London - A combination of unusual solar activity and bad timing helped sink the Titanic, a new study of sunspots published in Britain suggests.
Research by Edward Lawrence, a scientist at the Meteorological Office for more than 30 years, suggests the liner set sail across the North Atlantic at the riskiest possible time for iceberg collisions.
The paper, published in the Royal Meteorological Society journal Weather and quoted in the Daily Telegraph, also reports that a sudden drop in temperature recorded by the crew hours before the collision was a sign of looming icebergs.
Lawrence believes the influence of the weather on the sinking of the Titanic in the early hours of April 15 1912, with the loss of 1 500 lives, has not been as well documented as all the other circumstances.
Lawrence, 87, of Bracknell near London, said: "Everyone thought that the weather was so lovely that it couldn't have had anything to do with it. But it was a weather phenomenon."
His study of records suggests a strong connection between the number of icebergs in the area where the Titanic sank and the 11-year cycle of rising and falling sunspots - dark patches that appear on the surface of the sun from time to time. The Little Ice Age of the late 17th century coincided with a period of extremely low sunspot activity.
Lawrence also found that one or two years before a sunspot minimum, stronger than normal anti-cyclones tend to form above the northwest North Atlantic. These are associated with light westerly winds, more northerlies than usual and colder sea temperatures. As a result, icebergs are more commonly found at the southern extreme of their range in the North Atlantic in these years.
The maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912 came just over a year before the sunspot cycle reached its lowest in July 1913. At this time, there were more icebergs than usual, and the ocean was colder than normal, said Lawrence. April is also the start of the spring peak for icebergs. - Sapa-DPA