--> Abstract: Lunar Perigee-Syzygy-Declination Cycle Of 8 years: Evidence in Rainfall Records, by J. E. Sanders; #90954 (1995).

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Abstract: Lunar Perigee-Syzygy-Declination Cycle Of 8 years: Evidence in Rainfall Records

John E. Sanders

Widespread acceptance of extraterrestrial influences on the Earth's climate have aroused renewed interest in the possibility that the Earth's Moon may affect the weather. A possible lunar-weather connection has been strengthened by finding an 18.6-yr peak in spectral analyses of weather records. Despite the absence of a demonstrated chain of physical causation between the Moon and the weather, this coincidence between meteorological parameters and the 18.6-yr lunar-nodal period strongly suggests that some physical relationship exists. The lunar Perigee-Syzygy cycle is widely known to exert significant influence on tidal heights. The dates of lunar Perigee-Syzygy coincidences, which constitute the peak points in the Perigee-Syzygy cycle of approximately 14 months, shift re ularly throughout the calendar year. In so doing, the Perigee-Syzygy peaks shift systematically with respect to lunar declination. The lunar phase-declination cycle is an annual one: syzygy phases and lunar position above the Earth's Equator coincide during the Equinox months of March and September; and syzygy phases and lunar position at maximum N- or S declination coincide during the Solstice months of June and December. The time required for the perigee-syzygy cycle to make the full circuit from one declination coincidence (say S with New Moon) in a given month to the opposite situation and back again is about 8 yr. The finding of an 8-yr cycle in some harmonic analyses of rainfall records adds another lunar cycle that should not be ignored.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90954©1995 AAPG Eastern Section, Schenectady, New York