Solar Activity Indices for Ionospheric Parameters in the 23rd and 24th Cycles

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - Characteristics of changes in the solar activity indices (the flux of the solar radio emission at a wavelength of 10.7 cm F and the new version of the relative sunspot...     

Energetics of X-Class Flares at the Minima of 22, 23, and 24 Solar Cycles

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - Quite often powerful flares occur during a decrease of solar activity. In this work, we make an attempt to consider X-class flares at the minima of solar activity cycles...     

Variations of Solar Activity Cycles in the Late Pleistocene Lacustrine Ribbon Clay Rhythms

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - In order to study possible changes in solar activity in the remote transitional climatic period of Younger Dryas cooling (12 700–11 600 ± 100...     

Cyclic Variations,Magnetic Morphology,and Complexity of Active Regions in Solar Cycles 23 and 24

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - In this paper, 2046 active regions of solar cycle 23 and 1507 active regions of solar cycle 24 observed during the period from May 1996 to December 2018 have been...     

Manifestation of Solar-Activity Cycles in the Rhythms of the Lacustrine Banded Clay of the Late Pleistocene and the Modern Era

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - The paper considers the ratio between the spectral and time structures of solar activity, which consists of five main cycles (Schwabe, Hale, Brueckner, Gleissberg, and...     

Nonlinear Dependence of the Solar Flux on Wolf Numbers and Its Variation for Different 11-Year Cycles

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - The statistical, nonlinear, nonmonotonic dependence of the daily mean values of the solar “constant” on the daily Wolf numbers has been established. The...     

Study of Long-Duration Flares and Associated Chromospheric and Coronal Ejections in Solar Cycles 23 and 24

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - A statistical study of long-duration (long-duration event, LDE) flares in the soft X-ray (SXR) range for solar cycles 23 and 24 is carried out. Graphs of the dependence...     

Heteroclinic Cycles in Nature

Izvestiya, Physics of the Solid Earth - Heteroclinic cycle is an invariant of a dynamical system comprised of steady states (or more general invariant subsets) and heteroclinic trajectories. The...     

Cycles in mining seismicity

Stochastic models of self-organized criticality and intermittent criticality are used to describe the structure of seismic catalogs. The intermittent models introduce three phases of the seismic cycle: increase in seismic energy, seismic relaxation, and seismic quiescence after the final relaxation. In this paper, seismic mining catalogs from a deep copper mine are searched to find these three phases of the seismic cycle. In spite of the differences between the seismic records from earthquakes and the building of stresses in the mine, the cycles can be estimated in mining seismicity.     

Solar cycle evolution of the heliospheric magnetic field: The Ulysses legacy

Important contributions of Ulysses to understanding the solar cycle evolution of the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) and solar wind are reviewed: a dramatic reorientation of the HMF as the solar dipole rotates between axial and equatorial orientations; solar cycle variation of the total heliospheric magnetic flux and its response to changes in solar magnetic fields; the unusual on-going solar minimum and its effects; a connection between magnetic flux and solar wind mass flux in the heliosphere and at the source; a recurrent north–south heliospheric asymmetry at solar minimum and the equatorial offset of the solar magnetic dipole.     

太阳风压力系数的研究

利用全球磁流体力学(MHD)的模拟结果,研究了太阳风压力系数与上游太阳风参数和日下点磁层顶张角的相关性.在识别出日下点附近磁层顶位置后,通过拟合得到日下点附近的磁层顶张角.在考虑上游太阳风中的磁压和热压以及磁层顶外侧的太阳风动压的情况下,计算了太阳风压力系数.通过分析行星际磁场不同方向时太阳风动压在日地连线上与磁压和热压的转化关系,详细研究了太阳风参数和日下点磁层顶张角对太阳风压力系数的影响,得到以下相关结论:(1) 在北向行星际磁场较大(B_z≥5 nT)时,磁层顶外侧磁压占主导,南向行星际磁场时磁层顶外侧热压占主导;(2) 太阳风压力系数随着行星际磁场的增大而增大,随着行星际磁场时钟角的增大而减小;并且在行星际磁场大小和其他太阳风条件相同时,北向行星际磁场时的太阳风压力系数要大于南向行星际磁场时的;北向行星际磁场时,太阳风压力系数随着太阳风动压的增大而减小,南向行星际磁场时,太阳风压力系数随着太阳风动压的增大而增大;以上结论是对观测结果的扩展;(3) 最后,我们还发现太阳风压力系数随着日下点磁层顶张角的增大而增大.     

Estimate of the effect of the 11-year solar activity cycle on the ozone content in the stratosphere

Using spectral, cross-spectral, and regression methods, we analyzed the effect of the 11-year cycle of solar activity on the ozone content in the stratosphere and lower mesosphere via satellite measurement data obtained with the help of SBUV/SBUV2 instruments in 1978–2003. We revealed a high coherence between the ozone content and solar activity level on the solar cycle scale. In much of this area, the ozone content varies approximately in phase with the solar cycle; however, in areas of significant gradients of ozone mixing ratio in the middle stratosphere, the phase shift between ozone and solar oscillations can be considerable, up to π/2. This can be caused by dynamical processes. The altitude maxima of ozone sensitivity to the 11-year solar cycle were found in the upper vicinity of the stratopause (50–55 km), in the middle stratosphere (35–40 km), and the lower stratosphere (below 25 km). Maximal changes in ozone content in the solar cycle (up to 10% and more) were found in winter and spring in polar regions.     

Implications for the low latitude cloud formations from solar activity and the quasi-biennial oscillation

We examined the effect of the 11-year solar cycle and quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) on the ～27-day solar rotational period detected in tropical convective cloud activity. We analyzed the data of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) for AD1979–2004, dividing into four different cases by the combination of high and low solar activities in terms of the 11-year variation, and easterly and westerly stratospheric winds associated with QBO. As a result, ～27-day variation has been most significantly detected in high solar activity period around the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool. Based on correlation analysis, we find that solar rotation signal can explain 10–20% of OLR variability around the tropical warm pool region during the high solar activity period. The spatial distribution has been, however, apparently different according to the phases of QBO. It is suggested that the 11-year solar cycle and stratospheric QBO have a possibility to cause large-scale oceanic dipole phenomena.     

Sq等效电流在太阳活动周中的分析研究

Sq电流体系的产生与太阳密切相关,太阳的活动情况会对Sq电流体系造成直接的影响.本文应用1996年至2006年(第23太阳周)INTERMAGNET地磁台网以及中国地震局地球物理研究所国家地磁台网中心的全球地磁场观测数据,通过球谐分析的方法建模,对11年期间每月Sq内外源等效电流体系进行分离,分析Sq内外源等效电流在太阳活动周中的变化情况.结果表明,Sq内外源等效电流强度与太阳黑子的变化具有较高的相关性和一致性,内外源等效电流强度在太阳活动高年期间明显大于其在太阳活动的上升年和下降年期间的强度;Sq内外源等效电流焦点的纬度变化与太阳活动没有显著的一致性;Sq内外源等效电流强度的季节效应在太阳活动的高年和低年具有显著的差别,太阳活动高年期间等效电流强度在分点季节最大,而在其他年份南北半球的等效电流强度都是在各自半球的夏季达到最大.     

Cycles in the scaling properties of length-of-day variations

Variations in the length-of-day (LOD) reflect the effects of several mechanisms in the Earth's rotation dynamics, including Earth–Sun and Earth–Moon line-up, geomagnetic effects and gravitational changes. Several studies showed that signatures of cycles occurring over a wide range of time scales are present in the LOD variations. The present work uses a fractal scaling study based on detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) to study persistence of LOD variations and to provide insights in the different cycling mechanisms. The results showed that that the LOD variations are persistent over a wide range of time scales, meaning that an increment (resp., decrement) is more likely to be followed by an increment (resp., decrement). The temporal variation of the scaling exponent obtained from the DFA showed that several cycles already reported from the direct LOD variations analysis are inherited by the scaling properties. Inter-annual cycles, including 4.3 and 18.6 years cycles, are linked to the variations of the stochastic dynamics of LOD fluctuations. In this way, the 18.6 years cycle attains a period where variations are mostly affected by white noise effects, reducing the predictability of the LOD anomalies. The results are discussed in terms of the different lunar tidal and core–mantle mechanisms and related to recent results in the literature.     

Cycles on the Solar-type Stars and Cooler Dwarfs

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - Features of the development of activity cycles in the solar-type stars and fast-rotating cool dwarfs have been considered for 65 stars observed in some decades. Cycles...     

Particle acceleration and transport in the inner heliosphere

In the solar system, our Sun is Nature’s most efficient particle accelerator. In large solar flares and fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs), protons and heavy ions can be accelerated to over ~GeV/nucleon. Large flares and fast CMEs often occur together. However there are clues that different acceleration mechanisms exist in these two processes. In solar flares, particles are accelerated at magnetic reconnection sites and stochastic acceleration likely dominates. In comparison, at CME-driven shocks, diffusive shock acceleration dominates. Besides solar flares and CMEs, which are transient events, acceleration of particles has also been observed in other places in the solar system, including the solar wind termination shock, planetary bow shocks, and shocks bounding the Corotation Interaction Regions (CIRs). Understanding how particles are accelerated in these places has been a central topic of space physics. However, because observations of energetic particles are often made at spacecraft near the Earth, propagation of energetic particles in the solar wind smears out many distinct features of the acceleration process. The propagation of a charged particle in the solar wind closely relates to the turbulent electric field and magnetic field of the solar wind through particle-wave interaction. A correct interpretation of the observations therefore requires a thorough understanding of the solar wind turbulence. Conversely, one can deduce properties of the solar wind turbulence from energetic particle observations. In this article I briefly review some of the current state of knowledge of particle acceleration and transport in the inner heliosphere and discuss a few topics which may bear the key features to further understand the problem of particle acceleration and transport.     

Solar response in the temperature over the equatorial middle atmosphere

One of the longest temperature records available for the equatorial region is provided by Rocketsonde from Thumba (8°N, 77°E), India during the period 1971–1993. In recent times, these data sets are reanalyzed using the up-to-date regression models, which take care of several corrections and parameters, not accounted for in earlier analyses and hence affecting the conclusions. In this paper, annual mean solar response in this data set along with the seasonal solar coefficient is quantitatively estimated now with improved confidence. A negative solar response in the stratosphere (1–2 K/100 solar flux unit, sfu) and a positive response for the mesosphere (0.5–3 K/100 sfu) are found. The negative stratospheric solar response is in contrast to the solar coefficient reported for low latitudes by earlier workers for other stations.     

太阳绕太阳系质心运动22年周期及其与太阳活动的联系

对于太阳活动22年周期的成因机制长期存在着争论.本文借助于行星会合指数以及开普勒第三定律,对太阳绕太阳系质心运动周期进行了分析计算.结果发现,太阳绕太阳系质心运动存在22.1826年显著周期,这与太阳磁场变化的22.20年周期相吻合.并从太阳系角动量守恒的角度解释了两者之间的成因联系:在太阳绕太阳系质心运动的准22年周期中,太阳系质心与太阳质心逐步接近而后逐步分离.当两个质心之间的距离接近零的时候,太阳轨道角动量与自转角动量叠加,会导致太阳自转角速度的加快;当两个质心之间的距离逐渐远离的时候,则导致太阳自转角速度的减慢.这可能是引发太阳活动和太阳磁场变化的原因.这一新认识为太阳活动准22年周期成因机制的解释提供了新的线索和依据.     

Missing pieces of the solar jigsaw puzzle

David Tsiklauri reviews the role of small-scale, kinetic effects in the solar corona, throwing new light on unsolved problems of solar physics, such as coronal heating and solar flare particle acceleration.