Erratum to: Width of Sunspot Generating Zone and Reconstruction of Butterfly Diagram

Abstract

Based on the extended Greenwich-NOAA/USAF catalogue of sunspot groups it is demonstrated that the parameters describing the latitudinal width of the sunspot generating zone (SGZ) are closely related to the current level of solar activity, and the growth of the activity leads to the expansion of SGZ. The ratio of the sunspot number to the width of SGZ shows saturation at a certain level of the sunspot number, and above this level the increase of the activity takes place mostly due to the expansion of SGZ. It is shown that the mean latitudes of sunspots can be reconstructed from the amplitudes of solar activity. Using the obtained relations and the group sunspot numbers by Hoyt and Schatten (1998), the latitude distribution of sunspot groups ("the Maunder butterfly diagram") for the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries is reconstructed and compared with historical sunspot observations.

Characteristics of sunspot longitudinal distribution and their correlation with solar activity in pre-Greenwich data

“…Besides, in papers [11,2,6] we found a relationship between the latitude extension of the sunspot distribution and the level of solar activity. For GC such relationship between G and the dispersion σ 2 φ (see Fig.…”

“…On the one hand, both information on number of sunspots and on their latitude distribution is subjected to distortions caused by loss of observational data, but it is much weaker for the latter. On the other hand, there are stable links between the latitude distribution of sunspots in the 11-year solar cycle and its amplitude [2,6,3]. Therefore, latitude characteristics of sunspots can be used for control and correction of normalization of traditional series of amplitude indices.…”