Robustness of Solar-Cycle Empirical Rules Across Different Series Including an Updated ADF Sunspot Group Series

TL;DR

This study evaluates the robustness of solar cycle empirical rules across various sunspot series, including an updated sunspot group series, confirming the Waldmeier rule's consistency and analyzing the Gnevyshev--Ohl rule's stability over different periods.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive test of classical and revised sunspot series for key solar cycle rules, including an updated sunspot group series based on the active-day fraction method.

Findings

Waldmeier rule is robust across all series.

Gnevyshev--Ohl rule is stable for cycles 8--21.

Updated sunspot group series confirms previous empirical rule robustness.

Abstract

Empirical rules of solar cycle evolution form important observational constraints for the solar dynamo theory. This includes the Waldmeier rule relating the magnitude of a solar cycle to the length of its ascending phase, and the Gnevyshev--Ohl rule clustering cycles to pairs of an even-numbered cycle followed by a stronger odd-numbered cycle. These rules were established as based on the "classical" Wolf sunspot number series, which has been essentially revisited recently, with several revised sets released by the research community. Here we test the robustness of these empirical rules for different sunspot (group) series for the period 1749--1996, using four classical and revised international sunspot numbers and group sunspot-number series. We also provide an update of the sunspot group series based on the active-day fraction (ADF) method, using the new database of solar observations. We show that the Waldmeier rule is robust and independent of the exact sunspot (group) series: its classical and $n+1$ (relating the length of $n$-th cycle to the magnitude of ($n+1$)-th cycle) formulations are significant or highly significant for all series, while its simplified formulation (relating the magnitude of a cycle to its full length) is insignificant for all series. The Gnevyshev--Ohl rule was found robust for all analyzed series for Cycles 8--21, but unstable across the Dalton minimum and before it.