Nile Flooding fluctuations and its possible connection to the long solar variability

Abstract

In the present paper, data of the Nile River flooding, from mid of the seventh century to the end of the ninth century, which collected from different Islamic history books, has been used to investigate the cycles of its level variability. This is considered as the longest direct instrumental climatic record available up to now. It also could provide information, dating back to hundred years, which make it suitable for analyzing climate variations and their possible correlation with the solar activities. The most significant periods were found corresponding to the Gleissberg and Schwabe solar cycles. Also centennial and multidecadal cycles have been found, but at low confidence level. We had found some of these cycles are similar to the solar variability cycles, while others are typical for terrestrial climate that may be considered as possible indication of solarclimate relationship. The results obtained in the work are consistent with other work (Hameed 1984, Shaltout and Tadros 1990, Putter et al 1998) where they had used different version of Nile river flood-level time series.