[SFDXA] The Termination Event

[Bill]

  Spaceweather.com <https://spaceweatherarchive.com/>


  The Termination Event

June 11, 2021 
<https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2021/06/11/the-termination-event/>/ 
Dr.Tony Phillips <https://spaceweatherarchive.com/author/drtonyphillips/>

*June 10, 2021:* Something big may be about to happen on the sun. “We 
call it the Termination Event,” says Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist 
at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), “and it’s very, 
very close to happening.”

If you’ve never heard of the Termination Event, you’re not alone. Many 
researchers have never heard of it either. It’s a relatively new idea in 
solar physics championed by McIntosh and colleague Bob Leamon of the 
University of Maryland – Baltimore County. According to the two 
scientists, vast bands of magnetism are drifting across the surface of 
the sun. When oppositely-charged bands collide at the equator, they 
annihilate (or “terminate”). There’s no explosion; this is magnetism, 
not anti-matter. Nevertheless, the Termination Event is a big deal. It 
can kickstart the next solar cycle into a higher gear.

/*Above: *Oppositely charged magnetic bands (red and blue) march toward 
the sun’s equator where they annihilate one another, kickstarting the 
next solar cycle. [full caption 
<https://news.ucar.edu/132771/new-sunspot-cycle-could-be-one-strongest-record>] 
/

“If the Terminator Event happens soon, as we expect, new Solar Cycle 25 
could have a magnitude that rivals the top few since record-keeping 
began,” says McIntosh.

This is, to say the least, controversial. Most solar physicists believe 
that Solar Cycle 25 will be weak, akin to the anemic Solar Cycle 24 
which barely peaked back in 2012-2013. Orthodox models of the sun’s 
inner magnetic dynamo favor a weak cycle and do not even include the 
concept of “terminators.”

“What can I say?” laughs McIntosh. “We’re heretics!”

The researchers outlined their reasoning in a December 2020 paper 
<https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11207-020-01723-y/> in the 
research journal /Solar Physics/. Looking back over 270 years of sunspot 
data, they found that Terminator Events divide one solar cycle from the 
next, happening approximately every 11 years. Emphasis on 
/approximately/. The interval between terminators ranges from 10 to 15 
years, and this is key to predicting the solar cycle.

/*Above: *The official forecast for Solar Cycle 25 (red) is weak; 
McIntosh and Leamon believe it will be more like the strongest solar 
cycles of the past. /

“We found that the longer the time between terminators, the weaker the 
next cycle would be,” explains Leamon. “Conversely, the shorter the time 
between terminators, the stronger the next solar cycle would be.”

Example: Sunspot Cycle 4 began with a terminator in 1786 and ended with 
a terminator in 1801, an unprecedented 15 years later. The following 
cycle, 5, was incredibly weak with a peak amplitude of just 82 sunspots. 
That cycle would become known as the beginning of the “Dalton” Grand 
Minimum.

Solar Cycle 25 is shaping up to be the opposite. Instead of a long 
interval, it appears to be coming on the heels of a very short one, only 
10 years since the Terminator Event that began Solar Cycle 24. Previous 
solar cycles with such short intervals have been among the strongest in 
recorded history.

These ideas may be controversial, but they have a virtue that all 
scientists can appreciate: They’re testable. If the Termination Event 
happens soon and Solar Cycle 25 skyrockets, the “heretics” may be on to 
something. Stay tuned for updates.
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