The Astrophysical Journal, 853:144 (19pp), 2018 February 1 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaa70d © 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Role of Interaction between Magnetic Rossby Waves and Tachocline Differential Rotation in Producing Solar Seasons Mausumi Dikpati1 , Scott W. McIntosh1 , Gregory Bothun2 , Paul S. Cally3 , Siddhartha S. Ghosh4, Peter A. Gilman1 , and Orkan M. Umurhan5 1 High Altitude Observatory, NCAR, 3080 Center Green Drive, Boulder, CO 80301, USA;
[email protected] 2 Department of Physics, University of Oregon, 1274 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1274, USA 3 School of Mathematical Sciences, 9 Rainforest Walk, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia 4 Computational and Information System Laboratory, NCAR, 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80305, USA 5 SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, Space Science and Astrobiology Division, Planetary Systems Branch, MS-245-3, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA Received 2017 November 20; revised 2017 December 29; accepted 2018 January 9; published 2018 February 1 Abstract We present a nonlinear magnetohydrodynamic shallow-water model for the solar tachocline (MHD-SWT) that generates quasi-periodic tachocline nonlinear oscillations (TNOs) that can be identified with the recently discovered solar “seasons.” We discuss the properties of the hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic Rossby waves that interact with the differential rotation and toroidal fields to sustain these oscillations, which occur due to back-and-forth energy exchanges among potential, kinetic, and magnetic energies. We perform model simulations for a few years, for selected example cases, in both hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic regimes and show that the TNOs are robust features of the MHD-SWT model, occurring with periods of 2–20 months.