Sunspot update: Sunspot activity continued its decline in January
Another month has passed, meaning it is time for another update on the Sun’s sunspot cycle, based on NOAA’s monthly graph tracking that activity but annotated by me with additional information.
In January the decline in sunspot activity on the hemisphere facing Earth since August 2024 continued, with the number of sunspots dropping to a level not seen since May 2023, when the Sun’s was ramping up from solar minimum to solar maximum.
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.
As I noted in last month’s update, the big question is whether this steady decline in sunspots signals the end of solar maximum and the beginning of the ramp down to solar minimum, or whether it is instead simply the low point in a double-peaked solar maximum, as occurred in the previous solar maximum.
No one knows. We won’t find out for at least one to two more years, since we can only watch and see what the Sun decides to do. Any predictions put forth by the solar scientist community will not be very reliable, and should not be taken very seriously.
Note too that this inability to make good predictions is illustrated by the failure of the solar scientist community to predict what has happened already during this solar maximum. The NOAA panel predicted a weak solar maximum, as indicated by the red curve. It was wrong. Another group of scientists predicted a very strong solar maximum, similar to the green curve prediction (also wrong) for the previous solar maximum. They were wrong too.
Until we can somehow untangle and understand the fundamental processes that cause these cycles, something we do not know as yet, every sunspot prediction is going to nothing more than a vaguely educated guess, really nothing more than throwing darts at a dart board.
And yet when these same scientists are asked about human-caused global warming, many tell us that “The science is settled!” and that we are destroying the climate and that we are all going to die in just a few years from rising sea levels and endless burning summers and no winters.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Another month has passed, meaning it is time for another update on the Sun’s sunspot cycle, based on NOAA’s monthly graph tracking that activity but annotated by me with additional information.
In January the decline in sunspot activity on the hemisphere facing Earth since August 2024 continued, with the number of sunspots dropping to a level not seen since May 2023, when the Sun’s was ramping up from solar minimum to solar maximum.
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.
As I noted in last month’s update, the big question is whether this steady decline in sunspots signals the end of solar maximum and the beginning of the ramp down to solar minimum, or whether it is instead simply the low point in a double-peaked solar maximum, as occurred in the previous solar maximum.
No one knows. We won’t find out for at least one to two more years, since we can only watch and see what the Sun decides to do. Any predictions put forth by the solar scientist community will not be very reliable, and should not be taken very seriously.
Note too that this inability to make good predictions is illustrated by the failure of the solar scientist community to predict what has happened already during this solar maximum. The NOAA panel predicted a weak solar maximum, as indicated by the red curve. It was wrong. Another group of scientists predicted a very strong solar maximum, similar to the green curve prediction (also wrong) for the previous solar maximum. They were wrong too.
Until we can somehow untangle and understand the fundamental processes that cause these cycles, something we do not know as yet, every sunspot prediction is going to nothing more than a vaguely educated guess, really nothing more than throwing darts at a dart board.
And yet when these same scientists are asked about human-caused global warming, many tell us that “The science is settled!” and that we are destroying the climate and that we are all going to die in just a few years from rising sea levels and endless burning summers and no winters.
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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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
Interestingly, spaceweather.com was indicating an abundance of stratospheric clouds in the arctic, indicating a cold snap not seen for some 40-5o years.
If we are at or near solar max, it is a weaker one compared to those seen around 1950, after which, the rate of recession of the Athabasca glacier reduced. It is noted that the 60′ deep crevasses we practiced rescue (1973) are now gone down to rock.
I highly doubt that we can influence sunspots and that the sun will do what it has always done – what it does! We should be thankful for that giant ball of fire in the sky!! There’s no way to accurately predict what the sun is GOING to do, but some emphasis should be on what it DID and how that impacted our weather. I think it’s as simple as MORE SUNSPOT activity = HIGHER TEMPS! I’ve told people that the sun is like one of those radiant heaters – turn up the knob and it gets warmer! AND, you can test it yourself by standing in the full sun and then stepping into the shade – the SUN has a direct effect! BUT, there’s no money to be made in COMMON SENSE!
Robert wrote: “And yet when these same scientists are asked about human-caused global warming, many tell us that “The science is settled!” and that we are destroying the climate and that we are all going to die in just a few years from rising sea levels and endless burning summers and no winters.”
I wouldn’t say that solar scientists are the same as the climate scientists. The climate scientists have discounted any effects from solar activity and focus largely upon the CO2 emissions from human activity, claiming that all increases in CO2 are from human activity despite our burning forests and towns.
The solar astrophysicists are not willing to say that their science is settled, because their science obviously is no where near being settled, and as we saw from the previous solar cycle, there is not a consensus among solar astrophysicists. Since these scientists patiently study the sun decade after decade, they clearly do not think we are going to die in just a few years.
By the way, Greta Thunberg thinks we have five years left, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that the world ends as 2032 begins, but California does not plan on starting its defense against global climate warming change until 2035. According to Al Gore, the world should end in 2000, but he gave us eight more years in 2006. In 1978, Leonard Nemoy was in search of the coming ice age, and even Prince Charles once warned us that we had only 500 days to stop the end of all life on earth (which still hasn’t happened, even now that he is king, with the governmental power to make it happen).
However, solar astrophysicists don’t seem to have such gloomy outlooks for our future.
Great comments Edward
More on glacier retreat.
Saw a video where a glacier emptying into the Antarctic ocean retreated much since the 1950 change.
However, it should be noted that anything emptying into an ocean has, historically, broken of at irregular intervals and is not a good indicator of a change in climate.
The Athabasca (and the Saskatchewan) glaciers are a much better indicator. We do not have as much data on the Saskatchewan glacier and I have not personally been on that one, but reports are that its retreat is similar to that of the Athabasca.