A Different View of Solar Cycle Spectral Variations: Total Energy during Isolated Solar Outburst Periods

Abstract:

The solar spectral irradiance (SSI) varies on all time scales, and these variations are highly dependent on wavelength. The daily and 27-day solar rotation variations are best understood from many different satellite observations over the past five decades. There has also been much progress in understanding the longer term 11-year solar activity cycle variations. However, instrument degradation corrections are not as accurate as sometimes needed for long-term studies, thus there can be challenges in understanding the solar cycle variations at some wavelengths. In particular, the Harder et al. (GRL, 36, L07801, 2009) results for the near ultraviolet (NUV), visible, and near infrared (NIR) have indicated more NUV variation and some out-of-phase variation for some visible and NIR wavelengths. These variations have been challenged as they are inconsistent with some prior measurements and with some SSI models. A different approach to study the solar cycle variations, but without the need for long-term instrument degradation corrections, is to examine the total energy during isolated solar outburst periods. A solar active region typically appears suddenly and then takes about seven months to decay and disperse back into the quiet Sun network. The isolated outburst period refers to when only one major active region dominates the irradiance variation. The solar outburst energy, which includes all phases of active region evolution, could be considered to be the primary cause for solar cycle variations. Using TIMED, SDO, and SORCE extreme ultraviolet and far ultraviolet observations, the outburst energy (7 months) spectral variation is found to be very similar to their multi-year (solar cycle) variation. The same approach is applied for studying the NUV-Visible-NIR variations from SORCE, and these new results provide a different, and perhaps more accurate, indicator of SSI variation.