Sunspot update: The ramp down to minimum continues, but barely
The time has again arrived for my sunspot update, based on NOAA’s graph showing the sunspot activity on the Earth-facing hemisphere but annotated further by me to make clear the larger scientific context.
The updated graph of sunspot activity is below, showing that in August (indicated by the green dot) the sunspot count declined for the third straight month, but only by a very tiny amount. The total activity however was the lowest in four years, since August of 2022, when the ramp up to maximum was underway.
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.
Last month I noted that the recent decline strongly suggested that the ramp down to minimum is now definitely happening, and that while still possible it was unlikely that the Sun’s sunspot activity will re-ignite to form a double peaked maximum, as happened during last maximum. The numbers in August reinforce this conclusion.
Based on this pattern, the minimum should occur sometime around 2030 (though please don’t take this prediction seriously). If so, the present sunspot cycle, #25 since the tracking of these cycles began around 1750, will be among the shortest on record, only about ten years long. More interestingly, it will be a weak maximum, which in the past was routinely associated with long cycles, not short. In the past short cycles of ten years were strong, with a lot of sunspots at maximum.
All guesswork at this time. We can only wait and watch.
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Bob wrote “(though please don’t take this prediction seriously)”
Better prediction than NOAA!
Bob wrote “(though please don’t take this prediction seriously)”
I would say a better prediction than NOAA