Prediction of the Intensity of the Present Sunspot Cycle

Abstract

KING-HELE1 predicted that the intensity of the present sunspot cycle (beginning about late 1964) may resemble the relatively high activity cycles with maxima in 1870 and 1949 and that the solar activity of the forthcoming maximum would reach the level which prevailed in late 1959. This prediction of a fairly high level of sunspot activity for the present cycle can be supported by circumstantial evidence from three periods A.D. 1100–1203, 1724–98 and 1914–64, which have remarkable similarities in various aspects of solar activity, and in terrestrial climate, glacial activity and tree growth.