I watched that video twice and it is not the opinion of a group of solar scientists. It is the opinion of one solar scientist, namely Dean Pesnell. He is now calling for another peak like we had in the fall of 2011, but for later this year with high solar activity "possibly" lasting into 2014. The Blue Ribbon panel which forecasted low solar activity for this cycle last met in 2008 according to the story. They are not the group forecasting a double peak. I only heard Pesnell's name associated with that prediction.
If the first part of this solar cycle saw most of the solar activity in the Northern Hemisphere of the Sun why must things balance out as this piece speculates? I realize the Earth is not a star but when the Northen Hemisphere of the Earth is beset by a large number of storms I don't hear weather forecasters calling for an increase in storms in the Southerm Hemisphere because things must balance out.
I don't think we have ever had a cycle where two peaks were spread out over a four year period. If anybody wants to make a friendly wager of that occuring I will gladly take the other side of the wager.
The interesting thing is the video ended with the woman announcer saying, "nobody knows what the sun will do but..." If nobody knows what the sun will do why bother couching this in scientific terms? It's really no different than somebody looking into their crystal ball, or at tea leafs, or frog entrails.
If I were a solar scientist working in what amounts to obscurity, I would make an outlandish prediction, such as this solar cyle will wind up with a high level of solar activity despite the slow start. If wrong, nobody in the general public is going to recall the prediction, but if correct one would become the most famous solar scientist in the world. With all the fame, glory, loads of groupie sex, and money that brings.
I think some of the political forecasters are on to that trick because if one was following the online betting sites which are really extremly accurate markets, Obama was never an underdog, yet prominent political commnetators like Dick Morris were predicting Romney would win in a landslide right until the last day. The bad prediction didn't hurt Morris' career becasue although his contract wasn't renewed at Fox he was given a multi-year contract at CNN so there was no downside for his failure to pick the winner of the presidency despite a high probabilty that Obama would be reelected. That's a nice job!
I have been waiting for the second peak of this cycle and it has been very frustrating as the months pass by. Like most other DXers, I really hope that short burst of activity we saw in the fall of 2011 is not the best this cycle has to offer. If these cycles weren't so long it wouldn't be such a big deal but one gets old pretty fast following sunspot cycles and the average ham is very lucky if he/she sees five of them.
73,
Chris/NU1O
