Sunspot update: Sunspot activity rebounds somewhat in June
As I have done since I started this website fifteen years ago, I post at the start of every month an update of the Sun’s ongoing sunspot activity, 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.
Below is that graph, showing that in June sunspot activity rebounded upward somewhat from the shocking drop in activity that occurred in May.
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 taht the ramp down to minimum had begun
Despite that April 2025 prediction that the ramp down to minimum had begun, the precipitous drop in sunspots in May was very much unexpected. It was the very first time this entire solar maximum that the sunspot count was actually below their predictions.
The recovery in June, indicated by the blue dot, tells us nothing however. It could mean that the ramp down is simply returning to more reasonable numbers. Or it could mean that the ramp down has not really begun, and that a second peak could still occur, as happened in the previous solar maximum in 2014.
We simply don’t know. Every prediction by the solar science community in the past two decades has failed to predict what actually happened. They are simply making educated guesses, based on knowledge that remains quite superficial, having no real understanding of the fundamental processes that cause the 11-year solar cycle and the accompanying flips in the polarity of the Sun’s magnetic field.
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 I have done since I started this website fifteen years ago, I post at the start of every month an update of the Sun’s ongoing sunspot activity, 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.
Below is that graph, showing that in June sunspot activity rebounded upward somewhat from the shocking drop in activity that occurred in May.
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 taht the ramp down to minimum had begun
Despite that April 2025 prediction that the ramp down to minimum had begun, the precipitous drop in sunspots in May was very much unexpected. It was the very first time this entire solar maximum that the sunspot count was actually below their predictions.
The recovery in June, indicated by the blue dot, tells us nothing however. It could mean that the ramp down is simply returning to more reasonable numbers. Or it could mean that the ramp down has not really begun, and that a second peak could still occur, as happened in the previous solar maximum in 2014.
We simply don’t know. Every prediction by the solar science community in the past two decades has failed to predict what actually happened. They are simply making educated guesses, based on knowledge that remains quite superficial, having no real understanding of the fundamental processes that cause the 11-year solar cycle and the accompanying flips in the polarity of the Sun’s magnetic field.
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
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