Share this...



By Frank Bosse and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt

(Translated/edited by P Gosselin)

The largest mass of our solar system (99.8% of the total mass) was also rather quiet in January. The determined solar sunspot number (SSN) was 56.6, which is 71% of the mean this far into the period, calculated using the 23 previously measured solar cycles.

Figure 1: Plot of the monthly sunspot number so far for the current cycle (red line) compared to the mean solar cycle (blue line) and the similar solar cycle no. 5 (black).

The earlier peak occurring at month number 35 (fall 2011) signaled the time of the SSN maximum at the sun’s northern hemisphere. The later peaks occurring at about month no. 68 (mid 2014) are the SSN maximum for the sun’s southern hemisphere. What follows is a plot of all cycles, showing the accumulated number of sunspots over the first 86 months into the cycle:

Figure 2: Comparison of sunspot activity for every cycle occurring since 1755. the values represent the deviation from the mean SSN (blue curve in Figure 1).

There are about 3 more years to go before the end of solar cycle no. 24 is reached. When it is finished we will very likely see the red bar representing solar cycle no. 24 in Figure 2 winding up well below that of solar cycle no. 7, which was the last occurring during the Dalton Minimum. That cycle had much more activity in the end phase than what we are seeing in the current cycle.

Prognoses here, however, are fraught with huge uncertainty, as “solar weather” defies all forecasting attempts and no one can say with any certainty what can be expected to happen over the next two years – except for over the long run, the current cycle will end in a rather quiet fashion.

========================

Note from NoTricksZone:

The combination of recent North Atlantic cooling, the projected coming La Niña, and the expected period of low solar activity may see the planet cooling over the next 10 years as fast as it warmed during a few short years in the 1990s. Joe Bastardi’s “Triple Whammy of Cooling” truly is taking shape.