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To: SunkenCiv

The sunspot cycle is actually 22 years. Eleven with fields north and eleven south.


8 posted on 04/18/2007 11:07:41 AM PDT by RightWhale (3 May '07 3:14 PM)
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To: RightWhale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot

Sunspot activity cycles about every eleven years. The point of highest sunspot activity during this cycle is known as Solar Maximum, and the point of lowest activity is Solar Minimum... Today it is known that there are various periods in the Wolf number sunspot index, the most prominent of which is at about 11 years in the mean... A modern understanding of sunspots starts with George Ellery Hale, in which magnetic fields and sunspots are linked. Hale suggested that the sunspot cycle period is 22 years, covering two polar reversals of the solar magnetic dipole field. Horace W. Babcock later proposed a qualitative model for the dynamics of the solar outer layers. The Babcock Model explains the behavior described by Spörer’s law, as well as other effects, as being due to magnetic fields which are twisted by the Sun’s rotation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle

The Schwabe solar cycle, Schwabe-Wolf cycle, or sunspot cycle is the eleven-year cycle of activity of the sun, discovered in 1843 by the German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe. Since 1849 it has been measured using the Wolf number, based on the number of sunspots observed on the Sun. The cycle is also associated with the reversal of the solar magnetic polarity. The solar cycle is not strictly 11 years long; it has been as short as 9 years and as long as 14 years in recent years. Other possible cycles have been suggested, and are discussed in the article on solar variation.


9 posted on 04/18/2007 11:13:46 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (I last updated my profile on Monday, April 18, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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