Abstract.
The sunspot number - a proxy of solar activity -
varies roughly periodically with
time. However the individual cycle durations and amplitudes are found to
vary
in an irregular way. An important feature of the solar cycle is the
Maunder
minimum during 1645-1715 when there were very few sunspots. We explore
whether this irregular solar cycle can be modeled with the help of a
flux
transport dynamo model of the solar cycle. We model the periods of the
last 23
sunspot cycles by varying the meridional circulation speed. We find that
most
of the cycle amplitudes also get modeled up to some extent when we model
the
periods. Moreover, under certain situations we are able to reproduce
Maunder
like grand minimum. However, we fail to reproduce these results if the
value of
turbulent diffusivity is reasonably low.