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Features of the Sunspot Distribution over the Solar Disk in 1874–2016

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Abstract

The components of solar activity (SA)—axisymmetric (AS) and nonaxisymmetric (longitudinal asymmetry, LA)—were studied with the use of the data from Greenwich USAF/NOAA (1874–2016). The LA value was estimated with the method of vector summation of sunspot areas. This made it possible to reduce the contribution of sunspots uniformly distributed over the longitude and to separate the nonaxisymmetric part of the activity. At the SA maximum, the LA component makes up approximately one-third of the total sunspot area, and two-thirds are in the axisymmetric part. It is shown that the Waldmeier effect is observed for the longitudinal asymmetry with a high correlation between the growth rate and the LA maximum. The Gnevyshev–Ohl (GO) rule for LA is satisfied only for one even–odd pair of cycles in each group of four cycles, while the second pair follows the anti-GO rule. The variation in the longitudinal asymmetry integral calculated for each of the SA cycles showed that the relative contribution of LA decreases with time in cycles 12–23.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the staff of the Royal Greenwich Observatory/United States Air Force/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and personally Dr. David H. Hathaway for the homogeneous set of sunspot data. The authors are grateful to the reviewer of the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. St. Petersburg Branch of the Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere, and Radio Wave Propagation, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    E. S. Vernova & M. I. Tyasto

  2. Ioffe Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    D. G. Baranov

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  1. E. S. Vernova
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  2. M. I. Tyasto
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  3. D. G. Baranov
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Correspondence to E. S. Vernova or D. G. Baranov.

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Translated by M. Chubarova

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Vernova, E.S., Tyasto, M.I. & Baranov, D.G. Features of the Sunspot Distribution over the Solar Disk in 1874–2016. Geomagn. Aeron. 61, 1038–1044 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0016793221070239

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