Solar Cycle Propagation, Memory, and Prediction: Insights from a Century of Magnetic Proxies

• Autores: Muñoz Jaramillo, Andrés; Dasi Espuig, María; Balmaceda, Laura Antonia; Deluca, Edward
• Año de publicación: 2013
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: Solar Activity; Solar Dynamo; Surface Magnetism
• Institución: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

The solar cycle and its associated magnetic activity are the main drivers behind changes in the interplanetary environment and Earth’s upper atmosphere (commonly referred to as space weather). These changes have a direct impact on the lifetime of space-based assets and can create hazards to astronauts in space. In recent years there has been an effort to develop accurate solar cycle predictions (with aims at predicting the long-term evolution of space weather), leading to nearly a hundred widely spread predictions for the amplitude of solar cycle 24. A major contributor to the disagreement is the lack of direct long-term databases covering different components of the solar magnetic field (toroidal versus poloidal). Here, we use sunspot area and polar faculae measurements spanning a full century (as our toroidal and poloidal field proxies) to study solar cycle propagation, memory, and prediction. Our results substantiate predictions based on the polar magnetic fields, whereas we find sunspot area to be uncorrelated with cycle amplitude unless multiplied by area-weighted average tilt. This suggests that the joint assimilation of tilt and sunspot area is a better choice (with aims to cycle prediction) than sunspot area alone, and adds to the evidence in favor of active region emergence and decay as the main mechanism of poloidal field generation (i.e., the Babcock–Leighton mechanism). Finally, by looking at the correlation between our poloidal and toroidal proxies across multiple cycles, we find solar cycle memory to be limited to only one cycle.
Fil: Muñoz Jaramillo, Andrés. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Estados Unidos de América;
Fil: Dasi Espuig, María. Max-Planck-Institut fur Sonnensystemforschung; Alemania
Fil: Balmaceda, Laura Antonia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnológico - CONICET- San Juan. Instituto de Ciencias Astronómicas de la Tierra y del Espacio; Argentina
Fil: Deluca, Edward. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Estados Unidos de América;