Dynamics of the Sun: Solar Minimum and What’s to Come
October 23—25, 2009—Boulder, Colorado
- What are the processes that govern solar activity?
Understanding the structure and dynamics of the Sun’s interior, magnetic field structure, and corona is crucial to understanding the root causes of solar activity. As new data comes to light, our solar activity predictive power improves.
- What is the impact of the solar minimum on climate and the space environment?
The prolonged solar minimum that we are now experiencing has offered an unprecedented opportunity to untangle conflated questions about the Sun. In addition, we are seeing signs that this minimum may be impacting Earth’s climate, as well as its space environment.
- What will solar max look like and what are the implications for studying the sun and space weather?
Having had an opportunity to study the prolonged solar minimum, scientists are gearing up to look at the Sun-Earth system as we move towards the solar maximum. With more space assets than ever before, the implications for space weather during this period may be profound.
- Looking to the Future: The Great Observatory
We are now on the cusp of a time when we will have more ‘eyes’ on the Sun than ever before. We are beginning the era of the Great Observatory, NASA’s plan to integrate data from dozens of satellites to ‘wire’ the Sun-Earth system. The launch of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) (the first of NASA’s “Living with a Star” missions) will greatly enhance our ability to explore the Sun’s magnetic field, its atmosphere, as well as provide space weather forecasters with EUV data every 10 seconds.
- Abstracts (197 KB PDF)
- An Extreme Distortion of the Van Allen belt arising from the ‘Halloween’ solar storm in 2003 (487 KB PDF)
- Neutral Line model of substorms: Past results and present view (4.2 MB PDF)
- Geomagnetism: Theories of Since 1900 (471 KB PDF)
- Partially ejected flux ropes: Implications for interplanetary coronal mass ejections (1.6 MB PDF)
- If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals (754 KB PDF)
- The large-scale structure of the heliospheric current sheet during the ulysses epoch (1.4 MB PDF)
- Coronal mass ejections, magnetic flux ropes, and solar magnetism (6.8 MB PDF)
- Severe space weather events – understanding societal and economic impacts (3.8 MB PDF)
- The alternative paradigm for magnetospheric physics (3.1 MB PDF)
- A history of early work on the heliospheric magnetic field (565 KB PDF)
- Space physics before the space age (451 KB PDF)
- Reflections on macrophysics and the sun (176 KB PDF)
- Solar Irradiance Reference Spectra (SIRS) for the 2008 Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI) (369 KB PDF)
- Solar Irradiance Variability (270 KB PDF)
- Solar Ultraviolet Variability Over Time Periods of Aeronomic Interest (3.2 MB PDF)
- Success rate of predicting the heliospheric magnetic field polarity with Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) synoptic charts (3.6 MB PDF)
- Historical View of our Study of the Sun—Gene Parker (1.8 MB PDF)
- Living in a Star—Sarah Gibson (2.7 MB PDF)
- If the sun is so quiet, why is the Earth still ringing?—Sarah Gibson (4.3 MB PDF)
Accompanying movies: Solar Flares (2 MB MOV)—Solar Field Lines (4 MB MOV)
- ATST and Other Ground-based Systems—Sarah Gibson (65.6 MB zip)
- The Origin of the Solar Cycle & Helioseismology—Todd Hoeksema (6.8 MB PDF)
- Magnetism from the Sun to the Earth—Gene Parker (3.1 MB PDF)
- Characteristics of the Current Solar Minimum—Tom Woods (4.1 MB PDF)
Accompanying movie: Magnetogram (3.1 MB MPEG)
- The Great Heliophysics Observatory: An Overview—Tom Woods (94.4 MB zip)
- The Sun/Climate Connection: What Have We Learned During this Solar Minimum?—Bob Cahalan (3.6 MB PDF)
- NASA / NOAA Plans for Sun-Climate Observations—Bob Cahalan (946 KB PDF)
- Predictions for the Next Solar Maximum—Frank Eparvier (500 KB PDF)
- Impact of Space Weather on our Technology—Dan Baker (5.2 MB PDF)
- The Solar Dynamics Observatory—Alan Title & Frank Eparvier (2.1 MB PDF)