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Originally posted by sty
2008, January - according to www.spaceweather.com - the solar cycle started ! the peak activity expected in 2011-2012 (hm.. why 2012 again?) with 50-80% increased activity in comparative with what we call "usual cycle"
Originally posted by NGC2736
reply to post by sty
While the graph looks great in that link, there's not a one-to-one connection for future activity. In hindsight you can say that peak "A" relates to peak "1" in activity six years down the road. But you could also say that peak "B" does it four years down the road. If you just pick out peaks and say their amplitude relates in this way, then all you're really saying is that there are cycles of highs and lows.
What I'm getting at is not that there are cycles, but I find that the evidence seems a bit thin for saying that the strength of one cycle determines the other to an exact degree. Even looking at the chart they show, there are variations in the cycling of one without corresponding changes as significant in the other.
As an example, the geomagnetic spiking effects for the 30 year period between 1907 and 1937 are very erratic, with only some of the spikes shown to relate to solar maxima of the period 1913 to 1945. This indicates a certain amount of arbitrary picking and choosing which spikes to count and which not to count.
Now the following years could be a matter of recording the spikes better through advancing technology, or it could be a matter of disregarding data to fit a preconceived notion of which spikes are to be given due and which are not.
It is because of the possibility that the data itself is not accurate and is being bent to conform to the idea of prediction, which should make a person just a little hesitant to cry doom just yet. (And I mean no disrespect to those researchers in this area. Seeing patterns is a human trait. But people who see patterns in faces on Mars are held to a high standard, so I see nothing wrong with questioning these patterns as well.)