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The Fine Structure of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillations of Sunspot Areas and the Double Magnetic Cycle of the Sun

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Abstract

One of the basic features of solar activity is the quasi-biennial oscillations (QBOs)—variations with a period of about two years. The nature of the QBO remains unclear and the most puzzling is the high instability of the QBO period. We investigated a fine structure of the QBO period variability as manifested in sunspot area variations in Solar Cycles 19 – 23 using the wavelet transform with a real mother wavelet, Daubechies 10, that provided a high temporal resolution. We found that within every 11-yr solar cycle the QBO period varies not randomly, as it is widely accepted now, but it gradually decreases from the beginning of the solar cycle till the end, in phase with the shift of the average sunspots latitude to the equator. We have analyzed in a similar way the time series which were simulated using a combination of sine waves with different periods (constant and variable one) and red noise with a standard deviation as large as 40% of the sine amplitude. The analysis has shown that noise does not distort significantly the initial signal and noise itself does not form the structures with the properties which were observed in the case of the natural time series. We suppose that the revealed modification of the QBO period with the development of the solar cycle may be related to the latitudinal differential rotation in the solar convection zone and the possible influence of the rotational velocity in the region of the QBO generation on the QBO period value. Under this assumption, the process responsible for the QBO generation should operate in a layer with a substantial latitudinal shear which according to the helioseismology analysis is observed in the bulk of the convection zone and is getting smaller in the vicinity of the tachocline.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Natan Kleorin and Galina Bazilevskaya for the discussions and very helpful advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The branch of Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry, Moscow, Russia

    Irina Kostyuchenko

  2. Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Universitetsky pr., 13, Moscow, 119992, Russia

    Elena Bruevich

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  1. Irina Kostyuchenko
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  2. Elena Bruevich
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Correspondence to Irina Kostyuchenko.

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Towards Future Research on Space Weather Drivers

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Kostyuchenko, I., Bruevich, E. The Fine Structure of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillations of Sunspot Areas and the Double Magnetic Cycle of the Sun. Sol Phys 296, 8 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-020-01745-6

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