Can historical sunspot activity predict the next 20 years?

This experiment compares an autoregressive forecast with a mean baseline on the final 20 years of the dataset.

Historical sunspot activity, a 20-year model forecast, and a mean baseline — Actual activity, model forecast, and baseline.

Methods and limitations

The model uses the previous 11 annual observations. The final 20 years are held out for evaluation. This is a historical test period, not a prediction of current or future sunspot activity.