Exploring the reliability of polar field rise rate as a precursor for an early prediction of solar cycle

TL;DR

This study investigates the robustness of using the polar field rise rate as an early predictor for solar cycle strength, demonstrating its reliability despite stochastic fluctuations in solar magnetic activity.

Contribution

The paper provides evidence that the correlation between polar field rise rate and cycle amplitude is robust, enabling earlier and more reliable solar cycle predictions.

Findings

Polar field rise rate correlates with cycle amplitude.

The correlation remains robust despite stochastic fluctuations.

Early predictions of solar cycle strength are feasible.

Abstract

The prediction of the strength of an upcoming solar cycle has been a long-standing challenge in the field of solar physics. The inherent stochastic nature of the underlying solar dynamo makes the strength of the solar cycle vary in a wide range. Till now, the polar precursor methods and the dynamo simulations, that use the strength of the polar field at the cycle minimum to predict the strength of the following cycle has gained reasonable consensus by providing convergence in the predictions for solar cycles 24 and 25. Recently, it has been shown that just by using the observed correlation of the polar field rise rate with the peak of the polar field at the cycle minimum and the amplitude of the following cycle, a reliable prediction can be made much earlier than the cycle minimum. In this work, we perform surface flux transport (SFT) simulations to explore the robustness of this correlation against the stochastic fluctuations of BMR tilt properties including anti-Joy and anti-Hale type anomalous BMRs, and against the variation of meridional flow speed. We find that the observed correlation is a robust feature of the solar cycles and thus it can be utilized for a reliable prediction of solar cycle much earlier than the cycle minimum, the usual landmark of the solar cycle prediction.