What is the climate waiting for Russia and Europe in 15-20 years?
Will be there weather abnormalities in the coming decades? Will some
areas experience more severe winter, while the others will have hot
summer? It all depends on how much the climate will be affected by the
dynamics of the possible onset of minimum solar magnetic activity. The
Sun's behaviour in future cycles is the main theme of a publication on
the forecast and explanation of the minima of solar activity. The paper
was prepared with contributions from Elena Popova from the Skobeltsyn
Institute of Nuclear Physics (Lomonosov Moscow State University) and was
published in Scientific Reports.
Scientists have studied
the evolution of the solar magnetic field and the number of sunspots on
the Sun's surface. The amplitude and the spatial configuration of the
magnetic field of our star are changing over the years. Every 11 years
the number of sunspots decreases sharply. Every 90 years this reduction
(when it coincides with the 11-year cycle) reduces the number of spots
by about a half. A 300-400 year lows reduce their numbers almost to
zero. Best known minimum is the Maunder minimum, which lasted roughly
from 1645 to 1715. During this period, there were about 50 sunspots
instead of the usual 40,000-50,000.
Analysis of solar radiation
showed that its highs and lows almost coincide with the maxima and
minima in the number of spots. By studying changes in the number of
sunspots, analyzing the content of isotopes like carbon-14,
beryllium-10, and others, in glaciers and trees, the researchers
concluded that the solar magnetic activity has a cyclic structure.
A
group of scientists -- Valentina Tarasova (Northumbria University,
England, Space Research Institute, Ukraine), Elena Popova (SINP, MSU),
Simon John Shepherd (University of Bradford, England) and Sergei Zharkov
(University of Hull, England) -- analyzed three solar activity cycles
from 1976 to 2009, using the so-called "principal component analysis,"
which allows reveal waves of solar magnetic field with the biggest
contribution in the observational data. As a result of a new method of
analysis, it was found that the magnetic waves in the Sun are generated
in pairs, and the main pair is responsible for changes in the dipole
field, which is observed when solar activity is changing. Also
scientists have managed to obtain analytical formulas describing the
evolution of both waves.
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