What can sunspots tell us?
If sunspots are active, more solar flares will result creating an increase in geomagnetic storm activity for Earth. Therefore during sunspot maximums, the Earth will see an increase in the Northern and Southern Lights and a possible disruption in radio transmissions and power grids.
What is the sunspot activity today?
Today’s Sun
| Sunspot number | 39 | |
|---|---|---|
| New regions | 0 | -1 |
| 10.7cm Solar Radio Flux | 83 | 3 |
| Carrington Rotation | 2251 |
What is sunspot data?
The relative sunspot number is an index of the activity of the entire visible disk of the Sun. It is determined each day without reference to preceding days.
What effect does solar activity have on Earth?
The Sun’s irradiance has its greatest effect on Earth’s upper atmosphere, while the lower atmosphere insulates Earth from the increased heat. If the Sun were driving Earth’s warming, one would expect to see that upper atmosphere getting increasingly hot.
What is the impact of the sunspots to solar activity?
The magnetic field lines near sunspots often tangle, cross, and reorganize. This can cause a sudden explosion of energy called a solar flare. Solar flares release a lot of radiation into space. If a solar flare is very intense, the radiation it releases can interfere with our radio communications here on Earth.
What is smoothed sunspot number?
The 13-month smoothed monthly sunspot number is derived by a “tapered-boxcar” running mean of monthly sunspot numbers over 13 months centered on the corresponding month (Smoothing function: equal weights = 1, except for first and last elements (-6 and +6 months) = 0.5, Normalization by 1/12 factor).
What is the sunspot number?
Sunspot Number (here denoted R) is defined as: R = K * (10 * G + I) where G is the number of sunspot groups visible on the Sun; I is the total number of individual spots visible; and K is an instrumental factor to take into account differences between observers and observatories.
What do sunspot numbers mean?
: an arbitrary numerical value that is used to describe the sun’s spottedness, is the number of individual spots plus 10 times the number of disturbed regions, and depends upon the instrumental equipment and personal equation of the observer.