On the average rate of growth in sunspot number and the size of the sunspot cycle

The average rate of growth in sunspot number over selected time intervals and the maximum average value as they both relate to the size of the cycle are examined, in order to predict the size of cycle 22. The predictions are compared with those of Wilson (1990) to determine whether a consensus is apparent. The average rate of growth during the ascending portion of the sunspot cycle, defined as the difference in smoothed sunspot number values between elapsed time t and sunspot minimum divided by t, is shown to correlate with the size of the sunspot cycle, especially for t greater or equal to 18 months. The maximum value of the average rate of growth is also shown to highly correlate (r = 0.98) with the size of the cycle. Using 4.5 as the maximum value of the average rate of growth, a lower limit for R(M) is estimated. The results show that the findings are consistent with the previous single variate predictions for R(M) for cycle 22.