Long term periodicities in the sunspot cycle

Identification of solar periodicities in southern African baobab δ13C record

Spectral analysis using wavelet, Lomb–Scargle and maximum entropy techniques of the proxy rainfall record of northeastern South Africa based on annual carbon isotope (δ13C) data obtained from baobab trees for the period 1600 AD – 2000 AD show clear evidence of the presence of characteristic solar periodicities. Solar periodicities that were identified above the 95% confidence level include the ~11-year Schwabe cycle, the ~22-year Hale cycle as well as the 80–110-year Gleissberg cycle. A Morlet wavelet analysis of the δ13C data between 1600 AD and 1700 AD shows the effect of the Maunder sunspot minimum on both the Schwabe and Hale cycles during this time.

Holocene vegetation patterns in southern Lithuania indicate astronomical forcing on the millennial and centennial time scales

The Earth’s biota originated and developed to its current complex state through interacting with multilevel physical forcing of our planet’s climate and near and outer space phenomena. In the present study, we focus on the time scale of hundreds to thousands of years in the most recent time interval – the Holocene. Using a pollen paleocommunity dataset from southern Lithuania (Čepkeliai bog) and applying spectral analysis techniques, we tested this record for the presence of statistically significant cyclicities, which can be observed in past solar activity. The time series of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) scores, which in our case are assumed to reflect temperature variations, and Tsallis entropy-related community compositional diversity estimates q* revealed the presence of cycles on several time scales. The most consistent periodicities are characterized by periods lasting between 201 and 240 years, which is very close to the DeVries solar cycles (208 years). A shorter-term periodicity of 176 years was detected in the NMDS scores that can be putatively linked to the subharmonics of the Gleissberg solar cycle. In addition, periodicities of ≈3,760 and ≈1,880 years were found in both parameters. These periodic patterns could be explained either as originating as a harmonic nonlinear response to precession forcing, or as resulting from the long-term solar activity quasicycles that were reported in previous studies of solar activity proxies.

Evolutive spectral analysis of sunspot data over the past 300 years

We analyse the series of the Wolf sunspot number in the frequency domain to determine the dimension of the solar cycle system by using the properties of its strange attractor and to study the stability in time of this dimensionality and of the main quasiperiodicities. The two classical methods of time series analysis, Fourier harmonic and Blackman-Tukey spectral analysis, have been applied first to the series of the annual Wolf sunspot numbers to determine its overall character. To detect stationarity, periodic regression based upon the three most statistically significant quasi-periods and especially a moving form of the maximum entropy spectrum analysis (mesa) have been used. Both analyses show a splitting of the 11-year cycle before 1800, when a ± 55-year cycle is dominant, and a single 11-year and + 100-year peak after 1800. Moreover, these quasi-periods are very sensitive to the time interval over which the analysis is carried out. The reason is that the sunspot numbers constitute a widely non-stationary process, which therefore implies that Fourier techniques are not useful to predict solar activity and must be used as fitting procedure only. The minimum cross-entropy method serves to improve the maximum entropy spectrum. With a good a priori estimate and data containing a low noise level, this method allows the detection of very close peaks and the refinement of the main frequencies; it does not split nor introduce artificial peaks. The Thomson model was also applied for its superior bias control, its excellent leakage resistance and a better statistical information. The same methods were then used to study the 22-year magnetic cycle, which is formed by taking into account the change in polarity of the succeeding 11 -year cycle. The moving form of mesa confirms the 22-year cycle to be highly stable in contrast to the instability in the period of the 11-year sunspot series. This suggests the importance of working with the more invariant 22-year magnetic series to explain the complex, non-stationary behaviour of the sunspot series and of the solar—terrestrial interactions. Finally, we tried to see if the system generated by the sunspot data was allowing the existence of an attractor and tried to determine the minimum number of variables necessary to describe this system. It is shown that the dimension of the attractor is highly unstable varying from 2.21 to 4.95 in a quasi-cyclic way.

Solar Cycle Signal in Earth Rotation: Nonstationary Behavior

Following the discovery of the 11-year solar cycle signal in earth rotation, linear techniques were employed to investigate the amplitude and phase of the difference between ephemeris time and universal time (DeltaT) as a function of time. The amplitude is nonstationary. This difference was related to Delta(LOD), the difference between the length of day and its nominal value. The 11-year term in Delta(LOD) was 0.8 millisecond at the close of the 18th century and decreased below noise level from 1840 to 1860. From 1875 to 1925, Delta(LOD) was about 0.16 millisecond, and it decreased to about 0.08 millisecond by the 1950's. Except for anomalous behavior from 1797 to 1838, DeltaT lags sunspot numbers by 3.0 +/- 0.4 years. Since DeltaT lags Delta(LOD) by 2.7 years, the result is that Delta(LOD) is approximately in phase with sunspot numbers.

Can Rapid Climatic Change Cause Volcanic Eruptions?

Many major volcanic eruptions coincide with cooling trends of decadal or longer duration that began significantly before the eruptions. Dust veils provide positive feedback for short-term (less than 10 year) global cooling, but seem unlikely to trigger glaciations or even minor climate fluctuations in the 10-to 100-year range. On the contrary, variations in climate lead to stress changes on the earth's crust-for instance, by loading and unloading of ice and water masses and by axial and spin-rate changes that might augment volcanic (and seismic) potential.