Latest Smoothed Sunspot Number posted 8 Dec '14 at SWPC

[Doug Huffman]

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/index.html

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/Predict.txt

My authority on solar physics Dr. Leif Svalgaard at Stanford U. http://www.leif.org/research/

 

[Dotini]

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/Predict.txt

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
- Yogi Berra

The predicted sunspots for the years 2018 and 2019 look interesting, especially that string of zeroes in the low column. Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't the last time this happened during the "Little Ice Age", or Maunder Minimum?

It will be interesting to see if space weather has any important effect on Earth weather, especially so if we are taxed to fight both global warming and global cooling at the same time.

 

[Astronuc]

The predicted sunspots for the years 2018 and 2019 look interesting, especially that string of zeroes in the low column. Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't the last time this happened during the "Little Ice Age", or Maunder Minimum?

The current trend may be more like the Dalton minimum. Svalgaard and others are working to improve understanding of the previous trends in sunspot numbers (SSN).

http://www.leif.org/research/AGU-2014-Fall-SH11D-07-2015-Revision-SSN.pdf

Our knowledge of the long-term evolution of solar activity and of its primary modulation, the 11-year cycle, largely depends on a single direct observational record: the visual sunspot counts that retrace the last 4 centuries, since the invention of the astronomical telescope. Currently, this activity index is available in two main forms: the International Sunspot Number initiated by R. Wolf in 1849 and the Group Number constructed more recently by Hoyt and Schatten (1998a,b). Unfortunately, those two series do not match by various aspects, inducing confusions and contradictions when used in crucial contemporary studies of the solar dynamo or of the solar forcing on the Earth climate. Recently, new efforts have been undertaken to diagnose and correct flaws and biases affecting both sunspot series, in the framework of a series of dedicated Sunspot Number Workshops. Here, we present a global overview of our current understanding of the sunspot number calibration. While the early part of the sunspot record before 1800 is still characterized by large uncertainties due to poorly observed periods, the more recent sunspot numbers are mainly affected by three main inhomogeneities: in 1880-1915 for the Group Number and in 1947 and 1980-2014 for the Sunspot Number. The newly corrected series clearly indicates a progressive decline of solar activity before the onset of the Maunder Minimum, while the slowly rising trend of the activity after the Maunder Minimum is strongly reduced, suggesting that by the mid 18th century, solar activity had already returned to the level of those observed in recent solar cycles in the 20th century. We finally conclude with future prospects opened by this epochal revision of the Sunspot Number, the first one since Wolf himself, and its reconciliation with the Group Number, a long-awaited modernization that will feed solar cycle research into the 21st century.

http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/
http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrsp-2010-6/download/lrsp-2010-6Color.pdf

Other sites:

http://www.sidc.be/silso/ssngraphics
http://sidc.oma.be/silso/yearlyssnplot

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif

Discussion on Greenwich Observatory observations and those of USAF/NOAA.
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/greenwch.shtml