As people are pointing out, the rate of orbital decay does matter (even if it's not a "plummet"!) -- because everyone concerned knows that solar activity should be increasing to some extent in 2022 as a new solar cycle takes hold.
This plot of sunspot activity, and the (highly correlated) 10.7cm radio flux, indicates that the current cycle (cycle #25) is rising much faster than typical:
As you can see, cycle #24, which ended in 2019, was quieter than expected (annoying to solar physicists who only see a few cycles within their whole career) -- so it's actually very interesting that Cycle #25 is starting out with a bang.
NOAA is the main US government agency tasked with monitoring/predicting solar activity for the protection of ground and space systems. The main facility is the Space Weather Prediction Center which is in Boulder, CO -- that's the data source of the above plots. The SWPC centerpiece used to be a control room with a bunch of people looking at computer monitors filled with various real-time and historical time series.
We don't know why some cycles are less intense, and the last few cycles have generally been on a downward trend (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle#Sunspots). So again, it is indeed quite interesting to see this high activity - if it holds up.
This plot of sunspot activity, and the (highly correlated) 10.7cm radio flux, indicates that the current cycle (cycle #25) is rising much faster than typical:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression
As you can see, cycle #24, which ended in 2019, was quieter than expected (annoying to solar physicists who only see a few cycles within their whole career) -- so it's actually very interesting that Cycle #25 is starting out with a bang.
NOAA is the main US government agency tasked with monitoring/predicting solar activity for the protection of ground and space systems. The main facility is the Space Weather Prediction Center which is in Boulder, CO -- that's the data source of the above plots. The SWPC centerpiece used to be a control room with a bunch of people looking at computer monitors filled with various real-time and historical time series.
We don't know why some cycles are less intense, and the last few cycles have generally been on a downward trend (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle#Sunspots). So again, it is indeed quite interesting to see this high activity - if it holds up.