Long term evolution of geomagnetic activity under the influence of 11 year cyclic variations in solar activity during solar cycle 23 and 24

The solar activity follows an eleven year cyclic variability. The long term changes in the solar activity have a direct impact on the geomagnetic activity. In the present study, we have investigated the geomagnetic response of solar activity. To describe the long term variations of the solar activity we have selected two solar activity indices namely Sunspot Number (Rz) and solar radio flux (F10.7). Similarly to describe the level of geomagnetic activity we have taken four geomagnetic indices namely Dst, Kp, Aa and Ap. The study is carried out for the solar cycle 23 and minimum of solar cycle 24. From our study we found that long term changes in the geomagnetic activity follow a synchronous variation with the corresponding changes in the solar activity. We performed correlation analysis between solar activity and geomagnetic activity indices to access the magnitude of association between them. From correlation analysis we found that both the solar activity indices exhibit a strong correlation with all the four geomagnetic indices. The correlation coefficients of Rz with Dst, Kp, Aa and Ap are 0.78, 0.83, 0.81 and 0.86 respectively while those of F10.7 index with the same indices in the same order are 0.77, 0.83, 0.81 and 0.88.