Issue 1, 2014
The Academy of Finland has selected the Centres of Excellence in Research (CoE) for the 2014-2019 CoE programme. As reported elsewhere, the new CoE programme will consist of 14 units, involving research teams from twelve universities or research institutes. The Academy has reserved a total of EUR 45 million for the first three years of the six-year programme term.
The first CoE ever to be funded in the field of space physics and astronomy, Research on Solar Long-Term Variability and Effects (ReSoLVE), lead by Prof. Kalevi Mursula from Oulu University with partners from Aalto University, Finnish Meteorological Institute and Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, concentrates on Research on Solar Long-Term Variability and Effects. The astrophysics group at Nordita is one of the key collaborating teams involved in the CoE activities.
Recent observations have disclosed how dramatically variable the Sun is, and how exceptional current solar activity is. From 1930s until about 2000, the Sun was more active than during the last few thousand years. This time interval is now called the Grand Modern Maximum (GMM). However, GMM is now approaching its end, and recent minimum activity equaled low levels of a hundred years ago. ReSoLVE will study the causes and consequences of this exceptional recent past of the Sun, improve modelling of the solar dynamo, and study the effects in near-Earth environment, including the ionization in the Earth's upper atmosphere. ReSoLVE connects to a large international collaboration, comprising of a large European network, COST Action ES1005 "Towards a more complete assessment of the impact of solar variability on the Earths climate", a European Infrastructure project ESPAS (Near-Earth Space Data Infrastructure for e-Science), and a Space project called eHEROES. The picture shows a recent global simulation result from members of the Center, where a dynamo-generated magnetic is found to propagate gradually equatorward.
Add a comment