[CQ-Contest] Will the next solar cycles be weaker than current Solar Cycle 24?

[Bob Shohet, KQ2M]

Hi John,

Thanks for your response and clarification.  You have to be careful in what you write lest you give a very different impression than what you mean.  Far too many people are anti-science and anti-education and seem to think that just because they have an opinion (and/or agenda) on something means that their uninformed “opinion” is just as valid as someone else’s well researched opinion backed up by data.  It isn’t.  

There are always competing theories out there – and some have better methodology than others.  A lot of solar predictions are educated guesswork – we still don’t really know a hell of a lot, but it is continually improving.  Progress is rapid and as more important discoveries are made, theories and predictions will change accordingly.  Two years is an eternity in the field of scientific progress.  

I think back to the evolution of weather forecasting.  In the late 60’s major storm prediction was hit and miss – mostly miss.  In the early 70’s the National Weather Service (NWS) began to use computerized weather models to attempt to forecast major storms and had many high profile misses.  But by the late ‘70’s, it was getting to the point where they were able to forecast several epic Northeast blizzards a few days ahead of time – which finally got the attention of the rest of the field that eschewed computer use.  Not long after, major companies began to hire private weather forecasters who were able to develop and use the latest technology to make business relevant forecasts.  Now, even when an important forecast turns out incorrect, it is unimaginable NOT to continue using them.   

It was incredible to me that this past Summer, Florida was able to begin to preparations for Hurricane Irma 8 days in advance and 3 days before it even reached the Caribbean!  

We are still in the relative infancy of predicting solar cycles and the accuracy of those forecasts will change depending on what new data are gleaned and ideas put forth.  Sure it’s disappointing that solar cycles are in decline – I remember that in the late 70’s – early 80’s the 10 meter openings were deeper into Central Asia than they are now.  I always wondered why and then not long ago it was discovered that the ionosphere had moved considerably lower over the past several decades and therefore the angle of reflection was higher and signals were not propagated as low angle and as far they were back then!  So even with the same general solar flux and sun spot numbers, the openings would not be quite as good on 10M!

I still remember a cover of I believe CQ magazine from either 1975 or 1976 showing a picture of a gas pump with the caption “No More Spots?”.  Inside was an article that predicted the disappearance of sun spots over the next several solar cycles (22, 23 and 24).  Bummer!  Fortunately that is not what happened.  But that was in the mid-70’s when reliable weather forecasting had not yet been achieved – much less accurate solar weather forecasting.  Now we have reliable advance weather forecasting and we are getting better at reliable solar weather forecasting.  

The fact that many stations have much bigger antennas and much better radios now has made up several s-units of propagation.  In the Fall with a SSN=0 and QUIET geomagnetic cndx (a rarity), New England can still experience a modest/brief opening to Europe on 15.  That didn’t happen in the 70’s, except for maybe the two or three biggest super high power I’s or YU’s.    

After 44 years of Dxing, even with SSN’s near 0, I still get surprised with the DX that can be worked on the high bands.

A lesson for us all – be careful with what you write before you write it – leave the hyperbole out - and make sure that you have checked your facts and what you write is accurate before you press “return”.

73

Bob  KQ2M


From: John Geiger 
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 3:12 PM
To: Bob Shohet, KQ2M ; CQ-Contest Reflector 
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Will the next solar cycles be weaker than current Solar Cycle 24?

Hi Bob,

It was never my intent to "bash" an entire field or even an individual
scientist.  I am sorry that it came out that way and will try to choose my
words better in the future.  I can't find the original article I read about
the cycle 24 prediction, but here is a link to a presentation showing that
in 2006 one of the predictions for Cycle 24 was that it would have a
sunspot number of 180 which would make it slightly below Cycle 19, but
higher than any other cycle.

http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Eparvier_SC24_Predictions.pdf

It mentions some of the solar dynamics that I remember the original article
I saw mentioning.  At that time, I do not remember any other predictions
out saying that Cycle 24 would be low or even smaller than Cycle 23.  They
might have been out and I missed them.  I might have only paid attention to
this one because it made Cycle 24 look very promising, and as a DXer with a
small setup, that sounded great!

Again, I was not trying to bash anyone, I was just trying to install a ray
or hope or optimism in what seems like a pessimistic forecast for Cycle 25
(unless you are a low band DXer) by mentioning that not all predictions
come to pass.

73 John AF5CC