Related papers: Evidence for distinct modes of solar activity
The grand minimum in the Sun's activity is a distinctive mode characterized by a magnetic lull that almost completely lacks the emergence of sunspots on the solar surface for an extended duration. The factors driving this transition of an…
The level of solar magnetic activity, as exemplified by the number of sunspots and by energetic events in the corona, varies on a wide range of time scales. Most prominent is the 11-year solar cycle, which is significantly modulated on…
Using a reconstruction of sunspot numbers stretching over multiple millennia, we analyze the statistics of the occurrence of grand minima and maxima and set new observational constraints on long-term solar and stellar dynamo models. We…
The Sun provides the energy necessary to sustain our existence. While the Sun provides for us, it is also capable of taking away. The weather and climatic scales of solar evolution and the Sun-Earth connection are not well understood. There…
The 11-year solar cycle is the dominant pattern of solar activity reflecting the oscillatory dynamo mechanism in the Sun. Solar cycles were directly observed since 1700, while indirect proxies suggest their existence over a much longer…
Solar activity has a cyclic nature with the ~11-year Schwabe cycle dominating its variability on the interannual timescale. However, solar cycles are significantly modulated in length, shape and magnitude, from near-spotless grand minima to…
The solar cycle periodically reshapes the magnetic structure and radiative output of the Sun and determines its impact on the heliosphere roughly every 11 years. Besides this main periodicity, it shows century-long variations (including…
The Sun is a variable star whose magnetic activity and total irradiance vary on a timescale of approximately 11 years. The current activity minimum has attracted considerable interest because of its unusual duration and depth. This raises…
Solar magnetic activity shows both smooth secular changes, such as the Grand Modern Maximum, and quite abrupt drops that are denoted as Grand Minima. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of convection driven dynamos offer one way of examining…
Over the past century, the Sun's activity -- which exhibits significant variations -- went through a phase known as the Modern Maximum. Notably, the strongest sunspot cycle on record during this period, and indeed since direct sunspot…
Magnetic activity of the Sun and other stars causes their brightness to vary. We investigate how typical the Sun's variability is compared to other solar-like stars, i.e. those with near-solar effective temperatures and rotation periods. By…
Like the solar cycle, stellar activity cycles are also irregular. Observations reveal that rapidly rotating (young) Sun-like stars exhibit a high level of activity with no Maunder-like grand minima and rarely display smooth regular activity…
The variable Sun is the most likely candidate for natural forcing of past climate change on time scales of 50 to 1000 years. Evidence for this understanding is that the terrestrial climate correlates positively with solar activity. During…
The Sun has long been considered a constant star, to the extent that its total irradiance was termed the solar constant. It required radiometers in space to detect the small variations in solar irradiance on timescales of the solar rotation…
The record of solar activity is reviewed here with emphasis on peculiarities. Since sunspot positions tell us a lot more about the solar dynamo than the various global sunspot numbers, we first focus on the records of telescopic…
The Sun exhibits episodic surges of magnetic activity across a range of temporal and spatial scales, the most prominent of which is the 11-ish year modulation of sunspot production. Beside the ~170 (min to max) decadal variation in sunspot…
Long-term observational data have information on the magnetic cycles of active stars and that of the Sun. The changes in the activity of our central star have basic effects on Earth, like variations in the global climate. Therefore…
One of the most striking manifestations of orderly behavior emerging out of complex interactions in any astrophysical system is the 11-year cycle of sunspots. However, direct sunspot observations and reconstructions of long-term solar…
Solar activity in the past millennia can only be reconstructed from cosmogenic radionuclide records in terrestrial archives. However, because of the diversity of the proxy archives, it is difficult to build a homogeneous reconstruction.…
After decades of effort, the solar activity cycle is exceptionally well characterized but it remains poorly understood. Pioneering work at the Mount Wilson Observatory demonstrated that other sun-like stars also show regular activity…