How many sunspots will there be in the year 2016?

Answer 1

WikiAnswers does not do fortunetelling. And there is no way to know how many sunspots there will be in 2016.

If the sunspot cycle were to follow its normal course, we would expect the "solar max" to occur in 2012 or 2013, and by 2016 we would be on the downward trend to the next solar minimum. But right now, the Sun is NOT following its normal trend; the solar minimum ought to have occurred in 2007, and we should be well on the way to a solar max - but the Sun is mostly spotless, and has been for almost three years now. We expect the sunspot cycle to kick back up any time now - but we've been expecting this for 18 months.

This isn't unheard of; the Sun isn't a watch that keeps perfect time, and every couple of centuries, we experience either a very active sunspot cycle or a very quiet one. Perhaps this is the beginning of a quiet time.

So we are unable to predict what the sunspot number will be in 2016. You can watch the daily sunspot numbers at spaceweather.com, or see pictures of the Sun each day at solarcycle24.com.

Later Update: The answer above was written in October, 2009, when the Sun was essentially spotless. In mid-December 2009, the Sun's activity level began to SLOWLY rise, and now (May, 2010) there are few completely spotless days. We're probably on track for a 2013 solar max.