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Spörer’s law and relationship between the latitude and amplitude parameters of solar activity

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Abstract

The equatorward drift of average sunspot latitudes (Spörer’s law) and its relationship with other characteristics of the 11-year solar cycle are analyzed. The notion of cycle latitude phase (CLP) is introduced, which is calculated from behavior of average sunspot latitudes. The latter are shown to be expressed, with known accuracy, as a universal monotonic decreasing function of the CLP and to be independent of the cycle strength. The same applies to the latitudinal drift velocity of the sunspot generating zone. The shifts in the CLP reference times relative to the cycle minima are, on the contrary, well correlated with the amplitudes of the corresponding cycles. Solar activity in the declining phase of the solar cycle is found to be tightly related to the average sunspot latitude and CLP. The relationships found in the study can be used to reconstruct average sunspot latitudes in the pre-Greenwich epoch based on the available information on cycle amplitudes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Main (Pulkovo) Astronomical Observatory, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    V. G. Ivanov & E. V. Miletsky

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  1. V. G. Ivanov
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  2. E. V. Miletsky
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Correspondence to V. G. Ivanov.

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Ivanov, V.G., Miletsky, E.V. Spörer’s law and relationship between the latitude and amplitude parameters of solar activity. Geomagn. Aeron. 54, 907–914 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0016793214070044

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