G. A. Chapman

SOLAR CYCLE 23: AN ANOMALOUS CYCLE?

The latest SOHO VIRGO total solar irradiance (TSI) time series is analyzed using new solar variability measures obtained from full-disk solar images made at the San Fernando Observatory and the Mg II 280 nm index. We discuss the importance of solar cycle 23 as a magnetically simpler cycle and a variant from recent cycles. Our results show the continuing improvement in TSI measurements and surrogates containing information necessary to account for irradiance variability. Use of the best surrogate for irradiance variability due to photospheric features (sunspots and faculae) and chromospheric features (plages and bright network) allows fitting the TSI record to within an rms difference of 130 ppm for the period 1986 to the present. Observations show that the strength of the TSI cycle did not change significantly despite the decrease in sunspot activity in cycle 23 relative to cycle 22. This points to the difficulty of modeling TSI back to times when only sunspot observations were available.

Observations of changes in the bolometric contrast of sunspots

Rapid changes in the total solar irradiance from space borne sensors are largely due to the passage of large sunspots across the disk. The effect of sunspots has often been modeled, using ground-based observations, by the use of a sunspot index such as the PSI, which assumes that all sunspots have the same thermal structure, which remains constant with time. In this paper, we report on photometric observations of sunspot groups that show significant differences in their mean bolometric contrast ( up to a factor of 2) and some of which show cooling or warming during their disk transit. Most of these changes can be ascribed to the changing ratio of umbral-to-prenumbral area. By measuring the mean temperature or bolometric contrast, together with corrected (hemispherical) areas, we can determine the instantaneous solar luminosity fluctuation and its diurnal change due to individual sunspot groups. These results show that the use of solar indices based on estimates of sunspot area and fixed sunspot contrast, such as the photometric sunspot index, do not remove all of the significant sunspot effects from satellite measurements of the total solar irradiance.

Empirical Modeling of Radiative versus Magnetic Flux for the Sun-as-a-Star

We study the relationship between full-disk solar radiative flux at different wavelengths and average solar photospheric magnetic-flux density, using daily measurements from the Kitt Peak magnetograph and other instruments extending over one or more solar cycles. We use two different statistical methods to determine the underlying nature of these fluxu2009–u2009flux relationships. First, we use statistical correlation and regression analysis and show that the relationships are not monotonic for total solar irradiance and for continuum radiation from the photosphere, but are approximately linear for chromospheric and coronal radiation. Second, we use signal theory to examine the fluxu2009–u2009flux relationships for a temporal component. We find that a well-defined temporal component exists and accounts for some of the variance in the data. This temporal component arises because active regions with high magnetic-field strength evolve, breaking up into small-scale magnetic elements with low field strength, and radiative and magnetic fluxes are sensitive to different active-region components. We generate empirical models that relate radiative flux to magnetic flux, allowing us to predict spectral-irradiance variations from observations of disk-averaged magnetic-flux density. In most cases, the model reconstructions can account for 85u2009–u200990% of the variability of the radiative flux from the chromosphere and corona. Our results are important for understanding the relationship between magnetic and radiative measures of solar and stellar variability.