2. Overview of Sunspots and Solar Cycles A solar cycle, which has an average duration of 11 years, is the periodic change in the Sun’s activity, including levels of solar radiation and ejection of solar material. A solar cycle can also be characterized by the appearance of the Sun, specifically by the number of sunspots. Solar cycles are of interest in climate change science due to the variation in UV output.

3. Overview of Sunspots and Solar Cycles Sunspots are caused by intense magnetic activity which inhibit convection causing sunspots to be areas of relatively reduced surface temperature. The number of sunspots correlates with the intensity of solar radiation and can be used to help predict space weather, the state of the ionosphere, and the propagation of short-wave radio and satellite communication.

4. Slides 2 and 3 Design and Presentation Explanation I figured that if I were to present this data to an audience, I should give a brief summary of what sunspots are and what their significance is, so I decided to dedicate the first couple slides to this. I didn’t want to get too technical in the description of solar cycles and variations, but I did want to cover length of the average solar cycle (11 years) to give the data some further context. I ran out of time before the assignment was due, but in retrospect I would have included a subplot showing 11 year intervals of the data to compare solar cycles.

5. Fig. 1 – Greenwich Sunspot Data from January 1749 to August 2014

6. When I first plotted SSN and STD, I used a line graph style. This resulted in a very noisy graph. I next decided to try an area graph. Fig 2 – First plot (line graph) My second plot is an area graph, however it still appears very noisy. The data points represent each month of every year from 1749 – 2013 (2014 data points reflect January through August 2014). I didn’t think it was necessary for every month to have its own data point, so to smooth it out I took the average SSN and average STD per year and plotted these values instead (see Fig 1). Fig 3 – Second plot (area graph) Slide 4 Design and Presentation Explanation