Solar Variability and the Earth's Climate: Introduction and Overview

Numerous attempts have been made over the years to link various aspects of solar variability to changes in the Earth's climate. There has been growing interest in this possible connection in recent years, spurred largely by the need to understand the natural causes of climate change, against which the expected global warming due to man's activities will have to be detected. The time scale of concern here is that of decades to centuries, and excludes the longer millennial scale in which orbital variations play a dominant role. The field has long been plagued by the lack of an acceptable physical mechanism by which solar variability can affect climate, but the discovery of variability in the Sun's total irradiance (the solar ``constant' of meteorology) by spacecraft instruments has pointed to a direct mechanism. Other less direct mechanisms that have been suggested involve variations in the Sun's ultraviolet flux and in the plasma outflow of the solar wind. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the current state of the field, emphasizing the proposed mechanisms as an introduction to the more detailed papers that follow. The particular case of sea-surface temperature data will be used as an illustration.     

月面巡视器太阳能帆板功率衰减特性研究

太阳能帆板的功率衰减特性分析,对地外天体表面探测器的功率平衡、电源系统健康管理以及长寿命在轨管理有重要意义。通过对月面巡视器在轨运行第2到11月昼的电流遥测进行研究,提出了一种基于有限遥测的太阳能帆板功率衰减特性分析方法。首先利用一种滞环的方法对大量的电流遥测进行数据处理;然后进行日月距离和太阳入射角的归一化,通过数据拟合计算,得出落月第一年太阳能帆板功率衰减约为2.5%,并利用巡视器历次月昼唤醒时刻的太阳入射角变化情况验证了该方法的有效性,对地外天体的太阳能帆板功率衰减特性计算提供一定参考。     

高度补偿喷管冷态模拟与推力测量试验技术研究

推力特性是发动机的重要特性,也是评价发动机喷管性能优劣的重要指标.而发动机的推力特性会随高度的变化而产生一定的变化,同时,喷管型面和结构形式,也是影响其推力特性的重要因素.目前,国内外都在研究和优化发动机喷管的结构形式和型面,改善和提高喷管的性能.为了研究分析双钟形喷管和塞式喷管的高度补偿特性,需要进行地面模拟试验.为满足在FD-20A风洞中进行高度补偿喷管试验的需要,开展了高度补偿冷态模拟试验技术研究,对在冷态模拟条件下的喷流模拟技术、喷管推力测量试验技术和流动显示技术等进行了研究,满足了试验的需求.     

地球同步轨道高压太阳电池阵充放电效应研究

地球同步轨道(GEO)高压太阳电池阵表面静电放电(ESD)引起二次放电可能导致太阳电池阵永久性短路损坏。文章主要针对GEO高压太阳电池阵充放电效应问题,重点分析了高压太阳电池阵表面ESD和二次放电产生的物理过程,并利用负高压偏置方法开展了GEO高压太阳电池阵表面ESD和二次放电地面模拟试验。试验验证了反转电位梯度电场是导致GEO高压太阳电池阵表面产生ESD的触发因素之一,同时得到了GaAs高压太阳电池阵样品表面产生ESD和二次放电的电压阈值。     

太阳能飞机机翼翼型对光伏组件性能的影响

结合5种太阳能飞机翼型(BC3111、BC3X92、BCS127、BC2125和SD7080)的气动性特点,建模并研究 了机翼上安装的光伏组件太阳高度角及其产生功率。研究证明:飞机向北飞行的时候,所有翼型上光伏组件太阳高度角随着弦上位置的增加而振荡上升,且有趋于饱和值的趋势;而向南飞行的时候,却呈现相反的趋势。当飞机向北飞行时,机翼弦向后端曲度小,机翼表面更接近1个斜平面,光伏组件的表面更倾向太阳,导致太阳高度角大;而当飞机向南飞行时,情况正好相反;当飞机东西方向飞行时,机翼翼型对组件太阳高度角无影响。发现所有翼型上光伏组件产生功率在向北飞行时比向南飞行时多,而东西向飞行时组件产生功率为固定值。原因在于,向北飞行时,组件接受到的太阳光更大。当飞机向北飞行时,应选择BC3X92翼型,不仅气动性最佳,而且组件产生功率也最大;而向南飞时,可选择SD7080型和BCS127型实现组件最大功率输出。     

Observations of the local interstellar medium with the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer

Because of the strong absorption of extreme ultraviolet radiation by hydrogen and helium, almost every observation with the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) satellite is affected by the diffuse clouds of neutral gas in the local interstellar medium (LISM). This paper reviews some of the highlights of the EUVE results on the distribution and physical state of the LISM and the implications of these results with respect to the interface of the LISM and the heliosphere. The distribution of sources found with the EUVE all-sky surveys shows an enhancement in absorption toward the galactic center. Individual spectra toward nearby continuum sources provide evidence of a greater ionization of helium than hydrogen in the Local Cloud with an mean ratio of H I/He I of 14.7. The spectral distribution of the EUV stellar radiation field has been measured, which provides a lower limit to local H II and He II densities, but this radiation field alone cannot explain the local helium ionization. A combination of EUVE measurements of H I, He I, and He II columns plus the measurement of the local He I density with interplanetary probes can place constraints on the local values of the H I density outside the heliosphere to lie between 0.15 and 0.34 cm^–3 while the H II density ranges between 0.0 and 0.14 cm^–3. The thermal pressure (P/k = nT) of the Local Cloud is derived to be between 1700 and 2300 cm^–3 K, a factor of 2 to 3 above previous estimates.     

Detailed magnetic structure and stochastic threshold

Non-linear evolution of reconnection is too slow to explain-by itself-fast phenomena such as internal disruptions in tokamaks or flares in the solar atmosphere. It has been proposed that the change in topology could lead to field line stochastization, and hence to highly increased transport. An important objection to this idea is that the increase of transport coefficients should smoothly follow the amplitude of the perturbation, while the observations show a catastrophic transition. We have shown 1) that the shape of the structures (and not only their size or amplitude) evolve during non-linear evolution 2) that the stochastic threshold can be strongly influenced by the detailed shape. Therefore, sharp transitions can appear during the evolution, due to the combination of these two effects. We will first consider an idealized situation, namely the two-waves problem in slab geometry, for which we will study the effect of the separatrix shape on the stochastic threshold. In the second part, we will present an application to the internal disruption in tokamaks, with anm=1 perturbation in a toroidal magnetic configuration. In the last part, we will discuss possible applications of the studies on shape effects to the behaviour of trapped particles in structures of the solar atmosphere.     

Dissipative Solitary Kinetic Alfvén Waves and Electron Acceleration in the Solar Corona

Nonthermal electrons play a major role during solar flares since not only they contain a large amount of the released energy but also they provide important information of the flaring physics through their nonthermal radiation in radio and hard X-ray bands. In a recent work Wu (Phys. Plasmas 10 (2003) 1364) proposed that dissipative solitary kinetic Alfvén wave (DSKAW) with a local shock-like structure could provide an efficient acceleration mechanism for energetic electrons in a low-β plasma. In the present paper dynamical characteristics of the DSKAW acceleration mechanism in solar coronal plasmas are studied and its application to the acceleration of flaring electrons is discussed.     

Working group 3: Coronal streamers

The working group on coronal streamers convened on the first day of the 2nd SOHO Workshop, which took place in Marciana Marina, Isola d'Elba, 27 September –1 October 1993. Recent progress in streamer observational techniques and theoretical modeling was reported. The contribution of streamers to the mass and energy supply for the solar wind was discussed. Moreover, the importance of thin electric current sheets for determining both the gross dynamical properties of streamers and the fine-scale filamentary structure within streamers, was strongly emphasized. Potential advances to our understanding of these areas of coronal physics that could be made by the contingent of instruments aboard SOHO were pointed out.     

Thermal and nonthermal flare emission observed with the Nobeyama Radio Heliograph

The early phases of three flares, observed by the Nobeyama Radio Heliograph, are studied. Nonthermal and thermal radio sources are identified by comparison with soft X-ray images taken by the Soft X-ray Telescope onboard the Yohkoh satellite. Two of the flares are mainly of nonthermal origin and their location coincides with one of the footpoints of soft X-ray loops. Another flare has both thermal and nonthermal components which start to brighten simultaneously. This suggests that particle acceleration and plasma compression develop simultaneously.