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So, Leamon used a creative, athletics-inspired technique to compare the timing of the sequence of events in each cycle. They can range from about nine to 14 years, averaging around 11 years.
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Not all solar cycles are exactly the same length. “And, because it’s predictable, it will, as always, ‘be back.’” A “cycling” solution “We’ve been calling this the terminator for a few years, because it indicates the death of a solar cycle,” he says. The name for the phenomenon was an easy choice, according to Leamon. In fact, data in the paper, which has been in the works since 2017, accurately predicted the next La Niña in 2020. The terminator gives researchers a new way to think about the end of the solar cycle, and a more precise way to predict the timing of ensuing weather patterns.īased on continuously collected cosmic ray data from an observatory in Finland, the new study demonstrates that a terminator event has consistently occurred about one year after the traditional “solar minimum” during each solar cycle for the last 60 years. Previously, scientists defined the transition from one solar cycle to the next as the “solar minimum,” where overall solar activity is at its lowest point.
![umbc solarcell umbc solarcell](http://photonshouse.com/photo/9d/9dcf1383a5a2f98be329430a141303d6.jpg)
The polarity of the Sun reverses direction each cycle. Activity associated with two consecutive cycles usually overlaps for a few years, but the two cycles’ sunspots are distinguishable from each other based on their magnetic polarity (north vs. After “termination,” there is a dramatic increase in solar activity in the new cycle. Leamon and co-authors Scott McIntosh and Daniel Marsh, both at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, define the terminator as the precise point where any remnants of activity from the previous cycle disappear from the sun’s surface. Organizations like NOAA currently offer weather pattern predictions about one year out, but access to decade-scale forecasts would be a huge advance. This means the ability to predict these patterns on the scale of about a decade could help communities and governments prepare for natural disasters, shifting crop supply and prices, and more. La Niña and El Niño patterns affect everything from the likelihood of severe hurricanes to the success of the growing season. The researchers found that a La Niña weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean quickly follows a terminator event. New research in Earth & Space Scienceled by Robert Leamon, research scientist at the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute, a UMBC partnership with NASA, describes the discovery of a solar cycle phenomenon the authors have dubbed “the terminator.” The solar cycle involves periodic changes in activity on the Sun’s surface, and a new way of thinking about it reveals connections between solar activity and weather patterns on Earth. This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on