Piyali Chatterjee (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research)
Abstract :
The 11-year solar cycle is understood to be produced due to a complex
chain of processes (known as the dynamo cycle) involving non-linear
interactions between magnetic fields and plasma.
The solar magnetic
cycle has considerable influence on anthropogenic activities like radio
communication, aerospace, satellites etc. Hence arises the need to
develop the capability of predicting future solar cycles correctly.
Is
solar cycle prediction a realistic proposal? Whatever the case, whether
the upcoming cycle 24 of solar activity will be strong or not is being
hotly debated. I shall discuss how to model the last few solar cycles by
‘feeding’ observational data of the Sun’s polar magnetic field into
our solar dynamo model.
Our results fit the observed sunspot numbers of
cycles 21-23 extremely well and predict that cycle 24 will be about 40%
weaker than cycle 23.
Slides