On the Sunspot Group Number Reconstruction: The Backbone Method Revisited
Journal Title: To Physics Journal - Year 2018, Vol 1, Issue 2
Abstract
We discuss recent papers very critical of the Group Sunspot Number Series (Svalgaard & Schatten [2016]). Unfortunately, we cannot support any of the concerns they raise. We first show that almost always there is simple proportionality between the group counts by different observers and that taking the small, occasional, non-linearities into account makes very little difference. Among other examples: we verify that the RGO group count was drifting the first twenty years of observations. We then show that our group count matches the diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field with high fidelity, and that the heliospheric magnetic field derived from geomagnetic data is consistent with our group number series. We evaluate the ‘correction matrix’ approach [Usoskin et al. 2016] and show that it fails to reproduce the observational data. We clarify the notion of daisy-chaining and point out that our group number series has no daisy-chaining for the period 1794-1996 and therefore no accumulation of errors over that span. We compare with the cosmic ray record for the last 400+ years and find good agreement. We note that the Active Day Fraction method (of Usoskin et al.) has the fundamental problem that at sunspot maximum, every day is an ‘active day’ so ADF is nearly always unity and thus does not carry information about the statistics of high solar activity. This ‘information shadow’ occurs for even moderate group numbers and thus need to be extrapolated to higher activity. The ADF method also fails for ‘equivalent observers’ who should register the same group counts, but do not. We conclude that the criticism of Svalgaard & Schatten [2016] is invalid and detrimental to progress in the important field of long-term variation of solar activity.
Authors and Affiliations
Leif Svalgaard
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP478579
- DOI -
- Views 151
- Downloads 0
Multiply Charged Ions and Their Effective Applications
The creation of high-power lasers has opened a new era in the development of basic research and cutting-edge technologies in various fields of practical application. All this is, first of all, due to the unique propertie...
Minimization of Optical Rogue Waves Formation based on Hamiltonian approach
It is well known that Benjamin-Feir instability plays a crucial role in generating underseas rogue waves, for which its formation process can be carried out within a short period of time, but causing devastating threats...
Fractal Analysis of the Lunar Free-air Gravity Field
Recent dedicated lunar gravity mission- Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) provided high-resolution gravity field data for the Moon. The collected data are the starting material for the construction of the...
Mixing of Ejected Material in Supernova Remnant Cas A
Cas A is the well known supernova remnant and detailed observational data have been accumulated. In particular, recent observations suggest that the element distributions for silicon (Si) and iron (Fe) are very peculiar:...
Wormholes in k(R,T) Gravity
The wormhole solution could be found by solving the Einstein field equations with violating the null energy condition (NEC). We represent wormhole solutions in $\kappa(R,T)$ gravity (Teruel , 2017) in two different ways....