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Session 56 - The Sun.
Oral session, Tuesday, January 14
Harbour C,

[56.05] Forecasting Solar Activity and Cycle 23 Outlook

K. Schatten (Atmospheric Div., NSF), S. Sofia (Yale U.)

"Precursor Techniques" have, in general, been fairly successful at predicting solar activity for a few solar cycles. These early precursors were based upon examining geomagnetic fluctuations features near solar minimum to ascertain the level of the next cycle's solar activity. In the 70’s, the case was made that for these techniques to work, there would need to be a "connection" to the solar dynamo, and it was suggested that the precursors were "measuring" the Sun's polar field. Using proxies for the Sun's polar field, and the polar field itself, this "dynamo precursor method" successfully predicted the last two solar cycles. We will discuss the physical bases for these methods. We also shall present a generalization to a "SODA" (SOlar Dynamo Amplitude) index, which is used to estimate the amount of magnetism below the Sun's surface. This SODA index provides a measure of the amount of "magnetic fizz" below the Sun's surface, and also the state of the Sun's dynamo. Using these methods we predict cycle 23 will peak near 180 +/- 30 in smoothed F10.7 Radio Flux, and near 130 +/- 30 in smoothed Sunspot number in the year 2000.


Program listing for Tuesday