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What do cosmogenic isotopes tell us about past solar forcing of climate?
No full textIn paleoclimate studies, cosmogenic isotopes are frequently used as proxy indicators of past variations in solar irradiance on centennial and millennial timescales. These isotopes are spallation products of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) impacting Earth's atmosphere, which are deposited and stored in terrestrial reservoirs such as ice sheets, ocean sediments and tree trunks. On timescales shorter than the variations in the geomagnetic field, they are modulated by the heliosphere and thus they are, strictly speaking, an index of heliospheric variability rather than one of solar variability. Strong evidence of climate variations associated with the production (as opposed to the deposition) of these isotopes is emerging. This raises a vital question: do cosmic rays have a direct influence on climate or are they a good proxy indicator for another factor that does (such as the total or spectral solar irradiance)? The former possibility raises further questions about the possible growth of air ions generated by cosmic rays into cloud condensation nuclei and/or the modulation of the global thunderstorm electric circuit. The latter possibility requires new understanding about the required relationship between the heliospheric magnetic fields that scatter cosmic rays and the photospheric magnetic fields which modulate solar irradiance
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Twenty-three cycles of changing open solar magnetic flux
No full textThis paper presents a comparison of various estimates of the open solar flux, deduced from measurements of the interplanetary magnetic field, from the aa geomagnetic index and from photospheric magnetic field observations. The first two of these estimates are made using the Ulysses discovery that the radial heliospheric field is approximately independent of heliographic latitude, the third makes use of the potential-field source surface method to map the total flux through the photosphere to the open flux at the top of the corona. The uncertainties associated with using the Ulysses result are 5%, but the effects of the assumptions of the potential field source surface method are harder to evaluate. Nevertheless, the three methods give similar results for the last three solar cycles when the data sets overlap. In 11-year running means, all three methods reveal that 1987 marked a significant peak in the long-term variation of the open solar flux. This peak is close to the solar minimum between sunspot cycles 21 and 22, and consequently the mean open flux (averaged from minimum to minimum) is similar for these two cycles. However, this similarity between cycles 21 and 22 in no way implies that the open flux is constant. The long-term variation shows that these cycles are fundamentally different in that the average open flux was rising during cycle 21 (from consistently lower values in cycle 20 and toward the peak in 1987) but was falling during cycle 22 (toward consistently lower values in cycle 23). The estimates from the geomagnetic aa index are unique as they extend from 1842 onwards (using the Helsinki extension). This variation gives strong anticorrelations, with very high statistical significance levels, with cosmic ray fluxes and with the abundances of the cosmogenic isotopes that they produce. Thus observations of photospheric magnetic fields, of cosmic ray fluxes, and of cosmogenic isotope abundances all support the long-term drifts in open solar flux reported by Lockwood et al. [1999a , 1999b]
A numerical model of the effects of time-varying reconnection - I: Ionospheric convection
No full textThis paper presents a numerical model for predicting the evolution of the pattern of ionospheric convection in response to general time-dependent magnetic reconnection at the dayside magnetopause and in the cross-tail current sheet of the geomagnetic tail. The model quantifies the concepts of ionospheric flow excitation by Cowley and Lockwood (1992), assuming a uniform spatial distribution of ionospheric conductivity. The model is demonstrated using an example in which travelling reconnection pulses commence near noon and then move across the dayside magnetopause towards both dawn and dusk. Two such pulses, 8min apart, are used and each causes the reconnection to be active for 1min at every MLT that they pass over. This example demonstrates how the convection response to a given change in the interplanetary magnetic field (via the reconnection rate) depends on the previous reconnection history. The causes of this effect are explained. The inherent assumptions and the potential applications of the model are discussed. Ionosphere (ionosphere-magnetosphere interactions; plasma convection) - Magnetospheric physics (magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions; solar wind-magnetosphere interactions
The dependence of cusp ion signatures on reconnection rate
No full textThe interpretation of structure in cusp ion dispersions is important for helping to understand the temporal and spatial structure of magnetopause reconnection. "Stepped" and "sawtooth" signatures have been shown to be caused by temporal variations in the reconnection rate under the same physical conditions for different satellite trajectories. The present paper shows that even for a single satellite path, a change in the amplitude of any reconnection pulses can alter the observed signature and even turn sawtooth into stepped forms and vice versa. On 20 August 1998, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) craft F-14 crossed the cusp just to the south of Longyearbyen, returning on the following orbit. The two passes by the DMSP F-14 satellites have very similar trajectories and the open-closed field line boundary (OCB) crossings, as estimated from the SSJ/4 precipitating particle data and Polar UVI images, imply a similarly-shaped polar cap, yet the cusp ion dispersion signatures differ substantially. The cusp crossing at 08:54 UT displays a stepped ion dispersion previously considered to be typical of a meridional pass, whereas the crossing at 10:38 UT is a sawtooth form ion dispersion, previously considered typical of a satellite travelling longitudinally with respect to the OCB. It is shown that this change in dispersed ion signature is likely to be due to a change in the amplitude of the pulses in the reconnection rate, causing the stepped signature. Modelling of the low-energy ion cutoff under different conditions has reproduced the forms of signature observed
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Long-term variations in the magnetic fields of the Sun and the heliosphere:their origin, effects and implications
No full textRecent studies of the variation of geomagnetic activity over the past 140 years have quantified the “coronal source” magnetic flux Fs that leaves the solar atmosphere and enters the heliosphere and have shown that it has risen, on average, by an estimated 34% since 1963 and by 140% since 1900. This variation of open solar flux has been reproduced by Solanki et al. [2000] using a model which demonstrates how the open flux accumulates and decays, depending on the rate of flux emergence in active regions and on the length of the solar cycle. We here use a new technique to evaluate solar cycle length and find that it does vary in association with the rate of change of Fs in the way predicted. The long-term variation of the rate of flux emergence is found to be very similar in form to that in Fs, which may offer a potential explanation of why Fs appears to be a useful proxy for extrapolating solar total irradiance back in time. We also find that most of the variation of cosmic ray fluxes incident on Earth is explained by the strength of the heliospheric field (quantified by Fs) and use observations of the abundance of the isotope 10Be (produced by cosmic rays and deposited in ice sheets) to study the decrease in Fs during the Maunder minimum. The interior motions at the base of the convection zone, where the solar dynamo is probably located, have recently been revealed using the helioseismology technique and found to exhibit a 1.3-year oscillation. This periodicity is here reported in observations of the interplanetary magnetic field and geomagnetic activity but is only present after 1940. When present, it shows a strong 22-year variation, peaking near the maximum of even-numbered sunspot cycles and showing minima at the peaks of odd-numbered cycles. We discuss the implications of these long-term solar and heliospheric variations for Earth’s environment
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An evaluation of the correlation between open solar flux and total solar irradiance
No full textThe correlation between the coronal source flux FS and the total solar irradiance ITS is re-evaluated in the light of an additional 5 years' data from the rising phase of solar cycle 23 and also by using cosmic ray fluxes detected at Earth. Tests on monthly averages show that the correlation with FS deduced from the interplanetary magnetic field (correlation coefficient, r = 0.62) is highly significant (99.999%), but that there is insufficient data for the higher correlation with annual means ( r = 0.80) to be considered significant. Anti-correlations between ITS and cosmic ray fluxes are found in monthly data for all stations and geomagnetic rigidity cut-offs ( r ranging from -0.63 to -0.74) and these have significance levels between 85% and 98%. In all cases, the fit is poorest for the earliest data (i.e., prior to 1982). Excluding these data improves the anticorrelation with cosmic rays to r = -0.93 for one-year running means. Both the interplanetary magnetic field data and the cosmic ray fluxes indicate that the total solar irradiance lags behind the open solar flux with a delay that is estimated to have an optimum value of 2.8 months (and is within the uncertainty range 0.8-8.0 months at the 90% level)
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The day the solar wind nearly died
No full textOn 11 May 1999, the density of the solar wind dropped almost to zero. Space scientists are now giving their first reports of this rare opportunity to study the complex relationship between the Sun and Earth
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Long-Term Changes in the Solar Photosphere Associated with Changes in the Coronal Source Flux
No full textUsing sunspot observations from Greenwich and Mount Wilson, we show that the latitudinal spread of sunspot groups has increased since 1874, in a manner that closely mirrors the long-term (?100 year) changes in the coronal source flux, Fs, as inferred from geomagnetic activity. This latitude spread is shown to be well correlated with the flux emergence rate required by the model of the coronal source flux variation by Solanki et al. [2000]. The time constant for the decay of this open flux is found to be 3.6±0.8 years. Using this value, and quantifying the photospheric flux emergence rate using the latitudinal spread of sunspot groups, the model reproduces the observed coronal source flux variation. The ratio of the 100-year drift to the solar cycle amplitude for the flux emergence rate is found to be half of the same ratio for Fs
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