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Data · dataset · 2026

Triggering the birth of new cycle's sunspots by solar tsunami

Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research

When will a new cycle's sunspots appear?

Description

We demonstrate a novel physical mechanism, namely, that a "solar tsunami" occurring in the Sun's interior shear-fluid layer can trigger new cycle's magnetic flux emergence at high latitudes, a few weeks after the cessation of old cycle's flux emergence near the equator. This tsunami is excited at the equator when magnetic dams, created by the oppositely-directed old cycle's toroidal field in North and South hemispheres, break due to mutual annihilation of toroidal flux there.

The fluid supported by these dams rushes to the equator; the surplus of fluid cannot be contained there, so it reflects back towards high latitudes, causing a tsunami. This tsunami propagates poleward at a speed of similar to 300 m/s until it encounters the new cycle's spot-producing toroidal fields in mid-latitudes, where it perturbs the fields, triggering their surface-eruption in the form of new cycle spots. A new sunspot cycle is preceded for several years by other forms of high-latitude magnetic activity, such as coronal bright points and ephemeral regions, until the tsunami causes the birth of new cycle's spots.

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The next tsunami is due by 2020, portending the start of intense 'space weather' that can adversely impact the Earth.

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Inferred from text
Geophysics 70%
Provenance · 1 source records, 8 field assertions
SourceKeyLast seenRaw
National Center for Atmospheric Research4af8b242-90a2-4d3b-82ab-cdafc9d0527d12 d agoJSON v1
FieldAssertionExtractorEvidence
concepts[field].anzsrc:group:3706enrichment · data ucar edutaxonomy-embedding@1.1.0title+keywords+description (70%)
concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmentalmapping · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0
concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmosphericmapping · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0
created_datesource · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0
descriptionsource · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0/notes
publication_datesource · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0
titlesource · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0/title
updated_datesource · data ucar educonnector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0