The Curious Case of the Greenwich Faculae

Details The Curious Case of the Greenwich Faculae The Curious Case of the Greenwich Faculae

Dec 1993

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993soph..148..219f&link_type=abstract

Solar Physics, Volume 148, Issue 2, pp.219-232

Physics

27

Scientific paper

We analyze the record of facular areas compiled by the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) from daily white-light observations between 1874 and 1976. Curiously, the relative amplitudes of the three largest sunspot cycles 17, 18, and 19 in this record are reversed when they are ranked by facular area. We show that this negative correlation arises from a general decrease of the ratioA F/A S, of facular to sunspot area, with increasingA S. Within a given cycle,A F/A Sdecreases in active regions of largeA S, butA F/A Sis also lower at allA S, in cycles of higher peak amplitude inA S. This decrease ofA F/A Sin large spot groups is consistent with its decrease in younger, more active solar-mass stars, and it may explain why stars only slightly more magnetically active than the Sun tend to exhibit much greater variability in broad-band photometry. We suggest that the physical explanation is an increased spatial filling factor of magnetic flux, favoring formation of sunspots over faculae. We also explain why the decrease inA F/ASis not seen in the disc-integrated Ca K plage areas, nor in theF10.7 microwave index, both of which exhibit remarkable linearity when plotted against smoothed sunspot area. This explanation suggests how complementary data on faculae and plages from RGO and Mt. Wilson could be used to improve empirical models of total irradiance variation, extending back to 1874.

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