Observing and counting sunspots constitutes one of the longest-running scientific experiment, with first observations dating back to Galileo and the invention of the telescope around 1610. Today the sunspot number (SN) time series acts as a benchmark of solar activity in a large range of physical models. An appropriate statistical modelling, adapted to the time series' complex nature, is however still lacking.
Mathieu, S., von Sachs, R., Ritter, C., Delouille, V., & Lefèvre, L. (2019). UNCERTAINTY QUANTIFICATION IN SUNSPOT COUNTS. The Astrophysical Journal, 886(7), 14 pp. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab4990 (Original work published 2019)