The cycle that just ended, Sunspot Cycle 24, peaked with a sunspot number of 116, and the consensus forecast from a panel of experts convened by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting that Sunspot Cycle 25 will be similarly weak. The panel predicts a peak sunspot number of 115.
4.2M1.8KMust Watch Sky Events in 2021If the new NCAR-led forecast is borne out, it would lend support to the research team’s unorthodox theory – detailed in a series of papers published over the last decade – that the sun has overlapping 22-year magnetic cycles that interact to produce the well-known, approximately 11-year sunspot cycle as a byproduct. The 22-year cycles repeat like clockwork and could be a key to finally making accurate predictions of the timing and nature of sunspot cycles, as well as many of the effects they produce, according to the study’s authors.
NCAR Deputy Director Scott McIntosh is a solar physicist who led the study. He said:
Scientists have struggled to predict both the length and the strength of sunspot cycles because we lack a fundamental understanding of the mechanism that drives the cycle. If our forecast proves correct, we will have evidence that our framework for understanding the sun’s internal magnetic machine is on the right path.
