During August the Sun continued to confound the experts, with the number of sunspots not only greater than July’s high count. the August count exceeded the numbers from December 2001 (215.5 vs 213.4), the last time the Sun was this active.

None of the predictions by anyone in the solar science community had predicted this level of activity.


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.

In 2020 the solar science community had been divided as to what it thought might happen in this solar maximum. A majority went with the NOAA science panel prediction in April 2020 calling for another weak minimum, similar to the one in 2014. A few dissented, however, and instead predicted in June 2020 that the maximum would be one of the strongest ever. Those dissenters however backed down from their own prediction in April 2023, revising their prediction downward so that it was still higher than the NOAA prediction but no longer anywhere as intense.

The numbers in August suggest their original prediction was right. Their decision to change their prediction however tells us that this prediction — as well as all the others — was not based on any solid understanding of the Sun.

The graph to the right shows clearly how long it has been since the Sun had this many sunspots. Though no one knows what will happen in the coming months — and I mean absolutely no one — it does appear that the Sun is about to have the most active solar maximum in more than two decades, with the further possibility that this maximum could match or exceed the strong maximums in the 1980 and 1990. There is even a chance that it could exceed the peak of the 1957 maximum, the strongest maximum so far measured with a record sunspot count of 359.4 in October 1957.

If this high activity occurs, it is also likely that the Earth’s climate will be warmed by it. The mechanism for this warming is not yet identified with any certainty, but the data has shown that in the past 2,000-plus years, when the Sun has a lot of sunspots the climate warms, and when it has few the climate cools.

If it does warm, it is also certain that our propaganda press will not mention the possibility that the Sun is a factor. That leftist media will instead immediately claim — with little evidence — the cause is the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to the evil use of fossil fuels by human beings. They will make this claim despite these known facts:

1. CO2 is a trace gas in our atmosphere and a very very VERY minor contributor to any warming, if any at all. Water is the main global warming component, and without it our climate would be ten to twenty degrees cooler, likely making the Earth much less habitable. The entire theory of human-caused global warming requires this trace gas to somehow instigate warming by that atmospheric water.

2. To date, not one model based on this theory has been successful in predicting the actual temperature changes over the past thirty years. These models missed the long pause in warming that occurred in the past two decades (that by the way corresponded to the weak activity on the Sun). They also generally fail to predict the climate we know happened when they are set to run beginning during any past year.

3. The Earth’s climate is a very complex and chaotic thing. The Sun too is very complex and behaves in ways we do not understand. We have only been studying both with any real accuracy for less than a half century. To predict what will happen next is really impossible at this moment, based on our level of knowledge and ignorance. Scientists are guessing. Some are legitimately trying to guess based on their limited knowledge. Others are guessing for political reasons, and it is this latter group who always declare their guesses are certain and right.

Remember these realities in the coming years. It will help you identify incompetent, ignorant, and politically biased news sources as well as the scientists whose focus is not good research but a desire to push a political agenda.

Of all those updates — numbering about 168 — this month’s is possibly the most significant. Since around 2008, the Sun began a long period where it was unusually quiet, with the solar maximum that occurred in 2014 possibly the weakest in two hundred years. Before that weak maximum begun, half the solar science community predicted it would be a very powerful maximum, while half predicted a weak maximum. Both got it wrong, though the weak prediction was closer though still too high.

When it came time to predict the next solar maximum, expected around 2025, that same solar science community was once again in disagreement. Most approved a NOAA science panel prediction in April 2020 calling for another weak minimum, similar to the one in 2014. A few dissented, however, and instead predicted in June 2020 that the maximum would be one of the strongest ever. In April 2023 however those dissenters chickened out, and revised their prediction downward, still forecasting a peak higher than the NOAA prediction but no longer anywhere as intense.

Based on what happened on the Sun in July, they should have had more faith in their earlier prediction.


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 you can see by NOAA’s new graph above, the number of sunspots in July was the highest in decades, exceeding the highs we had seen in the previous two months by a significant amount.

The graph to the right illustrates starkly how active the Sun has now become. The green line shows that the last time the Sun produced this many sunspots was December 2001, almost a quarter century ago. The most active months in the previous solar maximum in 2014 never came close to matching these numbers.

To sum up: In 2007 the solar scientist community tried to predict the next maximum, and failed. In 2020 that same community attempted again to predict the next maximum, and failed again. In both cases they made their best effort, based on the knowledge they had of the Sun. That knowledge however is very limited, and does not understand the fundamental magnetic processes inside the Sun that cause its magnetic field to flip polarity every eleven years, and during that cycle go from producing many spots to very few. All the scientists really know is that the spots are caused by changes in the magnetic field lines of the Sun’s magnetic field, but why the field does what it does they have no real understanding.

Thus, their predictions are all based on extrapolating past events into the future. The problem with this of course is that past events do not always predict future events, as every stock broker will tell you. The Sun has now proven this adage repeatedly for more than two decades.

Have we reached the peak of the solar maximum? No one has the faintest idea. This could be the peak, but if so it will have occurred much earlier than expected, or will require the Sun to maintain this level of activity for about a year before beginning its ramp down to solar minimum.

It could also be that the monthly sunspot count will continue to rise. The present activity is still significantly below the most active solar maximum measured in 1957. There is presently no reason to doubt the Sun’s ability to return to that level of activity. Whether it will or not remains unknown.

The consequences on Earth of this more active Sun will likely turn out to be politically profound. There is circumstantial evidence that a more active Sun results in a warmer climate on Earth. The causes are not entirely understood, though research suggests the higher activity results in less cloud cover which allows more sunlight to reach the Earth’s atmosphere. In addtion, the higher activity appears to increase the Sun’s total light output, though these numbers are still uncertain.

The global warming activists who now control all climate research work hard to discourage mention of these factors. Instead, they insist that any warming that occurs has to be caused by the human activity that is raising the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And they brook no dissent from this conclusion, even though CO2 remains a trace atmospheric chemical, and is understood to be incapable of causing this rise on its own. All climate models posit instead that the increase in CO2 will interact with the atmosphere’s water vapor (the real climate warming material) and cause it to warm the climate.

This hypothesis remains entirely unproven, and in fact the data over the last three decades suggests it is wrong, that in fact the Sun’s activity is more important.

Have no doubt however that if any increase in warming is detected in the next few years, these activists will make sure the Sun’s potential contribution will be dismissed in order to push their human-caused global warming hypothesis, which will then be used for political purposes to restrict the freedoms of every citizen on this planet Earth.

Remember: these activists are not really scientists. They claim they are, but their agenda has always been political, not scientific, and has always focused on establishing some form of socialist or communist control on human economic activity.

Or as one witty person once said, the entire global-warming crowd is like a watermelon, green on the outside but really red on the inside.

In June the Sun continued the high activity from May, with the sunspot count significantly higher than predicted, 164.2 compared to the prediction of 104.9.


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 graph to the right, comparing last month’s graph over a longer span of time, illustrates how much time has passed since the Sun was this active. The entire previous solar maximum in 2014 never produced a month with this many sunspots, and now we have had two such months in a row.

As for what will happen next, let me simply plagerize what I wrote last month, because everything I said then still applies:

Your guess is just about as good as any solar scientist on Earth. One group of solar scientists — a panel put together by NOAA — predicted this solar maximum would be weak (as indicated by the red curve). Another group of dissenters predicted in 2020 the solar maximum would be strong, then backed off that prediction in 2023, lowering it but keeping it higher than the prediction of the NOAA group.

The pattern until May had suggested the Sun would experience a double-peaked maximum somewhere in between these two predictions. May’s activity however now suggests sunspot activity will instead continue to ramp up and give us a strong solar maximum, possibly as strong or even stronger than the original prediction of those dissenters.

These are all guesses. We really don’t know what will happen.

I can make one prediction however that is almost certain to happen. There is ample evidence that high sunspot activity acts to warm the Earth’s climate, while low activity cools it. The exact reasons are not yet understood, but the correlation exists and goes back several thousand years.

Thus, it is likely this new activity will result in a slight warming of the Earth’s climate.

That is not my prediction however. Instead, I predict with utter confidence that the entire global warming community will instantly use this small rise in temperature and immediately claim, without any certain evidence, that it must be caused by human activity, and will demand again and again that all gas-power cars be banned, that our gas stove be confiscated, that our ability to travel be limited, and that the very idea of human liberty be banned in order to save us from the sky falling.

These activists won’t have any solid data to prove these claims, but they will make them nonetheless. And our bankrupt mainstream media — made up of “journalists” who mostly just rewrite press releases and do little real research of their own — will amplify those claims with great enthusiasm.

I am so certain of this prediction because of what happened during the last very weak solar maximum. During that time the Earth’s climate stopped warming, undergoing a two-decade long pause in any global temperature rise from 2004 through 2022. Yet, no one in this global-warming crowd reconsidered their claims during this time. Instead, for most of that time they simply denied the pause was even occurring, and when they finally admitted it had occurred, they made up absurd excuses for it, such as that somehow the extra heat had been magically grabbed by the oceans and was hidden in their depths.

The climate science community no longer does real science. They don’t look at the data and posit theories. They posit theories — almost always for political reasons having nothing to do with research — and demand those theories be right, no matter what.

I stand by my prediction, with complete confidence. Climate activists are going to claim that any increase in temperature that they record (from data that they themselves have been massaging to produce the results they want) will prove that humans are the cause, and that we had better ban gas-powered cars and ban the use of fertilizers in farming in order to save the world, even if we all die from starvation.

While April had showed only a small uptick in sunspot activity, in May the sunspot activity on the Sun went boom, setting a new high for sunspots during this solar maximum as well as the highest sunspot count since September 2002. The sunspot count of 171.7 smashed the previous high of 160 this cycle, set in June 2023. This new high underlined was by the large solar flare on May 9th that sent the most powerful geomagnetic storm to hit the Earth’s magnetic field in many decades, producing spectacular auroras in many low latitudes.


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 graph to the right underlines how much time has passed since the Sun was this active. The entire previous solar maximum in 2014 never produced a month with this many sunspots.

What will happen next? Your guess is just about as good as any solar scientist on Earth. One group of solar scientists — a panel put together by NOAA — predicted this solar maximum would be weak (as indicated by the red curve). Another group of dissenters predicted in 2020 the solar maximum would be strong, then backed off that prediction in 2023, lowering it but keeping it higher than the prediction of the NOAA group.

The pattern until May had suggested the Sun would experience a double-peaked maximum somewhere in between these two predictions. May’s activity however now suggests sunspot activity will instead continue to ramp up and give us a strong solar maximum, possibly as strong or even stronger than the original prediction of those dissenters.

These are all guesses. We really don’t know what will happen.

I can make one prediction however that is almost certain to happen. There is ample evidence that high sunspot activity acts to warm the Earth’s climate, while low activity cools it. The exact reasons are not yet understood, but the correlation exists and goes back several thousand years.

Thus, it is likely this new activity will result in a slight warming of the Earth’s climate.

That is not my prediction however. Instead, I predict with utter confidence that the entire global warming community will instantly use this small rise in temperature and immediately claim, without any certain evidence, that it must be caused by human activity, and will demand again and again that all gas-power cars be banned, that our gas stove be confiscated, that our ability to travel be limited, and that the very idea of human liberty be banned in order to save us from the sky falling.

These activists won’t have any solid data to prove these claims, but they will make them nonetheless. And our bankrupt mainstream media — made up of “journalists” who mostly just rewrite press releases and do little real research of their own — will amplify those claims with great enthusiasm.

I am so certain of this prediction because of what happened during the last very weak solar maximum. During that time the Earth’s climate stopped warming, undergoing a two-decade long pause in any global temperature rise from 2004 through 2022. Yet, no one in this global-warming crowd reconsidered their claims during this time. Instead, for most of that time they simply denied the pause was even occurring, and when they finally admitted it had occurred, they made up absurd excuses for it, such as that somehow the extra heat had been magically grabbed by the oceans and was hidden in their depths.

The climate science community no longer does real science. They don’t look at the data and posit theories. They posit theories — almost always for political reasons having nothing to do with research — and demand those theories be right, no matter what.

The sunspot activity in March dropped, continuing the pattern of the last five months, where the Sun appears to be in a stable plateau after reaching a high peak in the summer of 2023. It continues to appear that we are in the middle low saddle of a double-peaked relatively weak solar maximum, with the Sun doing what I predicted in February:

If we are now in maximum, sunspot activity throughout the rest of 2024 should fluctuate at the level it is right now, with it suddenly rising again near the end of the year for a period lasting through the first half of 2025. After that it should begin its ramp down to solar minimum.

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.

No one with a right mind however should take my prediction seriously, even if I end up completely right. For example, the sunpost numbers in March actually came close to what NOAA’s panel of scientists had predicted for this month back in April 2020, the first time their prediction has been even close to reality since ramp up to solar maximum began in 2022. That prediction however had said that this activity would be the result of a steady and continuing rise in activity, not a drop.

The bottom line remains: No one understands the fundamentals within the Sun that cause this sunspot cycle. We know it occurs because of the flipping of polarity of the Sun’s magnetic field every eleven years, but why that field flips remains utterly unexplained.

Right now it appears the solar maximum will be a long one, with two peaks stretched apart over a period of as long as four years, with total sunspot activity higher than predicted, though still producing a weak solar maximum.

If this turns out to be what happens, the resulting weak maximum likely signals a continuing pause in any climate warming predicted wildly by global warming activists both in and out of the scientific community. Historically low activity has repeatedly been associated with lower temperatures, for reasons not yet completely understood. There is every reason to expect the same in the coming four years.

And then again, who knows? We really don’t know enough to make any educated predictions.

That graph is below. In February sunspot activity remained essentially steady, only slightly higher than the activity from the month before. Those numbers also hovered at about the same level seen since August 2023.


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.

Overall, the Sun continues to tell us that it wants this solar maximum, predicted to peak in the middle of 2025, to have begun already and be a double-peaked maximum, with the first peak having already occurred in the summer of 2023. When the second peak will occur however the Sun refuses to say. If it occurs before the middle of 2025 it would suggest one of two things. Either this maximum will be an unprecedented triple-peaked maximum, or it will begin and end much earlier than expected, producing a short solar cycle.

If the latter, the Sun will have for the second cycle in a row broke the pattern of the past, where a short cycle meant a very active maximum. The last cycle was short, but its maximum was weak, and double-peaked.

Last month I made the following guess:

If we are now in maximum, sunspot activity throughout the rest of 2024 should fluctuate at the level it is right now, with it suddenly rising again near the end of the year for a period lasting through the first half of 2025. After that it should begin its ramp down to solar minimum.

So far the Sun is making me look good, but it will do what it wants, not what I (or any solar scientist) predict. No one at this moment really understands the fundamental processes that cause this sunspot cycle. We know that sunspots are caused by activity in the Sun’s magnetic field. We know the cycle is linked to the 11-year process whereby that magnetic field flips its polarity.

Why the Sun does these things, as well as sometimes does other things, remains unclear. We can only wait, watch, record the data, and hope we will eventually gather enough information to solve the mystery.

In December sunspot activity increased slightly for the second month in a row, but only by a little bit. The number of sunspots for the month was still significantly below the highs seen in the summer, and continue to suggest that the Sun has already entered solar maximum (two years early), and like the previous two solar maximums in 2001 and 2013, will be double peaked.


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.

Though it remains too early even now to trust any predictions, the Sun will have to increase its sunspot activity quickly and significantly in the coming months, recovering quickly from the drop the past few months, to avoid a double-peaked maximum.

More important, if we are in maximum now, its strength is definitely not what the entire solar science community predicted. The red curve is the prediction of a panel of NOAA scientists, and it predicted the maximum would occur in 2025 with a monthly sunspot high of 115. The high counts that occurred in the summer of 2023 were about 160, 40% higher. Under any statistical system that error margin means that NOAA prediction was the equivalent of throwing a dart at a wall, blindly.

A dissenting group of scientists in turn had predicted a high in 2025 of 233. If we are already in a double-peaked maximum, this prediction is just as wrong, 31% higher than the real peak, which also indicates the prediction was a guess.

Obviously it is still early. The Sun could still be ramping up to a big solar maximum, but even this second group of dissenting solar scientists have admitted it is unlikely it will match their first prediction, stating in April 2023 they expected the high now to be 185. Bully for them. A shoeshine boy in Grand Central Station could have made that prediction, now that we are in maximum.

The scientists are guessing because they really do not understand the fundamental reasons why the Sun undergoes this solar cycle, related to the ebb and flow of its magnetic field. We know it happens, but we don’t know why. Nor do we know why it changes from cycle to cycle, and even undergoes long periods of low activity, called grand minimums, lasting as long as a hundred years.

The significance of this fundamental ignorance relates directly to the Earth’s climate. There is a great deal of climate data that suggests an active Sun causes the climate to warm, while an inactive Sun results in a major cooling. For example, during the last grand minimum in the 1600s, the Earth experienced what scientists call the Little Ice age, with some years having no summers resulting in crop failures and famines.

Knowing why the Sun’s sunspot activity changes will help us better predict any changes in the Earth’s climate. Right now all climate models fail to include the Sun properly in their calculations, essentially because none of them understand that specific component. Until they do, every climate model prediction is suspect.

In other words, in every way you can imagine, the science is not settled.

Last month we saw a drastic drop in August of sunspot activity, suggesting that the next maximum might possibly have been reached, though many months earlier than predicted. This month’s graph below, which shows an increase in activity in September but still well below the highs seen in June and July, strengthens that conclusion.


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 increase in sunspots in September was relatively small, and kept the count well below previous months. Still, the count continues to well exceed the prediction, as indicated by the red line, as well as that prediction’s margin of error, as indicated by the gray curve.

Last month I said this:

The steep drop in activity in August … suggests that we might possibly have reached solar maximum, and will now see several years of up and down fluctuations (as happened during the past maximum), but no great increase matching the past high maximums from the 20th century.

The small rise in September suggests this conclusion could be correct, and that we have reached solar maximum which will continue for the next few years as a period of monthly rises and falls while generally maintaining a steady plateau.

Or not. It is dangerous to put any faith in any prediction relating to this sunspot cycle. The Sun does what the Sun wants to do, and since we don’t understand why it does it, predicting what it will do next is usually a mostly fruitless effort.

Last month the number of sunspots dipped slightly after a gigantic leap of activity in January. This month showed a small rise in activity, but not enough to bring levels back to the January’s levels. Nonetheless, activity remains the highest seen since 2014. when the last solar maximum was approaching its end, and continues to exceed significantly the 2020 prediction by NOAA’s panel of solar scientists.

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.

March’s activity remained well above the high end of the margin of error for the NOAA April 2020 prediction, as indicated by the grey curve. While in general the consistently high activity since the beginning of the ramp up to solar maximum has tracked that prediction’s high end, the numbers for the last three months have well exceeded it.

What does this mean? Practically nothing, since when it comes to predicting the on-going solar cycle of sunspots past performance never predicts future results. It is possible that this ramp up could continue for the next year, making the coming maximum very active. In this case, the NOAA panel’s prediction will be proven wrong, and instead the high prediction by a dissenting group of solar scientists will be right.

It is also equally possible that the ramp up is now ceasing, and that the Sun’s sunspot activity will now stabilize for the next three years at about this level. In this case, NOAA’s panel will be proven right, and we will likely see a double maximum, as occurred during the previous maximum as well as during the 2001 maximum.

At the moment there is no scientist in the world that can truthfully tell us what will happen. The science here is most uncertain, since no one really yet understands the fundamental processes that cause this 11-year solar cycle of sunspot activity, caused by the polarity flip of the Sun’s magnetic field. Scientists know sunspots are caused by activity in the Sun’s magnetic field, but they do not understand the reasons the magnetic field exhibits these cyclical patterns.

Last month the number of sunspots rocketed upward to the highest seen since 2014, and only the second time since November 2002 that the Sun was that active. In February those high numbers dropped, though the sunspot activity during the month remained well above the 2020 prediction by NOAA’s panel of solar scientists.

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.

Since last month the people at NOAA who post this graph decided to add one detail, the margin of error for the 2020 prediction, what they label as the “predicted range.” This is a reasonable addition, since the prediction was always considered an estimate, not precise.

This range suggests that the 2020 prediction is not failing as badly as it appeared previously. Since the beginning of the ramp up to maximum in 2020 the actual sunspot numbers have been consistently above the predicted red curve, suggesting the maximum in 2025 would be much more active than predicted. By showing the predicted range, NOAA’s scientists make it obvious that those higher counts were not that far different than the upper end of the prediction. In fact, except for last month, the actual numbers month-to-month tracked quite closely to that upper end.

Even so, the numbers still suggest that the prediction of NOAA’s panel was too conservative, and that the outlier prediction of a high solar maximum by a handful of dissenting solar scientists could still be right.

For example, the drop in February merely brought the sunspot count closer to the high end of the 2020 NOAA prediction, but still well above it. The trend lines still point to a more active solar maximum than the 2020 prediction.

Based on the Sun’s 11-year sunspot cycle, maximum should occur sometime around 2025, about two years from now. We shall therefore not have long to wait to find out whether that maximum will be weak or strong. If strong, the ramp up in the next year will continue over the next year. If weak, that ramp up should stall, so that it remains hovering at the level of activity it is right now, and stay there for the next three to four years. The previous three solar maximums all did this, staying near the top of activity for three to four years before sunspot activity began to decline to solar minimum.

In December the half-year pause in the ramp up to solar maximum ceased, with the Sun seeing the most sunspots since September 2014. This high activity far exceeded the predicted sunspot count for December 2023, almost doubling it. In fact, December’s sunspot count almost equaled the predicted peak for the upcoming solar maximum, which is not supposed to happen until sometime in 2025.

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 numbers in December now strongly suggest that the solar maximum will be a strong one, not weak as predicted by NOAA’s panel of solar scientists, as indicated by the red curve. The Sun has consistently outperformed that prediction since 2019. The Sun’s activity might still drop down to meet the weak prediction, but that would require it to do things that are extremely unusual.

The high activity is also indicated by the lack of blank days. In 2022, the Sun saw only one day in which the Earth-facing hemisphere was blank, and that one day is likely to be last time the Sun is blank for at least the next four years.

Since scientists do not have a fundamental understanding of the causes of the solar cycle, other than it is related to the Sun’s magnetic field, every prediction about what will happen next is generally guesswork. It might be based on what we know, but what we know is somewhat superficial.

We do know that there has been for centuries a correlation between high sunspot activity and warmer climates on Earth. If the next solar maximum is going to be a high one, this will give scientists an opportunity to find out what causes that correlation. Of course, to do so climate scientists need to study the Sun as it relates to climate, an area of study that flies in the face of the modern narrative that all climate change is caused by human activity. To find that the Sun caused any global warming over the next decade will be unacceptable to the global warming activists who now rule the climate community.

Thus, I doubt many climate scientists will study this problem, and if some do, they shall face enormous pressure and the risk of blacklisting.

Sunspot activity dropped in November, though still remained significantly higher than the prediction, a sunspot number of 77.6 compared to the predicted number of 57.4. At 77.6, the Sun continues the pause that began in June in the ramp up to solar maximum. For the past half year the Sun’s sunspot output has essentially stalled at approximately the same level.

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.

This pause is somewhat unprecedented. Though random fluctuations in the ramp up toward maximum are not unusual, that ramp up has almost always been steep, fast, and more or less continuous. The last time there was any long pause to maximum was during the ramp up to the 1916 solar maximum.

Nonetheless, November once again saw no blank days, continuing the pattern for all of 2022, which has so far seen only one day where the visible hemisphere of the Sun has been blank. While the increase in sunspots has stalled, it has done so at a high enough rate so that we always see sunspots.

Does this pause mean the maximum will end up closer to the predicted weak maximum, as indicated by the red curve? No. What the pause indicates is that the Sun is simply acting in its typically unpredictable manner. It is continuing to have a solar cycle (as predicted) but the details of that cycle remain capricious, and little understood. As I said in last month’s update:

For the actual sunspot count to come into alignment with the prediction we would either need to see a sudden drastic drop in sunspots (unlikely), or the pause would have to continue for the rest of this year and all of ’23.

…Such a pause would be entirely unprecedented.

Of course, the Sun could do this, considering how little we understand the fundamental processes that produce this sunspot cycle. Or it could sudden generate a lot more sunspots, resuming that fast ramp up that suggested this upcoming maximum would be very strong. Or it could suddenly weaken, with sunspot numbers dropping, and thus prove the prediction of NOAA’s panel right.

We simply do not know, cannot predict with any certainty, and can only wait and gather data.

Though sunspot activity dropped in August it remained significantly above the predictions of the panel of government solar scientists put together by NOAA. The predicted sunspot number for August, as indicated by the red curve, was supposed to be about 48. The actual number was 75.

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.

There were once again no blank days in August, so that the total of blank days in 2022 remains a just one.

The trend however in the past few months suggests the possibility that the ramp up to higher activity might have stalled. For most of ’21 and ’22, the number of sunspots had increased monthly at a steady and fast rate. Since May that rate of increase has stabilized.

This speculation however means little. The stall in the last four months could simply be a random fluctuation, to be followed in the next few months with a new ramp up of activity. Or not. When it comes to the Sun and our general lack of understanding as to why it has this eleven year solar cycle, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Nonetheless, the generally high numbers, well above the consensus prediction of the solar science community, still suggests the coming maximum will be very strong. If so, it will be very interesting to see how the Earth’s climate shifts under these conditions. Past strong maximums routinely aligned with warmer temperatures on Earth.

After the first real decline in sunspot activity in June, the Sun recovered that decline almost completely in July. Though the ramp up to solar maximum has stalled somewhat in the last two months, the trend continues to point to a very active maximum, much higher than predicted as well as much stronger than the last very weak maximum in 2020.

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.

No days were blank during July, so this year’s total of blank days remains a measly one. We are definitely moving into the maximum, when Sun’s visible hemisphere will always have sunspots, continuously for the next few years.

If (a very big if) the present trend continues, the upcoming maximum will likely be quite strong, and occur much sooner than predicted. The trend also suggests the Sun might very well return this cycle to the active maximums seen routinely in the twentieth century.

As I have noted repeatedly for the past twelve years, an active Sun correlates with higher global temperatures on the Earth, while an inactive Sun correlates with cooling temperatures. Despite being generally dismissed by global warming activists — who are convinced humans are the only possible reason the climate can change these days — good climate scientists know that the Sun is a major factor in any long or even short term climate variations. An active Sun over the next decade will almost certainly contribute to any warming we might see in the global climate. In fact, it could very well be the main cause of that warming.

None of this however is known with any certainty. In fact, when it comes to the very complex climate of the Earth, nothing is known with any certainty. Remember that the next time some politician — who is without question and with total certainty completely ignorant of the science (no matter the party) — claims “the science is settled!”

In May the sunspot activity on the Sun almost literally exploded, producing some of the strongest solar flares in years as well as the most sunspots since the previous solar maximum in 2014. On several days there were as many as eight sunspot groups on the Sun, with one so large that it was visible to the naked eye on Earth (if viewed properly with a protective filter).

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 you can see from the graph, the number of sunspots in May actually exceeded the sunspot count for many months during the middle of the last solar maximum in 2014. As you can also see, solar activity has also rocketed upward since the solar minimum in 2019, far exceeding the pace forecast in the April 2020 prediction. Based on these numbers, it would not be surprising if solar activity tops the peak of that prediction in the next few months, arriving three years earlier than expected.

Moreover, the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere has not been blank of sunspots since December 11, 2021. At the present levels of activity, it appears that we will not see another blank day for years.

Finally, the rapid ramp up in activity since solar minimum continues to suggest the next maximum will be much much higher than that consensus April 2020 prediction, making the outlier prediction of a handful of solar scientists — that this maximum will be a very strong one — to be the right one.

The Sun continues to prove the foolishness of relying on consensus in science. As I noted in last month’s update,

Scientific results are not determined by democracy, by who gets the most votes. They are instead determined solely by who gets it right, even if only one person does so and everyone else disagrees. Copernicus proved that. So did Galileo.

Sadly, because the Sun’s high activity is likely going to act to warm the Earth’s climate somewhat in the next decade — based on data over the last few centuries that correlates high activity with increased temperatures — the global warming crowd of activists who pose as scientists are going to claim that their consensus prediction is right, that fossil fuels are warming the Earth. This claim however will still be a consensus opinion, not based on proven data, with so many uncertainties that any good scientist should dismiss it.

Unfortunately, there are very few good scientists left, and those remaining have no power and realize if they speak out the blacklisting culture of today will squash them. Dissent in science on the subject of global warming is simply not allowed.

Nor will there be many dissenters. The present generation of scientists has been well indoctrinated. They all believe global warming is coming, and that warming can only be caused by human activity. They will not question that claim, but instead will be easily convinced that any new climate warming proves it right.

And that certainty will mean they will ignore the Sun. Thus the real mystery — far more complex than any consensus can ever imagine — will remain unsolved.

In March the Sun continued its unexpected high activity since the end of the solar minimum in 2020. The number of sunspots once again rose steeply, while also exceeding the predicted count for the month. The actual sunspot count for March was 78.5, not 34.1 as predicted. The last time the count was that high for any month was September 2015, when the Sun was just beginning its ramp down from 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.

The very steady and very steep rise in sunspot activity since 2020 strongly suggests the next maximum will not only occur early, but will be much higher than the 2020 prediction of NOAA’s panel of solar scientists. This pattern also continues to suggest that the outlier prediction of a handful of solar scientists that this maximum will be a very strong one will be the correct one.

Not that this successful prediction would count for much. Both predictions were merely based on the past cyclical but superficial behavior of the Sun. Neither was based on an actual understanding of the fundamental processes that cause sunspots or these cycles. At the moment, scientists really do not know why the Sun’s magnetic field flips its polarity every eleven years, causing a rise and fall of sunspot activity as it does so. All they really know is that the Sun’s magnetic dynamo and field cause the spots.

Nor do scientists yet know if these cycles influence the Earth’s climate. Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that they do. When the Sun is inactive, the Earth’s global temperature appears to cool. When the Sun is active, that global temperature appears to rise. How the two are linked however is not really understood. Though the Sun varies in total radiance in lock step with the sunspot cycle, the variation in optical wavelengthes doesn’t appear to be enough to matter. How much it varies in other wavelengthes is not yet fully known, and even in optical there is great uncertainty. Furthermore, there are other factors, such as cosmic rays, that vary in lock step as well, and could impact the Earth’s climate also.

The 2011 presentation below by scientist Jasper Kirkby is still entirely relevant, and provides a very complete and accurate summary of this science. It also outlines one proposed theory for explaining the link between the sunspot cycle and climate.

The trend of sunspot activity exceeding the predictions continued in February. While the increase in activity from January still left it less than the activity in December, the total number of sunspots is still far above the number predicted by NOAA’s panel of solar scientists in 2020, with the rise towards a solar maximum also much steeper and far faster than predicted.

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.

In fact, the rise in sunspots from month-to-month since the end of the solar minimum in 2020 has been so steep and fast that it is already halfway to the peaks seen in the last maximum in 2014. While it took about two and a half years to get to this level of activity in 2012, it has taken less than two years to do the same now.

More interesting is the steadiness of the present rise in sunspot activity. During the last ramp up to solar maximum, the month-to-month numbers of sunspots varied quite wildly, varying from 50 to almost 150. The present ramp up however has risen quite smoothly, with only a little up-and-down fluctuation in the sunspot numbers from month to month, ranging generally less than 20.

The continuing high numbers and steady and steep rise once again suggest that the prediction of the 2020 NOAA panel will be far too low, while the outlier prediction of a handful of solar scientists that this maximum will be a very strong one will be right. If so, this story will once again demonstrate that science reality is never determined by consensus, but by the actual facts, which sometimes prove the consensus completely wrong.

None of this is proven yet, however. We must exercise patience and see what the Sun brings us in the next three years. The odds of it surprising us again is quite high, as that has been the pattern of all nature since the first human first tried to figure out how to light that first campfire.

While sunspot activity dropped slightly in January, the activity still remained well above the prediction made by NOAA’s panel of solar scientists in 2020, with the upward trend towards a solar maximum much steeper than predicted as well.

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 number of sunspots in January, while dropping slightly from December, was still far greater than the 2020 prediction by NOAA’s panel of scientists. It was also the most sunspots seen in a month since early 2016, almost four years before the Sun hit solar minimum in late 2019. Furthermore, while it took the Sun four years to drop from that activity to minimum, it has only taken it slightly more than two years to return to that activity level. The Sun is ramping up to maximum very fast.

In the past, a fast ramp up like this would be a prelude to a very active maximum, much much higher than the prediction of the 2020 NOAA panel, and more in line with the high 2007 prediction (indicated by the green curve). If so, then the outlier prediction of a handful of solar scientists that this maximum will be a very strong one will turn out to be right, even though that prediction bucked the general consensus of the solar scientist community.

As always, I must note the caveats. First, we don’t yet know how powerful this maximum will be. Despite the fast ramp up and unexpected activity, past performance is no guarantee of future results. We will only know how active the maximum will be once it has happened.

Second, none of these predictions are based on an actual understanding of the processes that create sunspots. Though scientists know the Sun’s dynamo and magnetic field create the spots, and do so in a cycle as the Sun’s magnetic field flips its polarity every eleven years or so, no one understands why the Sun does this, on a fundamental level. All the predictions do is extrapolate from what has been seen in past sunspot cycles to try to guess what the next cycle will be like. With emphasis on the word “guess.”

A very active Sun however will, based on past data, probably act to warm the Earth’s climate, though how it does so remains unclear. One theory, tested with some success by physicists at CERN, suggests that an active Sun reduces the amount of cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere. This in turn reduces the cloud cover, which then lets more sunlight in so that the climate warms.

If the climate does switch from its long pause in warming during the first two decades of the 21st century to a warming period in the 2020s, it is certain that global warming activists will immediately use that warming to claim that human activity is the cause, and we must restrict or end the use of fossil fuels, no matter how impractical or costly.

That claim however will be specious if those activists do not consider solar activity as a factor. While human activity and the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might be the cause of that warming, increased sunspot activity by the Sun could also be as if not more important. Good science demands that we look at all the data, not just the data that pleases us.

The pattern for the past two years since the end of the solar minimum continues, with sunspot activity consistently exceeding the prediction of NOAA’s panel of solar scientists, as indicated by the red curve. The activity in November dropped very slightly from October, but remained more active than the prediction.

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 entire month of November never saw the Sun blank. There were sunspots on its facing hemisphere from the start of the month and every day thereafter. In fact, the Sun now has not been blank since October 18, 2021. And that day ended a month-long string of active days that began on September 18, 2021.

It is very possible we shall not see a blank Sun now for years, as the activity continues to be higher than predicted. We should also see that activity rising in the coming years, leading to maximum sometime around 2025, though the higher activity now suggests the possibility that the maximum could arrive early as well.

Last month I made a prediction that this increased activity might be accompanied by higher global temperatures. That prediction remains. What I also added about that prediction however bears repeated:

If the higher solar activity continues, and we see a strong maximum, I predict that we shall also see a rise in global temperatures in the next decade. Global warming activists will loudly claim that this rise was caused by human activity, and that everyone (but them) must stop using cars and airplanes and fossil fuels to save the planet, even though they will not really know if the two are connected.

It is important to note that I am not doing a similar thing, claiming that the rise in temperatures is definitely linked to higher solar activity. Just as global warming activists have no idea why the temperature rises, neither do I. All I am noting is that changes in solar activity has matched changes in the global temperature, and if we really want to find out what causes those temperature changes, we need to consider all possibilities.

Right now, too many climate scientists dismiss the possible contribution of the Sun. And for them to do good and trustworthy science, they need to stop doing that.

Sunspot activity in October continued to be higher than predicted, though the month saw a slight drop from September. Even so, the number of sunspots seen on the Sun’s facing hemisphere in October were the most since August of 2016, when the Sun was ramping down to solar minimum.

Click for original daily graph.

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 graph to the right shows the day-by-day sunspot activity for October. The high on October 27th corresponds to the major X1-class solar flare from that date. As you can see, there was only one day during the month in which the Earth-facing hemisphere of the Sun was blank. If this higher than predicted activity continues, it is very possible that we shall not see another such blank day for a decade.

Since the end of solar minimum near the end of 2019, sunspot activity has consistently exceeded the April 2020 prediction of the NOAA scientist panel, as indicated by the red curve in the graph. Instead, the increased activity has been more in line with the prediction of several dissenting solar scientists who forecast a very strong maximum.

This activity suggests that either the solar maximum will arrive much sooner than expected, or will be much more active than predicted. Right now we do not know which it will be, and no scientist can really predict. While we know that the sunspot cycle is caused by fluctuations and activity in the Sun’s magnetic field produced by its dynamo, the fundamental reason why it goes through these cycles is not understood.

I myself am willing to make one prediction, which has as much value as the electrons I use to write it. Based on circumstantial evidence of the past several thousand years, higher sunspot activity on the Sun has routinely corresponded with warmer global temperatures on the Earth. Similarly, less solar activity has matched well with lower global temperatures. We had a perfect example of the latter in the past two decades. The Sun had two very deep and extended minimums and one very weak maximum. On Earth the predicted rise in global temperatures ceased, and we had a two decade period with no temperature rise.

If the higher solar activity continues, and we see a strong maximum, I predict that we shall also see a rise in global temperatures in the next decade. Global warming activists will loudly claim that this rise was caused by human activity, and that everyone (but them) must stop using cars and airplanes and fossil fuels to save the planet, even though they will not really know if the two are connected.

It is important to note that I am not doing a similar thing, claiming that the rise in temperatures is definitely linked to higher solar activity. Just as global warming activists have no idea why the temperature rises, neither do I. All I am noting is that changes in solar activity has matched changes in the global temperature, and if we really want to find out what causes those temperature changes, we need to consider all possibilities.

Right now, too many climate scientists dismiss the possible contribution of the Sun. And for them to do good and trustworthy science, they need to stop doing that.

As has happened now for almost every month since the Sun’s sunspot cycle began to increase following the long and deep minimum in 2019, the activity in June exceeded the numbers predicted by the computer models of NOAA’s panel of solar scientists. While the activity dipped slightly from April, it still was more active than predicted.

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.

Though sunspot activity has been higher than the NOAA prediction, it is still somewhat low compared to many earlier solar maximums. If these numbers hold, we are not heading to a strong maximum, but one that is simply a bit more powerful that predicted. It also might end up shorter than predicted, though it is impossible to know that at this time.

And if that happens, it would mean that the Sun has repeated what it did around 1800 as well as 1900, undergoing two consecutive weak maximums before returning to the higher numbers seen during most other solar maximums.

Why the Sun does this remains unknown.

During those earlier weak maximums as well as the long Maunder Minimum lasting most of the 1600s, the Earth’s climate cooled. In the weak maximum of 2009 and 2019 the same thing occurred, the warming of the global climate seen from the 1940s to the 1990s coming to an end.

We do not know why this happens, or even if it linked to the Sun’s sunspot activity at all. What we do know is that the Sun’s solar cycle varies, and that variation appears to have an influence on the global climate on Earth.

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

As I have been expecting now for the last three months, NOAA has finally revised this graph to extend it past the end of 2018. The graph below is the graph from October, which follows the layout and design used since 2007. You can see the differences by comparing the two graphs. In extending the new graph to the end of 2022, they fortunately did not change the design significantly. However, because the new graph has a slightly different scale, I have stretched the green and red curves to make them fit properly. While I suspect the poor quality of the 2007 and 2009 predictions is one reason they do not include them on their graph, I think it essential to add them to better understand the limitations of the science.

Solar sunspot activity continues at the same low levels of the past two months, closely matching the level of sunspot activity in 2008 when the last solar minimum began. The extended red curve indicates when they now think the low point of this solar minimum will take place, in late 2021.While this fits with past behavior, whereby the ramp down to solar mimimum is long and gradual, the Sun simply has not been behaving like it has in the past. I would not be surprised if the low point comes sooner, and lasts longer than normal.

Earlier today I posted a link to a prediction of significantly more activity in the next solar cycle. This conflicts with other predictions calling for an even weaker cycle upcoming, some of which say a grand minimum is possible. That the new graph only provides room for sunspot numbers up to 120, compared to the older graph’s 175, suggests that the majority of the community does not agree with today’s prediction, and expects the next cycle to be weak in activity once again.

Nonetheless, like 2007 the solar science community is split, and uncertain about what will happen. This is to be expected, as none of them really understand the magnetic processes in the Sun that cause sunspots and the variations in activity.

Should a grand minimum occur, with no visible sunspots for decades, it will give scientists a wonderful opportunity to gain some deeper understanding of the solar cycle, as we have not experienced a grand minimum since the 1600s, a time before modern astronomy really existed. And if we do experience a strong solar cycle instead, they will then have a new and different clue for figuring out what is going on.

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

After two straight months of rising sunspot activity, the number of sunspots plunged in October, returning the numbers almost exactly back to the general trend we have seen since 2014 when the solar maximum ended. While the short two month increase indicated that the minimum will not occur as soon as this long term trend suggests, the quick return to that trend this month suggests that it will.

Meanwhile, November is six days old and has yet to see any sunspots at all.

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

As expected, there was a recovery in sunspot activity in July compared to June. Also as expected, the recovery was not significant, so that it appears, based on the past two months, as if the ramp down to solar minimum is accelerating so that solar minimum will occur sooner than expected, possibly as soon as two years.

I would not put much stock on that prediction, however. When sunspot activity first reached this level during the past solar cycle in late 2005, it still took three more years before solar minimum was reached. If this cycle matches the last, that would mean that this cycle, from minimum to minimum, will have lasted 10 years, making a short solar cycle though not one of the shortest. However, it is more likely that the ramp down will stretch out, as it usually does, gliding downward to solar minimum in a slow gentle curve that makes for a full cycle of about 11 years.

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

Not surprisingly, the time periods with no sunspots in June, including a 12 day stretch that just ended today, is reflected by the graph’s precipitous drop in June.

What is significant to me is the speed with which this solar maximum seems to be ending. Normally, weak solar cycles are also long solar cycles. The Sun not only doesn’t get as active, but the ramp up and down is extended, as is the period of the solar minimum. This is what happened during the solar minimum from 2007 to 2010. It was longer than normal, which meant that the solar maximum occurred much later than predicted by the 2007 predictions of the solar science communities (shown in green).

This recent stretch of blank days however is now suggesting that the solar maximum is going to end much sooner than the later 2009 prediction (shown in red). Even more astonishing, the numbers in June aligned with the 2007 high prediction, which would make this one of the shortest solar maximums on record!

I don’t expect these low numbers to continue. I expect sunspot activity to recover and continue, with the minimum likely occurring after 2018. If it does come sooner, however, that will once again be evidence suggesting we are heading for a Grand Minimum, with no sunspots for decades.

Not only is the Sun’s sunspot production continuing to fizzle, it is fizzling even more than before.

This past month the Sun’s production of sunspots dipped again, the third month in a row. In fact, though we are supposed to be in a ramp up to maximum next year, the Sun has actually been in a stall now for the past seven months.

A good way to sense how far below prediction this behavior has been is to compare the red line, which indicates the prediction of the solar scientist community from 2009, with the blue line, which is a smoothed average of the actual sunspot numbers. The curve of that blue line, while initially aiming upwards towards the predicted red line, has in recent months dipped downward, and is even appearing to platform.

Meanwhile, the solar scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center have adjusted their own prediction for the upcoming solar maximum slightly downward, from a sunspot number of 76 at peak to 75, predicted to occur in the fall of 2013. This adjustment is very slight. We shall see if it holds up.

All in all, the Sun is simply not producing sunspots. We will only know whether that fact has any long term consequences when the maximum has finally passed and we move into the next solar minimum. At that time the question won’t be trying to figure out when the next maximum will occur but whether the Sun will even come out of its minimum and begin producing any sunspots at all.

For the second month in a row the Sun’s sunspot activity plunged. The drop in activity has been so steep that it has cancelled out almost two thirds of the activity rise that occurred during the last half of 2010. In fact, the drop brings the Sun’s sunspot count back to numbers comparable with March of last year, hardly a sign of a fast ramp up to solar maximum, which is what solar scientists have come to expect the Sun to do. Instead, the Sun’s activity during this ramp up has fluctuated wildly, going up strongly for several months and then dropping precipitously for another few months. These wild swings have now repeated themselves four times since the fall of 2010.

What will happen next is anybody’s guess. What does seem apparent now is that the next solar maximum is going to be weak. Whether it will match the predictions of the solar scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center, who now think the maximum will be the weakest in 80 years, or will be weaker than that, only time will tell. The wild fluctuations do suggest that the Sun is struggling to produce sunspots during this climb to solar maximum, and is often failing.

Update: I did some checking and found that the Marshall prediction for the next maximum has changed in the last month. Though the scientists there still call for an average sunspot number of 96 at maximum, they have now pushed back that maximum from February 2013 to late in 2013.