THE SHARP RISE OF LAKE VICTORIA, A POSITIVE INDICATOR TO SOLAR WOLF-GLEISSBERG CYCLES TURNING POINTS

The Sun experiences long range cycles of the order (80-120) years known as the Wolf – Gleissberg cycles. 1877-1878 marks the end of one of those cycles and the beginning of a series of three low activity 12 years solar cycles. 1878 was also characterized by a sharp rise in Lake Victoria level followed by continuous drop till 1890. Later on, the lake level rose and fall in sympathy with solar cycles till the end of the low activity period around 1922 when such correlation ceased to exist. The maximum of the following Wolf – Gleissberg cycle occurred around 1958, followed by another ~ 2.5 meters sharp rise in lake Victoria level in the early sixties. Again 1997 marked the end of the past Wolf–Gleissberg cycle and the beginning of a new era of lower activity solar cycles. As a consequence, the level of Lake Victoria rose sharply by 1.6 meters and at present dropping down is in progress. Such drop is expected to last up till the end of the present 12 year solar cycle in the same fashion as in the 1887 case, leading to drought conditions around 2009±2-3 years. This condition is expected to be followed by a cyclic rise and fall of the Equatorial lakes level in response to solar cycle forcing, perhaps for two or three solar cycles leading to alternate floods and droughts. Attention is made to Nile Basin countries in the Equatorial Lake plateau to take care of such rise which has already been followed by a drop. Several years of drought conditions similar to those that happened around 1900 (When swum south of the Sobat connection to the Nile were dried, similar dryness were also observed in Bahr - ElZaraf) are expected to prevail over Uganda and other Equatorial Lake countries at 2009±2-3 years, 2021± 2-3 and perhaps 2033± 2-3 years. Since several African and the American Great Lakes showed contemporary level rise in the sixties with lake Victoria, alert is extended to governments around Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, Lake Rudolf and other lakes which showed the 1960s rise, to expect droughts in the years mentioned above. Paper II will be devoted to study other lakes on global basis. Similar Lake Victoria rise in the sixties is to be expected at the maximum of the following WolfGleissberg cycle. Similar lake Victoria and other Equatorial lakes rise must have happened at earlier Wolf-Gleissberg turning points, some of them were at 1779(max turning point, 1797(min) and 1838-1840(max)). The abrupt rise of Lake Victoria level is a positive indicator to the Wolf- Gleissberg cycles turning points and can be taken as an indicator to their confirmation. A search for the solar stimuli which lead to such turning points and to the solar terrestrial responses which lead to climate change as manifested by both the rise of the Equatorial Lake levels and the turning points in precipitation cycles worldwide is currently in progress. It is advisable to be ready as soon as possible with the Jungli canal in order to benefit from the rise in Equatorial water particularly at the time of the expected drought in Ethiopia. It is also urgent to benefit from the present excessive rain to increase food production and store it for the time of need. The problem of electricity production at drought conditions perhaps can be solved by an engineering technique that can use something like varying water level in two basins as in the Panama canal.