Alex Doron, Maariv
spots on the sun. Cereals are discounted in England
https://www.hayadan.org.il/flarescorps.html
The common belief in the Middle Ages according to which "everything is in the hands of heaven" was probably not completely without foundation: Israeli researchers discovered a statistical connection between the activity of the sun and the prices of grains in England in the 17th century. It turned out that when fewer spots appeared on the sun, grain prices were higher, and vice versa. The two researchers, astrophysicist Dr. Lev Postilnik from Tel Aviv University and Emek Jordan Valley Regional College, and Gregory Yom-Din from the Golan Institute in Katzrin, wrote an article about this for the journal Physics of the Sun and the Earth, which received the attention of the international science weekly Nature. Their findings confirm a claim made at the beginning of the 19th century by the famous British astronomer Sir William Herschel, regarding the connection between sunspots and grain prices. However, when Herschel's words were received with ridicule, he decided to cancel a series of lectures he had planned on this topic. The same Herschel, by the way, was the one who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, and also coined the term "negative" in photography.
The spots on the sun - cold and dark areas from which the magnetic fields emanate and where the fiery solar eruptions also take place - appear in cycles of 11-10 years. At the peak of the activity that generates this phenomenon, the sky on Earth is indeed less cloudy (a finding that was recently confirmed using satellites). This matter, the Israeli researchers claim, had an effect on the grain harvest: in winters with high clouds, large amounts of rain fell and there was less danger of drought. When the sun's activity was low, as in the 17th century, less rain fell and grain prices in England became higher than usual.
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~738580584~~~12&SiteName=hayadan
