Deciphering solar magnetic activity: some (unpopular) thoughts on the coupling of the Sun’s “weather” and “climate”

The Sun exhibits episodic surges of magnetic activity across a range of temporal and spatial scales, the most prominent of which is the 11-th year modulation of sunspot production. Beside the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="m1"><mml:mrow><mml:mo>∼</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math> 170 (min to max) decadal variation in sunspot production there is a less-explored quasi-annual variation in the range of 25–50 sunspots/year in magnitude. In addition, there is there is a slower, <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="m2"><mml:mrow><mml:mo>∼</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math> 80 year period, 10–50 variation in the sunspot number, that is commonly referred to as the “Gleissberg Cycle.” Using a suite of contemporary and historical observations we will illustrate these elements of our star’s episodic behavior and present a hypothesis that may provide a consistent physical link between the observed “climatic,” “decadal,” and “seasonal” magnetic variation of our star.