Very interesting, but I'm not sure that we're out of the woods yet. SC25 was never going to be the start of a Grand Solar Minimum (i.e. no-one was forecasting it was going to be a big fat zero), but it could have heralded the start of one! While things are looking fiery at the minute, the actual cycle in approaching max and so tapering could happen quickly. If ths happens (not inconsistent with the trend), then who knows? The butterfly diagram (sunspot latitude diagram) is not ruling anything out: https://twitter.com/AlexStarling77/status/1642284195006251011.
This is good stuff! There's at least one thing that I don't understand in the spaceweather near term forecast which you've reproduced and that's the discrepancies between the McIntosh prediction and the 'Prediction Panel' prediction. These appear to be inconsistent with each other in that their error bars don't overlap.
Another feature that I've noticed from that graph is that the sunspot numbers in each cycle seem to be getting increasingly double peaked. It's maybe a bit early to pronounce the king dead but the next couple of years are going to be interesting!
Are you talking about the red curve on the graph Jim? It appears to peak at just below 200 (I presume this is the central estimate of 184). The 95% confidence interval is +/-63 which looks about right on the graphic. It might happen that the cycle actually peaks at the bottom of their confidence interval, in which case SC25 would be slightly weaker than SC24, so it still might be game on for a GSM in that case. The next year will tell. Solar cycle prediction is perhaps more of an art than an exact science.
I was looking at the discrepancy between the red and blue curves. I don't know how either curve is derived but I think that they're trying to predict the same thing. If the assumptions that underlie both curves are correct then the curves ought to agree at least enough to make their confidence intervals overlap. One or both models must be wrong.
From the more detailed graph in your addendum it looks like the sunspot count has already reached the maxima observed in late 2011 and early 2014 and favours the McIntosh model.
It's still possible that the 'dip' will be further extended this time and solar irradiance will be slightly lower. It probably doesn't matter though as people are so religiously welded to the current nostrum that we could all freeze to death and they'd still not accept it.
SC24 had two definite peaks, the second higher than the first. No idea if this will happen with SC25, but you can see from this latest that sunspot numbers are really picking up:
In a 2020 paper, Prof Zharkova was still predicting a drop in temperature of approximately 1C between 2020 and 2053. This would wipe out nearly all of the global warming (1.2C) which has occurred after 1850. I don't think this is going to happen given the progress of SC25.
"In this editorial, I have demonstrated that the recent progress with understanding a role of the solar background magnetic field in defining solar activity and with quantifying the observed magnitudes of magnetic field at different times allowed us to enable reliable long-term prediction of solar activity on a millennium timescale. This approach revealed a presence of not only 11-year solar cycles but also of grand solar cycles with duration of 350–400 years. We demonstrated that these grand cycles are formed by the interferences of two magnetic waves with close but not equal frequencies produced by the double solar dynamo action at different depths of the solar interior. These grand cycles are always separated by grand solar minima of Maunder minimum type, which regularly occurred in the past forming well-known Maunder, Wolf, Oort, Homeric, and other grand minima.
During these grand solar minima, there is a significant reduction of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance, which impose the reduction of terrestrial temperatures derived for these periods from the analysis of terrestrial biomass during the past 12,000 or more years. The most recent grand solar minimum occurred during Maunder Minimum (1645–1710), which led to reduction of solar irradiance by 0.22% from the modern one and a decrease of the average terrestrial temperature by 1.0–1.5°C.
This discovery of double dynamo action in the Sun brought us a timely warning about the upcoming grand solar minimum, when solar magnetic field and its magnetic activity will be reduced by 70%. This period has started in the Sun in 2020 and will last until 2053. During this modern grand minimum, one would expect to see a reduction of the average terrestrial temperature by up to 1.0°C, especially, during the periods of solar minima between the cycles 25–26 and 26–27, e.g. in the decade 2031–2043."
"Solar Maximum is coming--maybe this year. New research by a leading group of solar physicists predicts maximum sunspot activity in late 2023 or early 2024, a full year earlier than other forecasts."
"This is based on our work with the Termination Event," explains Scott McIntosh, lead author of a paper describing the prediction, published in the January 2023 edition of Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences.
A few months back Finnish researcher Peikko, who some may know from Twitter, pointed out the polar fields were about to flip as they rapidly decayed. An early max is something I've had an inclination for due to the way SC25 has behaved which until quite recently has been quite anemic in terms of large sunspot groups (since changed). I have hypothesised the first peak will be the larger of the two. However, I have wondered why McIntosh have been given such credence as back in 2021 they stated:
“If the Terminator Event happens soon, as we expect, new Solar Cycle 25 could have a magnitude that rivals the top few since record-keeping began,” says McIntosh.
Well actually I don't wonder as when these two came upon the scene it was seized upon by climate cultists to shout down the GSM crowd - which is hilarious because if it heats up globally with a big cycle we don't need the gas of life as an excuses, but hey ho.
The thing is SC25 is not a big cycle. Here is a comparison between some of the lowest solar cycles of the past 200 years (Maunder excluded) and whilst the amplitude is larger than SC24 it does sit nicely within the scope of the late 19thC/early 20thC solar cycles 12, 13, 14 & 16
I'll just watch and see how this goes. I'm not invested in any camp prophesying climate doom as the biggest threat we face are the absolute cretins spreading FUD and their zombified dead eyed souless acolytes demanding to be screwed even harder.
Very interesting, but I'm not sure that we're out of the woods yet. SC25 was never going to be the start of a Grand Solar Minimum (i.e. no-one was forecasting it was going to be a big fat zero), but it could have heralded the start of one! While things are looking fiery at the minute, the actual cycle in approaching max and so tapering could happen quickly. If ths happens (not inconsistent with the trend), then who knows? The butterfly diagram (sunspot latitude diagram) is not ruling anything out: https://twitter.com/AlexStarling77/status/1642284195006251011.
And here with working twitter link: https://twitter.com/AlexStarling77/status/1642284195006251011
Until a "model" can be made that accurately forecasts the next week/month/year everything else is just silicomasturbation.
This is good stuff! There's at least one thing that I don't understand in the spaceweather near term forecast which you've reproduced and that's the discrepancies between the McIntosh prediction and the 'Prediction Panel' prediction. These appear to be inconsistent with each other in that their error bars don't overlap.
Another feature that I've noticed from that graph is that the sunspot numbers in each cycle seem to be getting increasingly double peaked. It's maybe a bit early to pronounce the king dead but the next couple of years are going to be interesting!
Are you talking about the red curve on the graph Jim? It appears to peak at just below 200 (I presume this is the central estimate of 184). The 95% confidence interval is +/-63 which looks about right on the graphic. It might happen that the cycle actually peaks at the bottom of their confidence interval, in which case SC25 would be slightly weaker than SC24, so it still might be game on for a GSM in that case. The next year will tell. Solar cycle prediction is perhaps more of an art than an exact science.
I was looking at the discrepancy between the red and blue curves. I don't know how either curve is derived but I think that they're trying to predict the same thing. If the assumptions that underlie both curves are correct then the curves ought to agree at least enough to make their confidence intervals overlap. One or both models must be wrong.
From the more detailed graph in your addendum it looks like the sunspot count has already reached the maxima observed in late 2011 and early 2014 and favours the McIntosh model.
It's still possible that the 'dip' will be further extended this time and solar irradiance will be slightly lower. It probably doesn't matter though as people are so religiously welded to the current nostrum that we could all freeze to death and they'd still not accept it.
Ah, I see. I think the blue curve is probably a NASA prediction made some time ago.
SC24 had two definite peaks, the second higher than the first. No idea if this will happen with SC25, but you can see from this latest that sunspot numbers are really picking up:
https://solen.info/solar/images/cycle24.png
"The Sun does influence the climate here on earth, quite significantly..."
That might be the understatement of the last 4 billion years or so, since life began on Earth.
In a 2020 paper, Prof Zharkova was still predicting a drop in temperature of approximately 1C between 2020 and 2053. This would wipe out nearly all of the global warming (1.2C) which has occurred after 1850. I don't think this is going to happen given the progress of SC25.
"In this editorial, I have demonstrated that the recent progress with understanding a role of the solar background magnetic field in defining solar activity and with quantifying the observed magnitudes of magnetic field at different times allowed us to enable reliable long-term prediction of solar activity on a millennium timescale. This approach revealed a presence of not only 11-year solar cycles but also of grand solar cycles with duration of 350–400 years. We demonstrated that these grand cycles are formed by the interferences of two magnetic waves with close but not equal frequencies produced by the double solar dynamo action at different depths of the solar interior. These grand cycles are always separated by grand solar minima of Maunder minimum type, which regularly occurred in the past forming well-known Maunder, Wolf, Oort, Homeric, and other grand minima.
During these grand solar minima, there is a significant reduction of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance, which impose the reduction of terrestrial temperatures derived for these periods from the analysis of terrestrial biomass during the past 12,000 or more years. The most recent grand solar minimum occurred during Maunder Minimum (1645–1710), which led to reduction of solar irradiance by 0.22% from the modern one and a decrease of the average terrestrial temperature by 1.0–1.5°C.
This discovery of double dynamo action in the Sun brought us a timely warning about the upcoming grand solar minimum, when solar magnetic field and its magnetic activity will be reduced by 70%. This period has started in the Sun in 2020 and will last until 2053. During this modern grand minimum, one would expect to see a reduction of the average terrestrial temperature by up to 1.0°C, especially, during the periods of solar minima between the cycles 25–26 and 26–27, e.g. in the decade 2031–2043."
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23328940.2020.1796243
Spaceweather.com reports today:
"Solar Maximum is coming--maybe this year. New research by a leading group of solar physicists predicts maximum sunspot activity in late 2023 or early 2024, a full year earlier than other forecasts."
"This is based on our work with the Termination Event," explains Scott McIntosh, lead author of a paper describing the prediction, published in the January 2023 edition of Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences.
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=12&month=04&year=2023
A few months back Finnish researcher Peikko, who some may know from Twitter, pointed out the polar fields were about to flip as they rapidly decayed. An early max is something I've had an inclination for due to the way SC25 has behaved which until quite recently has been quite anemic in terms of large sunspot groups (since changed). I have hypothesised the first peak will be the larger of the two. However, I have wondered why McIntosh have been given such credence as back in 2021 they stated:
“If the Terminator Event happens soon, as we expect, new Solar Cycle 25 could have a magnitude that rivals the top few since record-keeping began,” says McIntosh.
https://wp.me/pi4G5-dUc
Well actually I don't wonder as when these two came upon the scene it was seized upon by climate cultists to shout down the GSM crowd - which is hilarious because if it heats up globally with a big cycle we don't need the gas of life as an excuses, but hey ho.
The thing is SC25 is not a big cycle. Here is a comparison between some of the lowest solar cycles of the past 200 years (Maunder excluded) and whilst the amplitude is larger than SC24 it does sit nicely within the scope of the late 19thC/early 20thC solar cycles 12, 13, 14 & 16
http://solen.info/solar/images/comparison_similar_cycles.png
So no monster cycle and no pathetic cycle either.
I'll just watch and see how this goes. I'm not invested in any camp prophesying climate doom as the biggest threat we face are the absolute cretins spreading FUD and their zombified dead eyed souless acolytes demanding to be screwed even harder.
That's interesting. Thanks. We're not even going to see Dalton Minimum levels of activity though if SC25 does turn out to be higher than SC24.
https://www.solen.info/solar/cycles1_to_present.html