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7/29/2019 The Sun and Sunspots

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THE SUN AND SUNSPOTS

Can an increase or decrease in sunspot activity

affect the Earth's climate?

Photograph courtesy of the Carnegie Institute of Washington

A typical star, the Sun has a diameter of approximately 865,000 miles (nearly 10 timeslarger than the diameter of Jupiter) and is composed primarily of hydrogen. The Sun's core

is an astonishing 29,000,000 degrees F., while the pressure is about 100 billion times the

atmospheric pressure here on Earth. Under these conditions, hydrogen atoms come soclose together that they fuse. Right now, about half the amount of hydrogen in the core of

the Sun has been fused into helium. This took roughly 4.5 billion years to accomplish.

When the hydrogen is exhausted, the Sun's temperature at the surface will begin to cool and

the outer layers will expand outward to near the orbit of Mars. The Sun at this point will bea "red giant" and 10,000 times brighter than its present luminosity. After the red giant

phase, the Sun will shrink to a white dwarf star (about the size of the Earth) and slowly cool

for several billion more years.

Sunspots: One interesting aspect of the Sun is its sunspots. Sunspots are areas where themagnetic field is about 2,500 times stronger than Earth's, much higher than anywhere else

on the Sun. Because of the strong magnetic field, the magnetic pressure increases while the

surrounding atmospheric pressure decreases. This in turn lowers the temperature relative to

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its surroundings because the concentrated magnetic field inhibits the flow of hot, new gas

from the Sun's interior to the surface.

Sunspots tend to occur in pairs that have magnetic fields pointing in opposite directions. Atypical spot consists of a dark region called the umbra, surrounded by a lighter region

known as thepenumbra. The sunspots appear relatively dark because the surroundingsurface of the Sun (the photosphere) is about 10,000 degrees F., while the umbra is about6,300 degrees F. Sunspots are quite large as an average size is about the same size as the

Earth.

Sunspots, Solar Flares, Coronal Mass Ejections and

their influence on Earth: Coronal Mass Ejections(shown left) and solar flares are extremely large

explosions on the photosphere. In just a few minutes, the

flares heat to several million degrees F. and release asmuch energy as a billion megatons of TNT. They occur

near sunspots, usually at the dividing line between areasof oppositely directed magnetic fields. Hot matter called

plasma interacts with the magnetic field sending a burstof plasma up and away from the Sun in the form of a

flare. Solar flares emit x-rays and magnetic fields which

bombard the Earth asgeomagnetic storms. If sunspots are active, more solar flares willresult creating an increase in geomagnetic storm activity for the Earth. Therefore during

sunspot maximums, the Earth will see an increase in the Northern and Southern Lights

and a disruption in power grids and radio transmissions. The storms can even changepolarity in satellites which can damage sophisticated electronics.

But the jury is still out on how much sunspots can (or do) affect the Earth's climate. Times

of maximum sunspot activity are associated with a very slight increase in the energy output

from the sun. Ultraviolet radiation increases dramatically during high sunspot activity,which can have a large effect on the Earth's atmosphere. From the mid 1600s to early

1700s, a period of very low sunspot activity (known as the Maunder Minimum) coincided

with a number of long winters and severe cold temperatures in Western Europe, called theLittle Ice Age. It is not known whether the two phenomena are linked or if it was just

coincidence. The reason it is hard to relate maximum and minimum solar activity

(sunspots) to the Earth's climate, is due to the complexity of the Earth's climate itself. For

example, how does one sort out whether a long-term weather change was caused bysunspots, or maybe a coinciding El Nino or La Nina? Increased volcanic eruptions can also

affect the Earth's climate by cooling the planet. And what about the burning of fossil fuels

and clear cutting rain forests? One thing is more certain, sunspot cycles have beencorrelated in the width of tree ring growth. More study will be conducted in the future on

relating sunspot activity and our Earth's climate.

The Solar Cycle: Sunspots increase and decrease through an average cycle of 11 years.

Dating back to 1749, we have experienced 22 full solar cycles where the number ofsunspots have gone from a minimum, to a maximum and back to the next minimum,

through approximate 11 year cycles. We are now well into the 23rd cycle, with the 24th

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cycle right around the corner. The number of sunspots in this cycle reached a peak in May,

2000 where the number of sunspots were measured at near 170. A secondary sunspotmaximum occurred near the beginning of 2002 where the sunspot number was about 150.

The next sunspot minimum is forecast to occur in late 2006 through mid 2007. A chart of

cycle 23 is available at the NOAA Space Environment Center.

NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center shows the monthly averaged sunspot numbersbased on the International Sunspot Number of all solar cycles dating back to 1750. (Daily

observations of sunspots began in 1749 at the Zurich, Switzerland observatory.) This chartfrom NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center shows the sunspot number prediction for solar

cycle 24.

One interesting aspect of solar cycles is that the sun went through a period of sunspot

inactivity from about 1645 to 1715. This period of sunspot minima is called the Maunder

Minimum. Sunspots were measured during this timeframe, although the more detailed,daily measurements began in 1749. The "Little Ice Age" occurred over parts of Earth

during the Maunder Minimum. So the question remains, do solar minimums help to createperiods of cooler than normal weather, and do solar maximums help to cause drought over

sections of Earth? This question is not easily answered due to the immensely complexinteraction between our atmosphere, land and oceans. In addition, there is evidence that

some of the major ice ages Earth has experienced were caused by Earth being deviated

from its "average" 23.5 degrees tilt on its axis. The Earth has tilted anywhere from near 22degrees to 24.5 degrees on its axis. The number of sunspots alone does not alter the overall

solar emissions much at all. However, the increased/decreased magnetic activity which

accompanies sunspot maxima/minima directly influences the amount of ultravioletradiation which moves through the upper atmosphere.

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