Long-term Pulses of Dynamic Coupling between Solar Hemispheres

TL;DR

This study investigates the long-term dynamic coupling between solar hemispheres using non-linear analysis of sunspot data, revealing irregular pulses of coupling related to solar cycle phases over 130 years.

Contribution

It introduces a novel non-linear dynamics approach to quantify and analyze the evolving coupling between solar hemispheres over a long historical period.

Findings

Identified pulses of hemispheric coupling during solar cycle decays.

Discovered at least 40 years of unidirectional coupling in 130-year data.

Observed pulses repeating over Hale and multiple 11-year cycles.

Abstract

North-south (N-S) asymmetry of solar activity is a known statistical phenomenon but its significance is difficult to prove or theoretically explain. Here we consider each solar hemisphere as a separate dynamical system connected with the other hemisphere via an unknown coupling parameter. We use a non-linear dynamics approach to calculate the scale-dependent conditional dispersion (CD) of sunspots between hemispheres. Using daily Greenwich sunspot areas, we calculated the Neumann and Pearson chi-squared distances between CDs as indices showing the direction of coupling. We introduce an additional index of synchronization which shows the strength of coupling and allows us to discriminate between complete synchronization and independency of hemispheres. All indices are evaluated in a four-year moving window showing the evolution of coupling between hemispheres. We find that the driver-response interrelation changes between hemispheres have a few pulses during 130 years of Greenwich data with an at least 40 years-long period of unidirectional coupling. These sharp nearly simultaneous pulses of all causality indices are found at the decay of some 11-year cycles. The pulse rate of this new phenomenon of dynamic coupling is irregular: although the first two pulses repeat after 22-year Hale cycles, the last two pulses repeat after three and four 11-year cycles respectively. The last pulse occurs at the decay phase of Cycle 23 so the next pulse will likely appear during the decay of future Cycle 25 or later. This new phenomenon of dynamic coupling reveals additional constraints for understanding and modeling of the long-term solar activity cycles.