Deadly Tango

Do Geomagnetic disturbances drive homicide rates in the USA Canada? We all know it takes two to tango, what we did not know was that there were others dancing tango along the same longitude, until the Sun pulled the trigger. Beltrão, Almeida and I recently published an article suggesting Solar storms may drive homicides rates across the Atlantic. Because the geomagnetic impact of solar storms may last only a few hours, it would also be interesting to see what happens in countries with reliable homicide data and on the same longitude, meaning simultaneously exposed to the same solar storms. This is why we chose to compare the homicide rates of the USA and Canada. The importance and disparity in structural factors between Canada and the USA, like values, gun ownership, and income inequality, suggest that USA homicide rates should be higher than Canadian ones, and on average they are over three times higher for the period 1990-2020. Nothing new up to here. What is startling is that between 1990 and 2020 homicide rates in the USA and Canada evolved in tandem, with a correlation of 90%!