Deciphering solar magnetic activity: Some (unpopular) thoughts on the coupling of the Sun’s “weather” and “climate”

The Sun exhibits episodic surges of magnetic activity across a range of temporal and spatial scales, the most prominent of which is the 11-th year modulation of sunspot production. Beside the ∼ 170 (min to max) decadal variation in sunspot production there is a less-explored quasi-annual variation in the range of 25–50 sunspots/year in magnitude. In addition, there is there is a slower, ∼ 80 year period, 10–50 variation in the sunspot number, that is commonly referred to as the “Gleissberg Cycle.” Using a suite of contemporary and historical observations we will illustrate these elements of our star’s episodic behavior and present a hypothesis that may provide a consistent physical link between the observed “climatic,” “decadal,” and “seasonal” magnetic variation of our star.

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Author McIntosh, Scott
Leamon, R. J.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2024-10-01T00:00:00
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2025-07-10T19:58:01.801458
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:42486
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation McIntosh, Scott, Leamon, R. J.. (2024). Deciphering solar magnetic activity: Some (unpopular) thoughts on the coupling of the Sun’s “weather” and “climate”. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7qv3rvq. Accessed 03 August 2025.

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