If this is proven correct, something might’ve happened with the Sun, because we have seen this potential pattern develop only in the last few cycles. Sometime mid-century the top of one would occur when the other is at the bottom, leading to a much flatter total Sun spot count for a few decades.

Perhaps this is how it gradually inverses its polarity?

Quite speculative, but there’s not so much to go on. Heliophysics is poorly understood and recognized as one of the most difficult subjects in physics to study. The math used isn’t very kind and the data about the Sun’s inner life is sparse. At least ESA’s Solar Orbiter is on its way and after a Venus passage in 2025 will make its first inclined Solar orbit, at 17 degrees, getting the first ever peak at the Solar poles from a 0.28 AU distance. The orbital inclination will gradually increase to 33 degrees in 2030.

One thing I noticed from the chart above : look at the “pause” around 2012 compared to 2022! Very similar but then WHOOSSHH (As Luther said – Don Knotts in the Ghost and Mr. Chicken reference) all heck breaks loose and it’s HOT!! That would put the hottest summer in a while in perspective! And JUST MY LUCK as I had retired in 2015 and was building a big deck in AUGUST!! I do believe the sunspots have more to do with our temps than cow farts!! I recently saw a statistic about BUFFALOES!! There were over 60 MILLION roaming around, just a’chewin and a’stomping, and a’farting but lo and behold – not extreme influence on weather or CO2 levels!! That 60 million is one and a half times more than all the cows we have now! Enough rambling – thanks for the Story !!

Blackwing1: My, my, I had read that story, many many years ago. Falls into a subgenre of science fiction I love that I call “end of the world stories.” Heinlein’s take however is certainly different, and surely disturbing considering the madness overwhelming civilization today.

In the early 1980s Douglas Hofstadter wrote a column for Scientific American (when that magazine was not an embarrassment). One of his best columns was about the emerging chaos theory linked to fractals. Along the way he also once commented that bad ideas can sometimes be like a virus in the human brain, spreading and poisoning minds madly until something happens — usually a war — that cleanses the species.

It appears the human mind is now being overwhelmed by several such viruses, and because of the bomb we have not waged a cleansing war for many decades. Heinlein’s story reflects this analysis.

What will happen next is unclear. Heinlein is wrong on one point. There is no guarantee the curve will resume its upward path.

https://www.powells.com/searchresults?keyword=heinlein+menace+from+earth

It’s a collection of often overlooked stories from the master.

It was published in 1952 in “Galaxy” magazine and has been in at least two different collections of Heinlein’s short stories.

I found what I think is the complete story on-line:
https://www.causeweb.org/cause/sites/default/files/The_Year_of_the_Jackpot.pdf

It’s fairly short…enjoy!

Blackwing1: If I have read this Heinlein story, I probably did so back in the 1960s, a long time ago. It isn’t in my library.

Are you familiar with RAH’s short story, “The Year of the Jackpot”?

Lots of cycles, lots of graphs….let’s hope it’s not all coming together.

It is far too early to make that call, and it is unlikely that this cycle is so much shorter than the other cycles. Had we been this eager to call a (first?) peak in the previous cycle, we would have incorrectly called it in 2011.

It is, however, noteworthy that the two hemispheres seem to be so loosely connected. It is yet another as yet unsolved mystery of the sun.

Rockribbed1: The two peaks do not “always happen”. In fact, it is an exception, not the rule.

Nonetheless, your point is very well taken. It does appear that the north and south hemispheres of the Sun have been more out of synch in the past two maximums. Why is of course not understood.

Has anyone ever compared the storms in the convoy route for the Atlantic between now and WW2?

That might be a very interesting comparison. We knew a lot about weather patterns and frequency (of storms) in the early 1940s.