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Context. The Sun experienced a period of unprecedented activity during the 20th century, now called the Modern Maximum (MM). The decay of the MM after its maximum in cycle 19 has changed the Sun, the heliosphere, and the planetary environments in many ways. However, studies disagree on whether this decay has proceeded synchronously in different solar parameters or not. Aims. One of the related key issues is if the relation between two long parameters of solar activity, the sunspot number and the solar 10.7 cm radio flux, has remained the same during this decay. A recent study argues that there is an inhomogeneity in the 10.7 cm radio flux in 1980, which leads to a step-like jump ("1980 jump") in this relation. If true, this result would reduce the versatility of possible long-term studies of the Sun during the MM. Here we aim to show that the relation between sunspot number and 10.7 cm radio flux does indeed vary in time, not due to an inhomogeneous radio flux but due to physical changes in the solar atmosphere. Methods. We used radio flux measurements made in Japan at four different wavelengths, and studied their long-term relation with the sunspot number and the 10.7 cm radio flux during the decay of MM. We also used two other solar parameters, the MgII index and the number of solar active regions, in order to study the nature of the observed long-term changes in more detail. Results. We find that the 1980 jump is only the first of a series of 1–2-year "humps" that mainly occur during solar maxima. All five radio fluxes depict an increasing trend with respect to the sunspot number from the 1970s to 2010s. These results exclude the interpretation of the 1980 jump as an inhomogeneity in the 10.7 cm flux, and reestablish the 10.7 cm flux as a homogeneous measure of solar activity. The fluxes of the longer radio waves are found to increase with respect to the shorter waves, which suggests a long-term change in the solar radio spectrum. We also find that the MgII index of solar UV irradiance and the number of active regions also increased with respect to the sunspot number, further verifying the difference in the long-term evolution in chromospheric and photospheric parameters. Conclusions. Our results provide evidence for important structural changes in solar magnetic fields and the solar atmosphere during the decay of the MM, which have not been reliably documented so far. We also emphasize that the changing relation between the different (e.g., photospheric and chromospheric) solar parameters should be taken into account when using the sunspot number or any single parameter in long-term studies of solar activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using data of Japanese dense array of GPS receivers (GEONET) we analyzed variations of total electron content (TEC) over Japan during a period of low solar and geomagnetic activity in April–September 2008. During that time, five large earthquakes with magnitude M>6.8 occurred around the Japanese Islands. We calculated vertical TEC with time resolution of 1h and we compared the TEC over Japan with TEC over southwestern USA. In order to detect abnormal signals, we processed daily TEC based on median and quartile of preceding 15 days. Knowing that the decisive role in the ionosphere state is performed by space weather effects, we compared the estimated TEC values with time series of the B z component of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), UV solar radiation, index of geomagnetic activity Dst and planetary index Kp. We have found that though the analyzed time period falls on the minimum of solar activity, the observed positive anomalies in the regional TEC correspond to fluctuations of IMF B z and to the following increase in Kp and Dst indices. Other case of ∼25% TEC increase in the duration of four days (DOY: 140–143) is, most likely, caused by increase in the solar UV radiation and coincides with growth of the global TEC. Other positive or negative abnormal TEC variations coincide with fluctuations of the global mean TEC or are of large spatial scale, i.e. much larger than the earthquake preparation zone. Therefore, it is rather difficult to find correlation between the observed anomalies and the five large earthquakes. Our results do not disprove the possibility of precursory phenomena but show the difficulties in identifying earthquake precursors in the ionosphere TEC on the background of TEC changes produced by space weather effects, even during solar minimum. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We compare vector magnetograms of 228 active regions observed by Solar Magnetic Field Telescope (SMFT) at Huairou (HR) Solar Observing Station and the Solar Flare Telescope (SFT) at Mitaka (MTK) of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan from 1992 to 2005 and 55 active regions observed by SFT and Haleakala Stokes Polarimeter (HSP) at Mees Solar Observatory, University of Hawaii from 1997 to 2000. Two helicity parameters, current helicity density h c and α ff coefficient of linear force free field are calculated. From this comparison we conclude: (1) the mean azimuthal angle differences of transverse fields between HR and MTK data are systematic smaller than that between MTK and Mees data; (2) there are 83.8% of h c and 78.1% of α ff for 228 active regions observed at HR and MTK agree in sign, and the Pearson linear correlation coefficient between these two data sets is 0.72 for h c and 0.56 for α ff. There are 61.8% of h c and 58.2% of α ff for 55 active regions observed at MTK and Mees agree in sign, and the Pearson linear correlation coefficient between these two data sets is 0.34 for h c and 0.31 for α ff; (3) there is a basic agreement on time variation of helicity parameters in active regions observed at HR, Mees, and MTK. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]