sunspots – Page 10 – Behind The Black

No sunspots, for the first time in months

August 21, 2010 2:45 am Robert Zimmerman

For the first time in months, the Sun is blank, with no sunspots. This lull should be very temporary, and might very well be the last time we see the Sun so quiet for a long time, as it ramps up to its next solar maximum (even if that solar maximum is very weak).

The August monthly sunspot graph

August 3, 2010 10:27 pm Robert Zimmerman

Waking up is hard to do. Today NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center once again published its monthly graph, showing the progress of the sun’s sunspot cycle in comparison with the consensis prediction made by the solar science community in May 2009.

August 3, 2010 Solar Cycle progression

As I noted when I posted the July graph, the data continues to show that the Sun’s ramp up to solar maximum is far slower and weaker than predicted, despite the stories this week about how Sunday’s coronal mass ejection demonstrates that the sun is “waking up.”

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Two predictions of the next solar maximum

August 3, 2010 9:21 am Robert Zimmerman

Two new predictions of the upcoming solar maximum were published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph preprint webpage. Both call for a weak solar maximum, with one expecting a sunspot number of 92 at maximum while the other predicting a number of 72.

The sun remains quiet

July 7, 2010 11:15 am Robert Zimmerman

On July 6 NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center published its monthly graph, showing the progress of the sun’s sunspot cycle in comparison with the consensis prediction made by the solar science community in May 2009.

July 6, 2010 Solar Cycle progression

The graph shows clearly that, despite press-release-journalism stories like this, the sun remains in a very quiet state, with the number of sunspots far less than predicted by the red line on the graph. If these trends persist (as they have for the last three years), the next solar maximum will either be much later than expected or far weaker. In fact, the upcoming solar maximum might very well be the weakest seen in almost two centuries. Note also that the prediction shown on this graph is a significant revision downward from the science community’s earlier prediction from 2007.