Short-term periodicities in solar indices

The purpose of the present communication is to identify the short-term ( fewtens of months) periodicities of several solar indices ( sunspot number, CaII area and K index, Lyman a, 2800 MHz radio emission, coronal green-line index, solar magnetic field). The procedure used was: from the 3-month running means (3m) the 37-month running means (37m) were subtracted, and the factor (3m-37m) was examined for several parameters. For solar indices, considerable fluctuations were seen during the +/- 4 years around sunspot maxima of cycles 18- 23, and virtually no fluctuations were seen in the +/- 2 years around sunspot minima. The spacings between successive peaks were irregular but common for various solar indices. Assuming that there are stationary periodicities, a spectral analysis was carried out which indicated periodicities of months: 5.1 - 5.7, 6.2 - 7.0, 7.6 - 7.9, 8.9 - 9.6, 10.4 - 12.0, 12.8 - 13.4, 14.5 - 17.5, 22 - 25, 28 (QBO), 31 - 36 ( QBO), 41 - 47 (QTO). The periodicities of 1.3 year ( 15.6 months) and 1.7 years (20.4 months) often mentioned in the literature were seen neither often nor prominently. Other periodicities occurred more often and more prominently. For the open magnetic flux estimated by Wang, Lean, and Sheeley ( 2000) and Wang and Sheeley ( 2002), it was noticed that the variations were radically different at different solar latitudes. The open flux for <45° solar latitudes had variations very similar ( parallel) to the sunspot cycle, while open flux for > 45° solar latitudes had variations anti-parallel to the sunspot cycle. The open fluxes, interplanetary magnetic field and cosmic rays, all showed periodicities similar to those of solar indices. Many peaks ( but not all) matched, indicating that the open flux for < 45° solar latitudes was at least partially an adequate carrier of the solar characteristics to the interplanetary space and thence for galactic cosmic ray modulation.