An applicable method for long-term solar cycle predictions

To satisfy the need of users of long-term solar predictions, an applicable method of solar cycle prediction, using the conception of similar cycles, is proposed in this paper. A verification shows that the method works well in simultaneous predicting of smoothed monthly mean sunspot numbers in the ascending branch of Solax Cycle 23. By this method, every prediction is independent to each other. A prediction for a certain month is not affected by the error of predictions for other months. The selection of the similar cycles should play a key role in deciding the precision of the prediction given in this way. The more conditions are used for the selection of the similar cycles, the less of the selected cycles are and the bigger the risk the prediction has.