Solar Wind Parameters and Its Geoefficiency During Minimums of Four Solar Cycles

Abstract

Recently a number of publications have appeared on the long and deep minimum in cycle 23 of solar activity. This interest is due to the fact that it turned out to be the longest and deepest in terms of the number of sunspots in the entire era of space exploration. The features of the minimum of cycle 23 of solar activity and the beginning of cycle 24 made it possible to assume that in the coming decades, a minimum of solar activity similar to the Dalton or Maunder minimum, leading to a global change in the earth's climate, may occur. Such assumptions make a detailed study of the influence of the minimum of solar cycle 23 on the parameters of the solar wind and the interplanetary magnetic field, as well as a comparison of this influence with similar manifestations in the three previous cycles very urgent. The work carried out statistical processing and analysis of data available in print and on the Internet on the indices of solar activity (W and F10.7), on geomagnetic activity, as well as on the parameters of the solar wind and interplanetary field. In contrast to other similar studies, when choosing time intervals for all cycles, only one — 12 months was used, which made it possible to exclude annual and semi-annual variations in solar wind parameters. For the considered minima of solar activity, the geoeffectiveness of the disturbed fluxes ICME, CIR, and Sheath was considered. A monotonic and very significant decrease in the geoeffectiveness of the ICME streams was found. Data processing on the hourly average values of the solar wind parameters at the minima of geomagnetic activity for 4 cycles confirmed the significant difference between cycle 23 and the previous ones in the behavior of the magnetic field. The cycle-by-cycle decrease in the geoeffectiveness of coronal ejections discussed in the press deserves a more detailed analysis using extensive data on magnetic activity indices.