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Solar Cycle Predictions (Invited Review)

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Abstract

Solar cycle predictions are needed to plan long-term space missions, just as weather predictions are needed to plan the launch. Fleets of satellites circle the Earth collecting many types of science data, protecting astronauts, and relaying information. All of these satellites are sensitive at some level to solar cycle effects. Predictions of drag on low-Earth orbit spacecraft are one of the most important. Launching a satellite with less propellant can mean a higher orbit, but unanticipated solar activity and increased drag can make that a Pyrrhic victory as the reduced propellant load is consumed more rapidly. Energetic events at the Sun can produce crippling radiation storms that endanger all assets in space. Solar cycle predictions also anticipate the shortwave emissions that cause degradation of solar panels. Testing solar dynamo theories by quantitative predictions of what will happen in 5 – 20 years is the next arena for solar cycle predictions. A summary and analysis of 75 predictions of the amplitude of the upcoming Solar Cycle 24 is presented. The current state of solar cycle predictions and some anticipations of how those predictions could be made more accurate in the future are discussed.

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Notes

  1. ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY .

  2. http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/ .

  3. http://www.esa-spaceweather.net/spweather/current_sw/index.html .

  4. http://www.ips.gov.au/Space_Weather .

  5. http://www.spaceweather.co.za .

  6. http://www.spaceweather.go.kr .

  7. ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/INTERNATIONAL/daily/RIDAILY.PLT .

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

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    W. Dean Pesnell

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Appendix: Spotless Days

Appendix: Spotless Days

The term “spotless days” refers to a count of the number of days in an interval during which no sunspots were observed. The number of spotless days reaches a maximum near solar minimum and is a candidate both for determining the timing of solar minimum and as a precursor of the amplitude of the upcoming cycle. The current minimum had more spotless days than any minimum since 1920.

Is the number of spotless days in the minimum between Solar Cycles 23 and 24 an exception? Figure 6 shows the number of spotless days in each year from the NGDC International Sunspot Number dataset.Footnote 7 This file contains data for 70795 days from 1 Jan. 1818 through 31 Oct. 2011. There are 10547 days (15 %) with a sunspot number of zero (the most recent on 14 Aug. 2011) and 3247 days (5 %) without a recorded value. The latter days are not included in the spotless day analysis. The red line in Figure 6 is the annual-averaged sunspot number.

Figure 6
figure 6

The number of spotless days in each calendar year from 1818 through mid-2011 for the NGDC International Sunspot Number dataset is shown as the black curve. Annual-averaged sunspot number is shown in red. Created by solar/sunspots/plot_spotless_days.pro.

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Some notes on data completeness can be derived from this figure. In all maxima since 1920 there are years at solar maximum when no spotless days are recorded. Maxima between 1850 and 1920 do not share this behavior, with spotless days appearing in some Carrington rotations near solar maximum. Observations before 1850 are very incomplete, with significant fractions of a year not having visible spots even near solar maximum. This indicates that the observations present an incomplete picture of the count of spotless days until Solar Cycle 15.

Is there a correlation between the number of spotless days in a solar cycle and the number of sunspots in either of the surrounding maxima? Figure 4 shows the correlation plot between the maximum annual number of spotless days as the abscissa and the maximum annual sunspot number as the ordinate. A linear fit of R n =178−0.30 SP n gives R 24=100 for SP24=265. This prediction required data one year past solar minimum to guarantee that the maximum in spotless days had passed.

After culling the data to include cycles after 1920, we only have seven points of similar totals to examine. If only that data is used, there is little correlation between the annual number of spotless days at solar minimum and the level of activity in the next solar maximum (see the dashed line in Figure 4).

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Pesnell, W.D. Solar Cycle Predictions (Invited Review). Sol Phys 281, 507–532 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-012-9997-5

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