Association of Supergranule Mean Scales with Solar Cycle Strengths and Total Solar Irradiance

Journal Article · Thu Jul 20 04:00:00 EDT 2017 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/AA76E3· OSTI ID:22663377

Mandal, Sudip; Chatterjee, Subhamoy; Banerjee, Dipankar ^[1]

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1. Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Koramangala, Bangalore 560034 (India)

We analyze the long-term behavior of the supergranule scale parameter, in active regions (ARs) and quiet regions (QRs), using the Kodaikanal digitized data archive. This database provides century-long daily full disk observations of the Sun in Ca ii K wavelengths. In this paper, we study the distributions of the supergranular scales, over the whole data duration, which show identical shape in these two regimes. We found that the AR mean scale values are always higher than that of the QR for every solar cycle. The mean scale values are highly correlated with the sunspot number cycle amplitude and also with total solar irradiance (TSI) variations. Such a correlation establishes the cycle-wise mean scale as a potential calibrator for the historical data reconstructions. We also see an upward trend in the mean scales, as has already been reported in TSI. This may provide new input for climate forcing models. These results also give us insight into the different evolutionary scenarios of the supergranules in the presence of strong (AR) and weak (QR) magnetic fields.

• OSTI ID: 22663377
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 844; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
AMPLITUDES
CHROMOSPHERE
CORRELATIONS
DISTRIBUTION
GRANULATION
MAGNETIC FIELDS
RADIANT FLUX DENSITY
SOLAR CYCLE
SPECTRA
STAR EVOLUTION
SUN
SUNSPOTS
WAVELENGTHS