Solar maximum may arrive later this year, say researchers

Sunspots [image credit: NASA]

Nothing better than actual observations to make a forecast change. The sun may have put one over the pundits again.
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Solar Maximum is coming–maybe this year, says Spaceweather.com.

New research by a leading group of solar physicists predicts maximum sunspot activity in late 2023 or early 2024, a full year earlier than other forecasts.

“This is based on our work with the Termination Event,” explains Scott McIntosh, lead author of a paper describing the prediction, published in the January 2023 edition of Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences.

The “Termination Event” is a relatively new concept in solar physics. It is a period of time on the sun as short as one month when magnetic fields from one solar cycle abruptly die (they are “terminated”) allowing magnetic fields from the next solar cycle to take over. After a Termination Event, the new solar cycle skyrockets.

McIntosh and colleagues have studied termination events for many solar cycles, and they have discovered that its timing can predict the future. “Our latest work pinpoints the Termination Event between Solar Cycle 24 and Solar Cycle 25 at mid-Dec. 2021,” explains McIntosh. “This tells us about the next Solar Max.”

According to their paper, it is coming between late 2023 and mid 2024, with a peak total monthly sunspot number of 184±63 (95% confidence).