Solar Cycle Will Be Weakest…Or Not?

It wasn’t very long ago that we were being told to brace for, in 2012, the biggest solar maximum for some time. Now some scientists are predicting that it will be “the weakest since 1928“.

The panel now expects the sun’s activity will peak about a year late, in May 2013, when it will boast an average of 90 sunspots per day. That is below average for solar cycles, making the coming peak the weakest since 1928, when an average of 78 sunspots was seen daily.

So there’s nothing to worry about, except:

“The panel consensus is not my individual opinion,” says panel member Mausumi Dikpati of the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado.

Dikpati and her colleagues have developed a solar model that predicts a bumper crop of sunspots and a cycle that is 30% to 50% stronger than the previous cycle, Cycle 23.

Such disparate predictions are similar to the global warming debate. Perhaps they are connected after all?

Related posts:

1. NASA: Solar Cycle 24 may have begun
2. Solar Cycle 24 – revised prediction says not as bad
3. 2012 Solar Storm Maximum – Official
4. Cycle Up Some Electricity in a Bunker
5. Farewell Sunspots?