Identification

Title

Length of a minimum as predictor of next solar cycle's strength

Abstract

Motivated by a prevailing view that a long minimum leads to a weak sunspot cycle, we estimate the correlation coefficients between the length of a cycle minimum and (i) the following cycle's peak, (ii) the preceding cycle's peak, (iii) following peak minus preceding peak and (iv) depth of minimum. Using both sunspot number and spot area data, we find that a long minimum is both followed and preceded by weak cycles. Similarly short minima are followed and preceded by strong cycles. Consistent with these results, we find no correlation between the length of a cycle minimum and the difference in peaks of the following and preceding cycles. From sunspot number data, for longer-than-average minima, five following cycle peaks were lower than that of the preceding cycles' peaks, while four were higher. Following shorter-than-average minima, seven cycle peaks were higher than the preceding peaks and seven were lower. Therefore one cannot predict from the length of a minimum whether the next cycle will be stronger or weaker than the preceding cycle. Thus we cannot predict whether cycle 24 will be stronger or weaker than 23. We also find that there is a strong anticorrelation between the length of a solar cycle minimum and the depth of that minimum. We define the depth as the least spot number or spot area (13-rotation averaged) within the span of a cycle minimum. We speculate that this anticorrelation is due to the longer time available for annihilation of late cycle toroidal flux across the equator in the case of a longer minimum.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7gq6z5t

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-03-30T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact