atmosphere which then blocks the sun creating Volcanic Winter.

Go to the beach on a partly cloudy day. When a cloud blocks the sun it suddenly gets cool. This is common sense. As far as volcanoes blocking the sun, well all someone has to do is read: The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History

Mount Tambora (VEI 7) erupted  in 1816 and threw into the air so much ash that it snowed during the summer in New York City. It became known as 18-hundred-and-froze-to-death. This account from history tells the story that 1816 was a year when the sunlight could not penetrate the natural pollution from Tambora. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe in the summer of 1816.

The global cooling altered the natural weather and it resulted in a serious food shortage that set off a mass migration from New England to the Midwest within the USA as people were trying to find the sun. Some saw this as an omen and there was also a religious revival.

Almost one year has now passed since the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano erupted (VEI 5). Only now are we starting to realize that this eruption was the biggest volcanic event in human history. They have mapped the 22,000 km(2) area around the Tonga volcano. This has curiously taken place with the weakest solar minimum on record. More significantly, such a major explosion takes about one year before its true impact is understood worldwide.

Mauna Loa, which is the largest volcano in the world covers half the island of Hawaii. It has erupted 33 times since 1843 making this an average cycle of 5.4 years. It tends not to be extremely violent as many others. Hawaii’s Mauna Loa has therefore erupted for the first time in decades but nearby, Kilauea is also erupting and both on the archipelago’s Big Island. Dual eruptions haven’t been seen since 1984.

The last eruption took place in 1984, making this prolonged quiet period the volcano’s longest in recorded history. More interesting, it is near Kilauea which erupted in 2018. The concern is not this volcano by itself. We are looking around the world at increased volcanic activity for the danger is a volcanic winter coming on top of these shortages manufactured by COVID restrictions.

There has been activity which has been detected in Alaska under what has been an 800-year dormant volcano near Sitka known as Mount Edgecumbe. This volcano was believed to have been extinct since it has not been active for at least 800 years. Earthquakes began earlier this year.

Just in August, in Indonesia, the Anak Krakatau Volcano erupted in Seven Explosions within Two Days. It unleashed 1500-Metre-High Scorching Ash.

The Ahyi Seamount is the largest submarine volcano which lies 449 feet deep in the Pacific Ocean below the Northern Mariana Islands, which are more than 3,700 miles west of Honolulu.

Meanwhile, over in Italy, the Stromboli volcano has also erupted also during October 2022. Several explosions inside of Italy’s Stromboli volcano sent enormous plumes of smoke into the sky and major streams of lava into the Tyrrhenian Sea over the weekend.

Over in Russia, its Shiveluch volcano has become active and now a powerful explosion is considered possible at any moment. It is one of the largest in the Russian far East volcanos recorded and it has had volcanic ash plume rising up to around 13000ft altitude.

There were 5 eruptions last year around the world at 5 or higher on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). The first two eruptions here in 2022 were Bezymianny in Russia during May and Popocatépetl in Mexico during June. There was only one in 2020, but 5 during 2019. It appears we are witnessing a rise in global activity that is starting from a general major low in volcanic activity overall.

We have a string of Directional Changes between 2022 and 2025.  We may be looking at rising volcanic activity into 2025. We will run our models on intensity as well. The undersea Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption of December 2021 into January 14-15, 2022 was a volcanic explosivity equivalent to VEI 5. It was an eruption of a magnitude greater than the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo in The Philippines. According to a news article, the main undersea international fiber-optic communication cable that had been severed in multiple places due to the eruption had been repaired by February 21, 2022, and internet connectivity was restored the following day.

The sheer magnitudes of this eruption tends to warn that we may in fact witness a very significant rise in both the frequency of eruptions as well as the magnitude into 2025. The  VEI describes the size of explosive volcanic eruptions based on magnitude and intensity. The numerical scale (from 0 to 8) is a logarithmic scale, and is therefore similar to the Richter and other magnitude scales for the size of earthquakes.

The largest eruption of magna took place at Yellowstone at Huckleberry Ridge about 2.1 million years ago. Our cycle models on Yellowstone have turned up and the “ideal” target would be in the year 2100. The difference between a VEI5 and VEI6 is a factor of 10 to 100.