Photospheric Manifestations of Supergranules During the Last Two Solar Minima

TL;DR

This study analyzes supergranule properties during the last two solar minima using SOHO/MDI Dopplergrams, revealing similar lifetimes but slight size differences, contributing to understanding solar magnetic activity cycles.

Contribution

It introduces techniques for extracting supergranule characteristics and compares their properties across two recent solar minima, highlighting subtle size variations.

Findings

Supergranule lifetimes are consistent between minima.

Supergranule sizes may be slightly smaller during the recent minimum.

Methods enable detailed comparison of supergranulation properties.

Abstract

Solar supergranulation plays an important role in generating and structuring the solar magnetic field and as a mechanism responsible for the 11-year solar cycle. It is clearly detected within SOHO/MDI Dopplergrams, from which a variety of properties may be derived. Techniques that extract spatial, temporal and kinematic characteristics and provide comparisons for the two most recent solar minima are described. Although supergranule lifetimes are comparable between these minima, their sizes maybe slightly smaller during the recent minimum.