Sunspot statistics

According to NASA in 2008 the Sun was at its the lowest level of sunspot activity for almost a century.Read more here. Even more curious was the bar chart that they used:

The data shows the number of days there was no sunspot activity in a particular year. Normally it is good practise to sequence bar charts from highest to lowest to help the reader assimilate information. Unfortunately in this example it causes the years to be out of sequence. Time should be sequenced from left to right with the left being the oldest date and the right being the most recent. I suspect the reason for colouring 2008 in yellow is because the sequence is wrong and the reader has difficulty finding 2008.

It is also jarring that the year is labelled on both the x axis and on the bar itself. My initial reaction on seeing the labels on the bar was that this was the number of units (i.e. 1913 days without Sunspot activity) rather than the year it occurred.

I would also avoid the lines running across the bar chart because it creates boxes that can distract.

Let's redraw the bar chart (I had to approximate the number of spotless days from the original diagram):

O.K. now I can some interesting things. 1911-1913 was big for spotless days. Then a 10 year break until 1923. Then another 10 year break until 1933. Then an 11 year break until 1944. Then a 10 year break until 1954. Then a 12 year break until 1996. Then a 11 year break until 2007-2008. The cycle of 10-12 years between spotless years was hidden from me until I sequenced the bar chart to match the passage of time.