Sunspot update: The Sun appears ready to once again confound the expertsIt is the start of the month and time once again for my monthly sunspot update, using the update that NOAA posts each month to its own graph of sunspot activity but annotated by me with extra information to illustrate the larger scientific context.
This month’s update graph is below, and it shows once again that it is a big mistake to put any faith into any prediction anyone makes about the Sun’s eleven-year sunspot cycle, tracked by scientists since the 1700s. Beginning in April 2025 the NOAA solar science panel has been predicting that the solar maximum had hit its peak and that we should expect the Sun to begin its ramp down to solar minimum, expected around 2031.
NOT!
The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community for both the previous solar maximum as well as the ongoing maximum. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007 for the previous maximum, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The blue curve is their revised May 2009 prediction. The red curve is the new prediction, first posted by NOAA in April 2020. At the beginning of April 2025 NOAA’s panel of solar scientists added the purple/magenta curve line, predicting that solar maximum was over, and that the ramp down to minimum had begun
In July sunspot activity rose for the second straight month, as indicated by the green dot on the graph. Though activity in July remained below the new April 2025 prediction, the increase in the past two months suggests it is quite possible that ramp down will not happen as predicted, and that the Sun could instead produce a double-peaked maximum, as it did during the previous maximum from 2012 to 2015.
And even if the NOAA prediction turns out to be correct, it would be a big mistake to think these scientists will get it right in the future. They still do not understand the fundamental reasons for this solar cycle, and thus all their predictions are based on superficial patterns, not much different then the patterns used by speculators attempting to make a killing on the stock market. And as we are all warned repeatedly when considering buying stock, “past performance is not a predictor of future events.”
This maxim has been proven by NOAA’s scientists in the past two decades, since every single one of their predictions so far have failed to predict what the Sun ended up actually doing. Their track record has not been good.
But then, I suppose even a broken clock can be right twice a day. So can these scientists. We can only wait and see.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It is the start of the month and time once again for my monthly sunspot update, using the update that NOAA posts each month to its own graph of sunspot activity but annotated by me with extra information to illustrate the larger scientific context.
This month’s update graph is below, and it shows once again that it is a big mistake to put any faith into any prediction anyone makes about the Sun’s eleven-year sunspot cycle, tracked by scientists since the 1700s. Beginning in April 2025 the NOAA solar science panel has been predicting that the solar maximum had hit its peak and that we should expect the Sun to begin its ramp down to solar minimum, expected around 2031.
NOT!
The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community for both the previous solar maximum as well as the ongoing maximum. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007 for the previous maximum, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The blue curve is their revised May 2009 prediction. The red curve is the new prediction, first posted by NOAA in April 2020. At the beginning of April 2025 NOAA’s panel of solar scientists added the purple/magenta curve line, predicting that solar maximum was over, and that the ramp down to minimum had begun
In July sunspot activity rose for the second straight month, as indicated by the green dot on the graph. Though activity in July remained below the new April 2025 prediction, the increase in the past two months suggests it is quite possible that ramp down will not happen as predicted, and that the Sun could instead produce a double-peaked maximum, as it did during the previous maximum from 2012 to 2015.
And even if the NOAA prediction turns out to be correct, it would be a big mistake to think these scientists will get it right in the future. They still do not understand the fundamental reasons for this solar cycle, and thus all their predictions are based on superficial patterns, not much different then the patterns used by speculators attempting to make a killing on the stock market. And as we are all warned repeatedly when considering buying stock, “past performance is not a predictor of future events.”
This maxim has been proven by NOAA’s scientists in the past two decades, since every single one of their predictions so far have failed to predict what the Sun ended up actually doing. Their track record has not been good.
But then, I suppose even a broken clock can be right twice a day. So can these scientists. We can only wait and see.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
All very interesting.
Yes, any backyard astronomer could have a higher probability of being correct.