Short-term correlation of solar activity and sunspot:: Evidence of lifetime increase

We perform a nonlinear study of the short-term correlation properties of the solar activity (daily range) in order to reveal their long-life variations. We estimate the lifetime of the high-frequency component of a Markov-type signal when the high-frequency component is modulated by a slowly varying multiplicative factor. This treatment is applied to different series of solar activity: Wolf Sunspot numbers (WSN), Sunspot Group numbers (SGN), and Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) sunspot group series. We obtain that all the lifetime estimates exhibit similar temporal variations that agree with the variations of the sunspot lifetimes directly measured from the RGO data and those of the sunspot areas. An increase of lifetimes by a factor 1.4 is observed from 1915 to 1940. At the same time, a stable ratio is observed between the sunspot group's maximal area and the lifetime, confirming the Gnevyshev-Waldmeier-type relationship. The analysis identifies also time intervals where the homogeneity of the different time series may be questioned.