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R. Howe (NSO)
Over the past several years, helioseismic data from the Michelson Doppler Imager aboard the SOHO spacecraft, and from the Global Oscillation Network Group, have allowed us to study the changing dynamics of the solar convection zone in greater detail than ever before. We now know that the zonal flows of the so-called torsional oscillation extend well into the convection zone though apparently not to its base, and there seem to be rotation variations of a shorter period around the tachocline region which is crucial to theories of the solar cycle. At higher latitudes, the rotation rate varies strongly during the solar cycle. Modeling and simulation studies attempt to reproduce this behavior with varying degrees of success.
The National Solar Observatory is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. This work was partly supported by NASA contract S-92698-F.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.