Eclipse on the Coral Sea: Cycle 24 Ascending

A total solar eclipse is the most spectacular and awe-inspiring astronomical phenomenon most people will ever see in their lifetimes. Even hardened solar scientists draw inspiration from it. The eclipse with 2 minutes totality in the early morning of 14 November 2012 (local time) drew over 120 solar researchers (and untold thousands of the general public) to the small and picturesque resort town of Palm Cove just north of Cairns in tropical north Queensland, Australia, and they were rewarded when the clouds parted just before totality to reveal a stunning solar display.

The eclipse was also the catalyst for an unusually broad and exciting conference held in Palm Cove over the week 12--16 November. Eclipse on the Coral Sea: Cycle 24 Ascending served as GONG 2012, LWS/SDO-5, and SOHO 27, indicating how widely it drew on the various sub-communities within solar physics. Indeed, as we neared the end of the ascending phase of the peculiar Solar Cycle 24, it was the perfect time to bring the whole community together to discuss our Sun's errant recent behaviour, especially as Cycle 24 is the first to be fully observed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The whole-Sun perspective was a driving theme of the conference, with the cycle probed from interior (helioseismology), to atmosphere (the various lines observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assemble (AIA) aboard SDO, the several instruments on Hinode, and other modern observatories), and beyond (CMEs etc). The quality of the presentations was exceptional, and the many speakers are to be commended for pitching their talks to the broad community present.

These proceedings draw from the invited and contributed oral presentations and the posters exhibited in Palm Cove. They give an (incomplete) snapshot of the meeting, illustrating its broad vistas. The published contributions are organized along the lines of the conference sessions, as set out in the Contents, leading off with a provocative view of Cycle 24 thus far from Sarbani Basu. Other invited papers presented here include an appreciation of Hinode's view of solar activity as the cycle rises by Toshifumi Shimizu; a first taxonomy of magnetic tornadoes and chromospheric swirls by Sven Wedemeyer {\it et al}; an analysis of Hinode/EIS observations of transient heating events; a timely re-examination of solar dynamo theory by Paul Charbonneau; an exciting teaser for the solar potential of the Murchison Widefield Array now operating in Western Australia by Steven Tingay {\it et al}; an overview and critique of the state of nonlinear force-free magnetic field extrapolation theory and practice by Mike Wheatland and Stuart Gilchrist; and a masterful review of atmospheric MHD wave coupling to the Sun's internal p-mode oscillations by Elena Khomenko and Irantzu Calvo Santamaria. The many contributed papers published here are no less exciting.

All papers have been refereed to a high standard. The editors thank all the referees, drawn both from conference attendees and the wider community, who have taken their tasks very seriously and provided very detailed and helpful reports. Nearly all contributions have been substantially improved by the process. We must also thank our financial sponsors. Both the Global Oscillations Network Group (GONG) and LWS/SDO were generous in their support, as were the School of Mathematical Sciences and the Monash Centre for Astrophysics (MoCA) at Monash University, Melbourne, and the Centre for Astronomy at James Cook University, Townsville. The Local Organizing Committee and the many students who assisted before and during the conference also deserve high praise for facilitating such a memorable meeting.

Paul Cally, Robert Erdélyi and Aimee Norton