Solar Cycle 25 May Be The Strongest Since Scientific Recordkeeping of the Sun's Activity Began
Yesterday, we reported that NOAA deleted a troubling post admitting that their long range predictions that Solar Cycle 25 (the current cycle) would be calm are no longer valid, and may have been calculated in error.
Coronal mass ejections (CME) from the Sun appear to be picking up in intensity. Image via NOAA.
Now, readers point us to a highly prescient (it would seem!) post by NCAR back in December, predicting just this very contradiction between official predictions for Solar Cycle 25, and reality:
In direct contradiction to the official forecast, a team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is predicting that the Sunspot Cycle that started this fall could be one of the strongest since record-keeping began.
In a new article published in Solar Physics, the research team predicts that Sunspot Cycle 25 will peak with a maximum sunspot number somewhere between approximately 210 and 260, which would put the new cycle in the company of the top few ever observed.
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 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (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.