Long-term Variations in Solar Activity: Predictions for Amplitude and North--South Asymmetry of Solar Cycle 25

TL;DR

This study analyzes historical sunspot data to identify long-term periodicities in solar activity and predicts that Solar Cycle 25 will be slightly larger than Cycle 24, with hemispheric asymmetries influencing activity strength.

Contribution

It introduces a method to predict solar cycle amplitudes and asymmetries using cosine fits to historical sunspot data, revealing long-term periodicities.

Findings

Identifies ~132-year periodicity in northern hemisphere activity.

Predicts Solar Cycle 25 will be slightly larger than Cycle 24.

Finds hemispheric dominance varies at cycle maxima.

Abstract

We analysed the sunspot group data from Greenwich Photoheliographic Results (GPR) during 1874-1976 and Debrecen Photoheliographic Data (DPD) during 1977-2017 and studied the cycle-to-cycle variations in the values of 13-month smoothed monthly mean sunspot-group area in whole sphere (WSGA), northern hemisphere (NSGA), and southern hemisphere (SSGA) at the epochs of maxima of Sunspot Cycles 12-24, and at the epochs of maxima of WSGA, NSGA, and SSGA Cycles 12-24. The cosine fits to the values of WSGA, NSGA, and SSGA at the maxima of the sunspot number, WSGA, NSGA, and SSGA Cycles 12-24, and to the values of the corresponding north-south asymmetry, suggest the existence of a ~132-year periodicity in the activity of northern hemisphere, a 54-66-year periodicity in the activity of southern hemisphere, and a 50-66 year periodicity in the north-south asymmetry in activity at all the aforementioned epochs. By extrapolating the best-fit cosine curves we predicted the amplitudes and the corresponding north-south asymmetry of the 25th WSGA, NSGA, and SSGA cycles. We find that on average Solar Cycle 25 in sunspot-group area would be to some extent smaller than Solar Cycle 24 in sunspot-group area. However, by inputting the predicted amplitudes of the 25th WSGA, NSGA, and SSGA cycles in the linear relationship between sunspot-group area and sunspot number we find that the amplitude (130 +or- 12) of Sunspot Cycle 25 would be slightly larger than that of reasonably small Sunspot Cycle 24. Still it confirms that the beginning of the upcoming Gleissberg cycle would take place around Solar Cycle 25. We also find that except at the maximum of NSGA Cycle 25 where the strength of activity in northern hemisphere would be dominant, the strength of activity in the southern hemisphere would be dominant at the maximum epochs of the 25th sunspot, WSGA, and SSGA cycles.