Latitudinal Distribution of Sunspots Revisited

Characteristics of latitude variations of sunspots in the northern and southern hemispheres are investigated using the daily sunspot area and its latitude during the period from 1874 to 2009. Solar magnetic activity is portrayed in the form of sunspot, regions of concentrated fresh magnetic fields observed on the surface of the Sun. By defining center-oflatitude (COL) as an area-weighted latitude, we find that COL is not monotonically decreasing as commonly assumed. In fact, small humps (or short plateaus) between solar minima can be seen around every solar maxima. We also find that when the northern (southern) hemisphere is magnetically dominant, COL is positive (negative), except the solar cycle 23, which may give a hint that these two phenomena are consistently regulated by one single mechanism. As a result of periodicity analysis, we find that several significant periodicities, such as, of similar to 5.5, similar to 11, similar to 49, and similar to 167 years.