Sunspot update: For the first time in 2022, sunspot activity eases
With the year half over, the Sun in June did something it had not done since the start of the year: The number of sunspots seen daily on the Sun’s visible hemisphere actually declined from the month before.
I know this because, as I do every month, I have posted below NOAA’s monthly update of its graph tracking the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere, with some addition details added to provide a larger context.
The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community for the previous solar 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.
The decline in activity in June even included one day, June 8, 2022, where the Sun was blank, the first time that had happened since a four day stretch from December 9 to December 12, 2021. Based on the amount of activity presently going on, as well as the general increase in the number of sunspots this year, it will not be surprising if that one day in June is that last blank day we see for several years.
Despite the June decline, the sunspot count was still much higher than the 2020 prediction of NOAA’s solar scientist panel, and continues to suggest that the outlier prediction of a handful of solar scientists late in 2020 — that this upcoming maximum will be a very active one — appears more likely to be correct.
Then again, past performance is no guarantee of future results. No one in the solar scientist community really understands the processes that produce the sunspot cycle, so all their predictions are merely based on past patterns. In an object as large and as complex as the Sun, it is likely a mistake to assume such patterns will repeat like clockwork. Instead, we should expect a large dose of chaos in what the Sun does, even if it does it within certain reasonable expected parameters.
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
With the year half over, the Sun in June did something it had not done since the start of the year: The number of sunspots seen daily on the Sun’s visible hemisphere actually declined from the month before.
I know this because, as I do every month, I have posted below NOAA’s monthly update of its graph tracking the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere, with some addition details added to provide a larger context.
The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community for the previous solar 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.
The decline in activity in June even included one day, June 8, 2022, where the Sun was blank, the first time that had happened since a four day stretch from December 9 to December 12, 2021. Based on the amount of activity presently going on, as well as the general increase in the number of sunspots this year, it will not be surprising if that one day in June is that last blank day we see for several years.
Despite the June decline, the sunspot count was still much higher than the 2020 prediction of NOAA’s solar scientist panel, and continues to suggest that the outlier prediction of a handful of solar scientists late in 2020 — that this upcoming maximum will be a very active one — appears more likely to be correct.
Then again, past performance is no guarantee of future results. No one in the solar scientist community really understands the processes that produce the sunspot cycle, so all their predictions are merely based on past patterns. In an object as large and as complex as the Sun, it is likely a mistake to assume such patterns will repeat like clockwork. Instead, we should expect a large dose of chaos in what the Sun does, even if it does it within certain reasonable expected parameters.
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
As the sun is our major heat source, a good understanding of it’s patterns is very important! IMHO