CAOSP abstracts, Volume: 39, No.: 2, year: 2009

Abstract: Predictions of maxima and minima of cycles of solar activity, including their amplitudes, are of importance not only for a deeper understanding of the physical processes responsible for solar activity, but also from societal and economical points of view because peak solar activity has great effects on major geophysical phenomena including space weather, like satellite drag and telecommunications outages, and has even been speculatively correlated with changes in global weather patterns. Such predictions are based on a combination of several different methods, as summarized by the panel of Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). Our estimate presented here is based on a long sequence of observations of the intensities of the green coronal line (530.3 nm/Fe XIV), whose local maxima migrate with the course of a solar cycle to the poles as well as to the equator. A careful analysis of the data indicates that the forthcoming solar cycle in the green corona will feature, like the last two ones, a couple of maxima; one at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, the other at the end of 2012.