What's So Peculiar About the Cycle 23/24 Solar Minimum?
Abstract
Traditionally, solar physicists become anxious around solar minimum, as they await the high-latitude sunspot groups of the new cycle. Now, we are in an extended sunspot minimum with conditions not seen in recent memory, and interest in the sunspot cycle has increased again. In this paper, I will describe some of the characteristics of the current solar minimum, including its great depth, its extended duration, its weak polar magnetic fields, and its small amount of open flux. Flux-transport simulations suggest that these characteristics are a consequence of temporal variations of the Sun's large-scale meridional circulation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1005.3834,
title = {What's So Peculiar About the Cycle 23/24 Solar Minimum?},
author = {N. R. Sheeley},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1005.3834},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
ASP Conference Series, SOHO 23, `Understanding a Peculiar Solar Minimum', 21-25 September 2009, Northeast Harbor, Maine