Solar Cycles

A collection of papers edited by four experts in the field, this book sets out to describe the way solar activity is manifested in observations of the solar interior, the photosphere, the chromosphere, the corona and the heliosphere. The 11-year solar activity cycle, more generally known as the sunspot cycle, is a fundamental property of the Sun. This phenomenon is the generation and evolution of magnetic fields in the Sun’s convection zone, the photosphere. It is only by the careful enumeration and description of the phenomena and their variations that one can clarify their interdependences. The sunspot cycle has been tracked back about four centuries, and it has been recognized that to make this data set a really useful tool in understanding how the activity cycle works and how it can be predicted, a very careful and detailed effort is needed to generate sunspot numbers. This book deals with this topic, together with several others that present related phenomena that all indicate the physical processes that take place in the Sun and its exterior environment. The reviews in the book also present the latest theoretical and modelling studies that attempt to explain the activity cycle. It remains true, as has been shown in the unexpected characteristics of the first two solar cycles in the 21st century, that predictability remains a serious challenge. Nevertheless, the highly expert and detailed reviews in this book, using the very best solar observations from both ground- and space based telescopes, provide the best possible report on what is known and what is yet to be discovered. Originally published in Space Science Reviews, Vol 186, Issues 1-4, 2014.

Use the magic of astrology's Solar Cycles to design and manifest your dreams * Uncover the astrology Cycles unique to you, and how to use them to shift your reality - each and every month of your life * Find the perfect times to launch or wait, build or tear down, go solo or team up * Figure out your current possibilities and potential pitfalls * Your Lifetime Guide to your Annual Life Cycles.

It may be counterintuitive: periods of high solar activity and high sunspot numbers - which are associated with a stable and more favorable climate - are also periods of increased mass excitability, war and genocide. In fact, throughout the last millennium, there were 4.6 times as many deaths from war, genocide and persecution during Grand Solar Maxima than there were in Grand Solar Minimum. In contrast, Grand Solar Minima - the 'bad-weather periods' - were times of relative peace, reason and of improvements of human rights.In the 1920s, the Russian scientist Alexander Tchijevsky discovered that social excitability, wars and rebellions unfolded primarily at the peaks of the 11-year solar cycles (Schwabe- cycles).I found that within the past 1000 years, what is true for the 11-years cycles, also applies to the non-periodical cycles of Grand Solar Minima and Maxima, recurring roughly every 200 or 400 years. Not only were most mass killings committed during these Grand Maxima, but the corresponding uprisings and rebellions mostly ended up in collectivist, totalitarian systems, that appealed to group ideologies, violent mob rule and imperialism. The narration of the history of this period is intended to illustrate this pattern and to warn of future repetitions. In addition to the multi decadal trends of wars and atrocities, we even find singular battles and mass hysteria in connection with the visible manifestations of high solar peaks, solar storms, visible sunspots and aurora. This book is about our future as much as it is about the past, as we are most likely entering the next Grand Solar Minimum within decades. If the trends of previous centuries continue, when the next Grand Solar Minimum begins, we can expect not only some inconvenient material adaptation processes, but ultimately also a social mood of increased reason, relative peace, rationality and the protection of human rights.This can give us a time window of between several decades and a hundred years to find out how we prevent the next round of mass killing and collectivist extremism in the future Solar Maximum. If we succeed, future generations may live in a world more peaceful than ever.

Understanding how the Sun changes though its 11-year sunspot cycle and how these changes affect the vast space around the Sun – the heliosphere – has been one of the principal objectives of space research since the advent of the space age. This book presents the evolution of the heliosphere through an entire solar activity cycle. The last solar cycle (cycle 23) has been the best observed from both the Earth and from a fleet of spacecraft. Of these, the joint ESA-NASA Ulysses probe has provided continuous observations of the state of the heliosphere since 1990 from a unique vantage point, that of a nearly polar orbit around the Sun. Ulysses’ results affect our understanding of the heliosphere from the interior of the Sun to the interstellar medium - beyond the outer boundary of the heliosphere. Written by scientists closely associated with the Ulysses mission, the book describes and explains the many different aspects of changes in the heliosphere in response to solar activity. In particular, the authors describe the rise in solar activity from the last minimum in solar activity in 1996 to its maximum in 2000 and the subsequent decline in activity.

This book offers an overview of solar physics with a focus on solar activity, particularly the activity cycle. It is known that solar activity varies periodically, but there are also phases of intermittency, such as the Maunder minimum, during which solar activity is very low or high over several decades. The book provides a brief introduction to chaos theory and investigates solar activity in terms of its chaotic behavior. It also discusses how intermittent phases of solar activity have affected and can affect Earth’s climate and long-term space weather, and reviews the underlying theories relating to the solar dynamo mechanism. Furthermore, each chapter includes references to scientific literature (review articles and papers) so that readers can delve deeper into the subjects covered. This richly illustrated book will appeal to a wide readership, and is also useful as a textbook for courses in solar physics and astrophysics.