Space Weather and Specific Features of the Development of Current Solar Cycle

Abstract

According to the cyclicity pattern of a reliable series of the relative sunspot number, cycle 24 opens the second epoch of lowered solar activity (SA). The main specific feature of this epoch (five cycles) is the inhibition of high solar cycles and the strict fulfillment of basic observational rules in the development of individual cycles. The more than two-fold decrease in the background values of the solar general magnetic field by the end of cycle 23 led to a complete rearrangement of physical conditions, both on the Sun and in the inner heliosphere, and affected the state of the near-Earth space (NES). After 9.2 years of development, the current solar cycle, 24, became a cycle of low magnitude (W* = 81.9) with reduced flare activity, lower geoeffectiveness of active solar phenomena, and a near absence of the most powerful flare events, solar proton events, geomagnetic activity manifestations, and ionospheric disturbances.